Greetings from China - New Years' Dinner - Blog Hop, Day 2

This is the second day of the Chinese New Year Blog Hop, hosted by April Nourse, who has an extra-special reason to celebrate: She and her family have welcomed their son, Alex, an adopted 6-year old who came to them from Taiwan. 

To welcome Alex and to share her happiness with us all, April invited her bloggy friends to celebrate The Year of the Dragon, Chinese New Year. You should have arrived here from the Queen T's blog spot; if not, or if you're one of my followers who'd like to start at the beginning, please go to April's site and wish her well on her journey (and learning Chinese!) with her wonderful gift from Taiwan.

 

In case you missed it, see yesterday's post to learn that last night, I hosted a Chinese New Year dinner party for some neighbors. I showed the invitation in yesterday's post. 

Here is one of the napkin rings that I made for the occasion: 

To make this napkin ring, I found an image of a Chinese dragon on ClickArt Online. (www.clickartonline.com).  I then printed the color image on white cardstock and fussy cut it out, mounting it on yellow paper for added stability.  For the ring, I cut a 1/2" piece straight across and off of a toilet paper cardboard.  I put a swab of glue inside the ring and wrapped it with red seam binding from Zipperstop.  I slit the opening for the fire from the mouth of the dragon, and fussy cut a fire-like/tongue thingie that I slid into the opening.  After letting a liberal dose of Stickles dry, I used Sookwang double tape (strong!) to adhere the image onto the ring.  To allow it to dry, I rolled a piece of white cardstock into the ring, which is when I took this picture for this post.  They looked FABULOUS on my table, with yellow linen napkins trimmed in red.

I just found this great looking cupcake dessert tray, posted on Facebook, via HelloCupcake's blog (http://blog.hellocupcakebook.com/2012/01/23/year-of-the-dragon-cupcakes.aspx).  Wish I saw this before dinner!!!  

Be sure to visit April's blog to learn about the GRAND PRIZE Blog Candy for those who comment on each of the blog's stops. However, I also have blog candy! ...

SPECIAL BLOG CANDY alert!!  For my SUPER blog candy for this Hop, I am giving away the die I used to make the invitation I showed yesterday. It is the beautiful Lace Dragon Frame by Cheery Lynn, which I purchased from Happy Scrappy LLC.

ANYWHOOOO... if you'd like to win the Cheery Lynn Lace Dragon Frame I used above, please:

a) Be or become a follower of mine,

b) Leave a comment on this post telling me:

c) "My favorite Chinese food dish is ...."  

Winner will be picked at random using Random.org, and announced on this blog on Tuesday, January 24 (since this is a 2-day hop). Post about this hop on your blog or on Facebook, and get another chance to win!!

So now head on over to the next stop on the Chinese New Year Hop:  PSA Essentials! 

Here is the complete line-up, in case you get lost along the way:

April - http://curlsandgrins.blogspot.com

Lynne K. - http://slasewcraftiness.blogspot.com/

Ashley - http://theglamoroussideofscrapping.blogspot.com/

Amy - http://www.lovetocrop.com/

Jearise - http://lorbysworld.blogspot.com/

Shannon - http://www.purplelionpaper.com/blog

Inga - http://mommahobbit.blogspot.com/

Maria - http://www.mdcraftcorner.blogspot.com/

Janet- http://www.createatdreamscrapbooks.blogspot.com/

Dena - http://missdjones.blogspot.com/

Jennifer - http://jenrubio.blogspot.com/

Theresa- http://www.thescrapbookingqueen.com/

Ellen - http://cardmonkey-business.blogspot.com/  <--- YOU ARE HERE!

PSA Essentials - www.psastampcamp.blogspot.com/

 (Thank you!)