A Taste of the Orient

C-R-A-S-H....that is the sound my laptop made. It took 16 discs to restore it to the original factory condition. Yippie! It is restored but everything that was added since it left the factory is gone. Boo-hoo. I am almost back to where it was before it died. I will be buying and putting everything on an external hard drive from now on.

FYI...I already sent the belated Birthday card from the last post. As predicted I forgot a Birthday!

On to the Orient! This is the sneak peak photo I shared with you.

I used a pack of origami paper that I bought at A.C. Moore to create these cards. When I think of "Asian" I usually think of red, black, gold but these papers are "pastel".

It was a challenge to think outside the box when creating these cards. The colors were soft and muted not bold and bright.

"Kodomo" stamps were used on card below. It was embossed with Judi-Kins Egyptian Gold embossing powder.

The cat in the photo is "Maneki Neko" or "beckoning cat". There are several legends surrounding this feline.

Here is one of the most popular, explaining the cat's origins:
The Temple Cat: This story goes that a wealthy feudal lord was taking shelter under a tree near Gotoku-ji temple (in Western Tokyo) during a thunderstorm. The lord saw the temple priest's cat beckoning to him and followed; a moment later the tree was struck by lightning. The wealthy man became friends with the poor priest and the temple became prosperous. When the cat died, supposedly the first Maneki Neko was made in his honor

The same embossing powder was used on the card below. Rather than embossing the whole background I chose to just do a portion of it. It is an interesting effect when only the side of the card is embossed.

Here is a closer look. A piece of text weight paper was put under the origami paper before I punched the flowers. If you don't layer these papers the edges of the flower will be ragged. Gold liquid pearl was used in the center of the flowers.

The gold cord on the next card is from "Hanko". It is rather stiff so it was easy to form into a pleasing curve.

This is a close-up of the flower on the next card. I found these flowers at Michael's in the clearance section. The center of the flower is a sticker, actually it is a piece from a border sticker that is about 12' long. and the rhinestone is already on the sticker. This was bought at JoAnn's in......you guessed it.....the clearance section. Gotta love clearance!!!

More Asian cards in the next post.

Back to creating in my Butterfly Garden