This first card is one of my all-time favorite cards. I love the cherry blossoms behind the lantern. I stamped the lantern on light green mulberry paper, spray mounted it to cardstock and added a wire at the top. I then strung it so it looked like it was hanging in the window. If I were to do it today I probably would not use the sticks and the wire on the side, but otherwise I really love this card.
If I were to send this next card to someone who reads Chinese or Japanese, they would be all WTF? Since I can't tell the difference between Chinese and Japanese characters, it may all be one giant mix of Asian languages. (At least none of the characters are Korean or Thai. I at least can recognize those characters as not being Chinese or Japanese.) Even if they're all the same language, it's still a crazy mix. The background is from a Chinese newspaper that talks about who knows what -- could be the stock market, could be "Giant Seal Tries to Hump Car". The characters on the right stand for sun, moon, stars and sky. And then there's a lucky cat, generally used to invoke monetary blessings, wishing you a happy birthday! So needless to say, this card is meant strictly for my non-Chinese/Japanese-speaking friends, none of whom will say, "So just what are you trying to tell me with this card?!"
This card was made with the same set of stamps I used for this card.
Nothing exciting about this card. The fans were embossed with gold and colored in. The character means... I don't know what, really. I think happiness? Part of the reason I slacked off making Asian cards is because I didn't understand the writing and was always afraid that if someone who did understand the writing got hold of one of my cards they would be mortally offended. I mean, I did one card that had as its center a kind of paper they would burn to commemorate or say prayers for dead relatives, with a lucky cat on top! Which, I didn't know at the time, but when I found out later what that paper was for I felt it was potentially really offensive (which is also why I didn't include it in my collection of cards here). Plus, so much of my Asian card-making was done with rubber stamps, and I had started to move away from that particular medium anyway.
This was one of my first Asian cards ever. It was made in response to an article I read in Rubber Stamper magazine about using up your little scraps of paper.
This card is actually relatively new. I think I made it last year or something.
2 comments:
I think those are really cool! Then again, I'm about as white as it's possible to be. :o)
I liked the look of the sticks and wire on the side of that first card, but I could see how it might be hard to stuff that into an envelope.
The cards with the writing that you couldn't understand made me think of white people who get tattoos of Asian lettering that they can't read. Some tattoo artists can't read it either so they just put on random Asian looking swooshes. Others can read it, but they know the client can't, so they write stupid stuff just for fun. The moral of the story is, do some research before you let somebody write stuff on your body! Not that that has anything to do with the matter at hand.
Pretty cards!
You can't really mail cards with sticks and wires and beads unless you put them in a padded envelope. They're the kind of cards you have to deliver by hand.
And I cracked up at people getting tattoos they can't read! Hee!
Post a Comment