Around the World

How did you spend World Card Making Day this past weekend?  Well, as I was perusing through the net I came to Nichole Heady's PTI challenge for WCMD and thought it was really fun.  She "travelled" the world and challeged her readers to create based on inspiration from four wonderful world spots:  Japan, Mexico, India and Australia. 

I thought it was such a fun idea I wanted to join in, so I have four country inspired creations for you in this post. 

Japan

Known for it's crisp simplicity of design and bold colors I created a very clean and simple card. 

The stems and blossoms are stamped in Craft Ink and clear embossed.  I've used the Texturz plate that to me looks like a shoji screen.  Crisp clean piercing and ribbon. 

Mexico

Our family has such a deep love for Mexican culture.  They are such warm people, embrace others so readily and live life with great zest and gratitude.  Mexico is also known for it's silver jewelry and pieces so I tried to incorporate that warmth and the silver into the design, as well as a hint of a Mexican blanket color scheme as a border.

The flowers and the border are colored with copics. 

India

Rich colors, dazzling jewelry, beading and fabrics give lots of inspiration in India. 

I used the Damask set embossed in Irridescent Ice embossing powder to give that feel of shimmer, that changes color as you move.  I also added rows of sparkly beads along the bottom (microbeads and scattered sead and bugle beads adhered with sticky strip). The ribbon is one I picked up a long time ago for a Dirty Dozen project and thought it's intricate feel would work well here.  I also created the feeling of some of the Indian architecture with the Lattice border used to cut the color block strips into shape. 

And lastly .....down under to Australia 

Nichole had some great inspiration on the Australia post with artistic styles that are indigineous to the area, one being dotted outlines and the other being masking.  I thought I'd try to incorporate the feeling of both styles.

I clear embossed the silhouette image from Life and then sponged over it with Vanilla Craft, then used my Labels 8 Nestie as a template to sponge the edges with Dusty Durango.  After this dried I added dotted outlines in black, Dusty Durango and White, as well as adding a gorgeous double stitched ribbon to anchor it. 

Whew!  It was a fun trip for me.  Hopefully you enjoyed it too! 

Stamps:  PaperTrey Ink:  Life, Friends Til the End, Damask