Happy Friday everyone! Tomorrow is officially the start of the Chinese New Year, so whilst celebrations traditionally begin the day before with New Year's Eve I thought today would be a good day to share the Chinese New Year card I made for one of my husband's colleagues. I've made cards for this celebration previously and it can sometimes be a challenge as I don't have many oriental stamps or images,  but this year one of the Sale-A-Bration sets gave me the perfect focal point  - take a look:

 Here's the low-down on today's card:

Hey Chick, It's A Rooster - Each year in the Chinese calendar also follows the Chinese zodiac and is represented by a different animal: 2017 is the year of the (fire) rooster. I thought the fabulous large chicken, with its exaggerated features from the 'Hey Chick' Sale-A-Bration stamp set (yours free with a purchase of £45 or more) would pass as a rooster for the purposes of my card - isn't he grand?

Oriental Colour Combination - Red and gold is a popular colour combination in Chinese culture as it is seen to represent good luck and prosperity and the colour red in particular is said to ward away evil. A Chinese New Year tradition is the giving of red envelopes containing money, called lai see, usually from parents to children, or bosses to employees and is said to bring good wishes and luck, and it is the giving of the red envelope, rather than the money it contains, that is the most significant.

Happy New Year - Lastly, are you wondering which set my gold 'happy new year' stamp came from? I actually imported the Chinese characters into my Silhouette Cameo E-Cutter, but instead of cutting them out used a gold pen to write them onto my piece of red card and them filled in the outline with a gold marker. I'm not sure my lettering skills would have enabled such a faithful reproduction!

Here is the visual summary of the key products used on today's project for you to pin for easy reference:

You can see all of my 'How To' summaries on my 'How To - Tips and Techniques' Pinterest board in case you've missed any. 

There are some really fun stamps in this set; I've lots of projects that feature them in a slightly more traditional away to share during the coming weeks, so stay tuned if they're your thing.

Enjoy your day and I'll be back tomorrow with another project. Until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used: