Cards for Chinese New Year

The year of the Snake is fast approaching. I've never celebrated the holiday (well, not being Chinese would probably explain why) until I met Chris and, subsequently, his family. They are not particularly traditional, so the celebration really just consists of eating a lot, which often is the case with Chinese celebrations, a fact I wholeheartedly approve of!

This is not, as far as I know, a card giving holiday (red envelopes are another story) but I will use any excuse to send out a few! I also really felt like trying my hand at collaging. I only made a couple and sent them out to a few people I thought would either appreciate it and/or needed an additional snail mail-y surprise. Let's not forget the fact that I bought appropriate stamps too!


I don't have exact instructions for you on how to make something similar, these were the first full-on collage cards I've made. I snapped some photos along the way, so maybe they'll inspire you to try something similar out as well.

I basically cut the cards and the envelopes out of red poster-board. I took out a bunch of paper in the appropriate theme (I collect paper in themes, did I ever tell you that?) and then covered the front of the card with a larger piece of paper, I used gold-leafed paper I found in Chinatown and a few book pages. After the background was down, I started adding the embellishments.


Once the cards were done, I stuffed them in the envelopes I made and wrote the addresses on with a gold marker (stay true to the theme, right?). Since I had year of the snake stamps, I obviously used those. (My post office only had a few international ones left. It's a shame as I kinda liked them. I would happily use them on my regular mail too.) You can see the outgoing envelopes here.


I will for sure make more with the same technique. It was actually a lot of fun. I'm glad I got to try it out and I will continue improving my technique.

Have you made collage cards?