Yet another birthday

My ABC (American Born Chinese) co-worker had a birthday this weekend. Our entire department took her to lunch at the restaurant of her choice -- a very nice Chinese place near the office. I thought I'd continue the theme in her card that we all signed.

This card was a lot of fun to make.
I used a stamped called Chinese Newspaper (manufacturer unknown) with Tim Holtz tea dye Distress Ink on the Die Cuts With a View textured paper to make the background. The leaves from Embrace Life were used to make the bamboo looking bit. I used Always Artichoke for the stamp and then colored with a combination of Always Artichoke and Mellow Moss markers.

The large Chinese characters are from a wooden boxed set, it says Beauty Woman, in real red. I had to fill them in with marker - so glad SU markers and ink pads are exactly the same color. The Happy Birthday is from the SAB set Birthday Whimsy. It was the last thing I did and I'm a bit disappointed that I can't stamp straight.

The flap was made with a combination of decorative paper I've had for an age and an embossed large fan stamp that's also been in the collection forever. The stamp has no design on it so I've made a template of the fan part and use it on patterned paper to make fans like this. I'm rarely disappointed with the results. For an added texture I scored the patterned paper along the fan's lines.