After months of travel and procrastination on cleaning my office/craft room, I finally had time to sit down this week and wanted to make a card.  Since this would be only the fourth card I’ve ever made to date, participating in some of the fun blog challenges out there might give me some design direction.

I’m now back in Taiwan and one of the ways I keep connected with Mom back in the U.S. is to craft together! She picked a few of her favorite challenges and we each came up with our own unique take on the required elements.  For this card, a few of the elements include green & gold, square card, use of a charm, twine, along with Cuttlebug and Cricut cuts.

To pay homage to both my Irish roots and my current life in Asia, I decided to combine the both and do an Asian inspired St Patrick’s Day card using a few of the new supplies exclusively available here in Asia.

The card is 6 x 6 and uses a variety of papers I had laying around (not entirely sure which stacks they are all from – sorry!).

The large square paper cuts on the background and the oval on the panda were made with Cricut using Plantin Schoolbook.  (Took the circle shape and just made it an oval).  The yellow printed paper’s three sided border was made with Martha Stewart’s Punch Around the Page punches.

The stamped string of lanterns up top are some of my favorite new photo-polymer stamps from Lawn Fawn.  The string and Chinese lanterns are from their Lunar Lights collection and I used the shamrock in the Hats Off To You collection and just turned it upside down to “hang” them as well.  I colored them with Copics, and popped them up on some glitter green cardstock.

The Happy St. Patrick’s Day sentiment is also Hats Off To You stamp collection. I took a dark yellow ink pad & rubbed the paper with a makeup pad to give it a more yellow appearance.  It’s also popped up several times using the green glittery cardstock and a scrap of the yellow paper.

On the bottom I used a $1.00 ribbon find from Michaels that has green and yellow flowers.  The border of shamrocks is a local Taiwan-made die.  I just bought this last week, which was my first weekend back in town since leaving in January.  It’s so cute and the main reason I wanted to make a St. Patrick’s Day card for these challenges.  I used Marigold Glimmer Mist and then took a dark green ink pad to shade the edges.

I was a bit overzealous and decided to try a shaker and after hours of unsuccessful attempts of cutting a frame border that fit the perimeter of the shaker, I ended up going in a different direction.  The panda in the shaker was cut using a Cuttlebug style die purchased from a local store here in Taiwan.  The locally made die comes with the panda and a bamboo stalk as well.

The panda’s hat is part of the Lawn Fawn Hats Off To You collection.  I cut it out and colored it with Copics.  The shamrocks in the panda’s hand were cut from the border design die and I used three smaller ones along with the tiny pieces left from the Martha Stewart punches to create the “shaker” elements. They reminded me of little hearts and provided an easy addition to the shaker.

Since I couldn’t manage to cut the right size frame for the shaker oval, I used small prima flowers all around the edges.  These are Summer Fun and Limeade “Iced Got Flowers” jars.  The centers on the flowers are jewels in the Imaginisce set for the I-rock tool.

The background paper on the panda is embossed with a bamboo stalk folder only available in Taiwan as well and matches the panda die.  Although supplies here are anything but inexpensive, I love picking up these great designs that I’ve never seen produced elsewhere (yet).  I used a dark orange ink pad to give some dimension to the bamboo stalks and then sprayed the paper with marigold glimmer mist again.

The panda charm and twine are both items I picked up in my Taiwan scrapbook shopping travels as well.

On the inside of the card, I went very simple and just used a Plantin Schoolbook square cut paper embossed with the Provo Craft Bamboo folder.  Again, I used some ink to give the bamboo stalks and the inside card edges some shading.

The challenges we are entering include:

The Cuttlebug Spot: All Tied Up: twine challenge

The Cuttlebug Spot: Oh so charming

Fantabulous Cricut: Hip to be Square -Green & Gold

Cooking with Cricut: Challenge 21: It’s a GREEN SCENE!