Teapot Inspiration - MMTPT226

My friend Sabrina is hostessing the Teapot Challenge this week and she showed us this lovely Japanese teapot that was given to her by a friend who got it from a "sea-captain uncle of an old family friend" many years ago.  It is old and authentic and the inspiration for our tea party this week.  Isn't that China blue with the gold leaf beautiful!  I know this must be a very special treasure for her.  

We were challenged to make an Asian-influenced card and there were a few new "toys" that I  thought I could put to good use on this.  First and foremost was the new bamboo embossing folder.  I played with inks and sponges and my brayer, and then added some metallic pencil and shimmer paint.

Don't mind the schmutz too much between the bamboo stalks.  Just consider it some natural shadowing.  I inked the raised side of the embossing folder with Pear Pizzazz and embossed it on a panel of Marina Mist.  I really love the blue in the teapot and was trying to bring that out in this card.  The bamboo needed some extra braying after running it through the Big Shot and that's when the shadowing appeared.   I tried this a couple more times and believe it or not, this was the best.  I'm thinking that next time I will try gluing down the panel to a flat sheet of paper first because the embossing naturally puffs the paper out.  

This one wasn't too bad so I continued on and took a Prismacolor gold pencil and filled in the "stripes" on the stalks.  Needing just a little more reflection, I decided to go over the pencil with my gold shimmer paint.  When that dried I added the gold foil tape to the perimeter.  I think below you can see a little more of the shine.

The image from Asian Artistry was stamped in black Staz-on and then watercolored.  I used a gold gel pen on the edges of that panel.  The finishing accent was a gold metallic piece that has some dragons on it, to which I added some red thread.   The card base is Basic Black.

Since I had done some experimenting with the embossing folder I decided to use another one of the pieces to create the card below along with another new "toy" - my Memory Box bird die.  

This time It was just blue on blue with white accents but this time the blue went on the debossed side.  The bird, as you can see is in red, and I found another experiment on my table - the die cut doily, or part of it, which I added the red string to also.  This doily isn't too frilly so I think it fits okay with the theme.  

I haven't been to a Tea Party in a while and I enjoyed doing this this week though I may not get this posted in the forum.  I have to get down to business with my Christmas cards which I have fallen behind on.  I'll still be sending handmade cards out this year, but some of them are going to be duplicates.  

We had about 2-3 inches of snow today which didn't start until right around rush hour this morning.  Had it started at 3 a.m. as predicted we might have had a delayed opening, but I was glad that they didn't decide to have an early dismissal because that's a nightmare for us in the office.  I was thinking that I could use a snow day to catch up on some things - with power of course!

One more thing - do you think this embossing folder could pass for birch trees?  May have to try that too.  

Edited to add - After looking again at Sabrina's blog, I realized that this last card had been inspired by her lovely creation.  She is quite a talented lady!