Koi Fish Asian Inspired Birthday Card

Rachel (April's Digi Stamp Diva) mentioned in her bio that she has freebies available on her blog...she sure does! And there are some super cute ones – like the Koi and Lantern freebie I've used on this birthday card. I added a border to define the image and created the sentiment with Lemon Chicken font.

In keeping with the Asian theme, I used some of my hub's origami paper. This gorgeous paper is not something you'd normally use for crafting. It's Japanese Aizome Chiyogami and is from a wonderful Granville Island shop in Vancouver, Canada – Paper-ya. Aizome (a type of indigo dye) Chiyogami paper has a texture almost like cloth and thanks to the aizome, is always blue in color. To be able to use this on my project, I had to glue it to white cardstock first as it would have been too flimsy and transparent to use on its own. I used the same design as this Snowman Cheer's Christmas card, creating a type of frame around the focal point image. Unfortunately, these photos don't give the full depth of the design.

The center square (dressed up with a bit of ribbon) was glued down first, then the frame, using foam pads to prop it up. The foam pads are about 3mm thick. I went around the edges with a blue marker to cover up the white so they were less noticeable. The digi center was adhered with 1mm foam tape to make it stand out a bit more. I have no idea what these little embellishment crystals are supposed to be used for (do you?). I picked them up in an outlet bin with miscellaneous non-crafting items. They're not buttons, they have no holes or anyway to attach them, the center comes to a tiny peak, but they give a bit of sparkle and mimic water drops, so I slapped some glue on the back of them and went with it.  

Supply List
Paper – cardstock, Japanese Aizome Chiyogami
Digital stamp – Dead Sea Toons Koi and Lantern freebie
Dies – no-brand stitched edge square die
Embellishments – ribbon, mystery crystals
Font – Lemon Chicken 
Spectrum Noir Illustrator alcohol ink markers
Art-n-Fly white pen

I'm linking up with: Seize the Birthday #212 – ATG Birthday/ opt. Spring Flowers, Cute Card Thursday #682 – Ribbon/Twine, Creative Knockouts #397 – Add a Sentiment, Colour Crazy Challenge Week 15 – ATG, Sweet Stampin' 10/04/21 – Use Something Normally Not Used for Crafting, Catch the Bug Week 3 – Bi-weekly ATG, and Allsorts Challenge Week 20 – ATG/opt. Add a Ribbon.