Today is the first day of the Chinese New Year or Spring Festival.  This year is the Year of the Dog in the Chinese Zodiac. Chinese people gift family and close friends with cash money in these “lucky envelopes”. A Chinese acupuncture doctor asked me to make some red money envelopes for her so here they are!

Since it is the Year of the Dog I made some of the envelopes with “punch art” dogs. Of course I found ideas on Pinterest and other online places and used what punches I had to make what I could. But for other envelopes, I thought of other ideas, pulling out retired stamps and accessories or whatever I had! I figured lots of gold was good to use on the red envelopes either with Gold Foil paper or gold embossing or maybe some of the Eastern Gold Vinyl Stickers.

This is how I began, making the envelopes out of Real Red Envelope Paper (retired). If I wouldn’t have this paper, I would use Real Red Cardstock. Too bad Stampin’ Up! retired this envelope paper because it is a little lighter to use than the cardstock.  The Envelope Board was great for punching and scoring to form these envelopes, and then they just needed a little creasing with the Bone Folder and a bit of adhesive.

The Big Shot came in handy as well, for die-cutting some images to embellish the Chinese red money envelopes.  On these I used the Large Numbers Framelits Dies, the Flourish Thinlits Dies, and the “Happy” from the Happy Birthday Thinlits Dies.

Finally I remembered I had the stamp set Color Me Happy, a special set brought out when we got the new alcohol markers, Stampin’ Blends.  You can order it even though it is not in any catalog.  Just search for it in the Online Store. This stamp set had the Chinese lanterns which were perfect for one of the envelopes! Finally I tried the “Eclipse Technique” with the Large Number Dies for the year 2018!

If you want to see envelopes I made last year, you can click HERE. It was the Year of the Rooster in 2017!

The more I worked on these Chinese money envelopes, the more ideas I got! If you want to celebrate the Chinese New Year, make some Chinese red money envelopes for the Lunar New Year, the Year of the Dog! Surprise someone with a Chinese gift!