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Although we have yet to recover from the 2009 New Year bash, another celebration – the Lunar New Year – is already around the corner! Usually, new year day in the Lunar calendar lags the Gregorian one by about 1.5 months. But this time, the 4706th new year day for the Chinese will be arriving early on Jan 26.
With this early arrival of the Lunar new year, and most of our family elders living in the far East, I started preparing the new year’s cards soon after Christmas. Since it will be the Year of the Ox, so naturally all the cards will carry a cow (or ox) theme.
Card 1 - Beef Hot Pot
Card 2 - Cow + Bees
Red envelope with cherry blossom watermarks
My aunt is a master of crystal bead crafts. Show her anything you like, and she can usually reproduce it in beads. Since I share the same passion (although much less skillful or creative), she always sends over new recipes for her latest creations: jewelleries, teddy bears, tropical fruits, animals, even characters from Disney’s major move releases. Several weeks ago, I received another package from her. It was a box of little dolls made of crystal beads. They must be her latest projects! Looking at these dolls, an idea suddenly clicked in my head - wouldn’t they be nice as cake toppers?
To put that thought into action, I went to the stores for the wedding doll heads, then searched my own craft box for all other ingredients and tools. After hours of hard work, I’m proud to show off the fruits of my labor:
(In case you’re wondering, the bodies are made of 4mm Swarovski bicones. Each figurine comes out to just under 2 inches tall.
Cake topper in white wedding gown and black tux
A Chinese wedding cake topper
Here’s an invitation I recently completed for an outdoor Chinese wedding. Inspiration for the design came from several directions:
- Honor the families’ ethnic origin – Although the ceremony and reception were in Western style, the wedding couple wanted to incorporate some facets of a traditional Chinese wedding in the invitations to honor their parents
- The location - Since the ceremony would take place in a garden, adding some organic elements to the invitation would help give a glimpse of the wedding to invited guests
- Season – The wedding would be held in the fall. Reflecting a hint of the season in the invitation would set the right tone for the upcoming celebration
Color is the easiest way to incoroporate a touch of ethnicity into any invitations. But for this wedding, instead of the fire-engine red that was traditional Chinese, I went with a twist, and opted for the richness of burgundy. It was less cliché for a Chinese celebration, but still maintained a sense of festivity that satisfied both families. Indeed, the wedding couple was so happy with this idea that burgundy became the theme color of the wedding!
The second color to a traditional Chinese wedding is bright burning gold. Combined with red, the duo usually make such a striking effect on a Chinese wedding gown (aka. Kua) that most cameras are drawn to it like moths to fire. But the screaming attention just did not fit the couple’s personalities. For something more subtle, we decided to go with this burgundy Thai mulberry paper with tiny gold threads. Aside from the colors, it also carried an earthy feel- an organic touch that we looked for - because of the residues of pulp and silk still very visible on the surface. Due to the light weight of the mulberry paper (just 25 gsm), I used it as a sleeve to help pull together the loose cards and maps of the invitation under one wrap.
The skeleton leaf was another piece of organic element to this design. I originally wanted to use dried flower similar to the bridal bouquet as the fake seal to the sleeve. But it proved to be too expensive. The quality of the dried flowers also varied too much even in the same shipment. Since cost and time were top priorities, I decided to go online for better deals. To my delight, I found a Thai supplier that sold skeleton leaves at just $1.40 per pack of 100! Better yet, the leaves were pre-sorted by lengths, so I could order only the ones of the size I wanted. Unfortunately, shipping from Thailand was still expensive (~$20). So I bulk bought leaves in the thousands, anticipating their use in future projects, to bring the average cost down! 
The leaves were pasted on the sleeves with very small amount of paper glue on a narrow applicator tip. I wanted them to look naturally adhered to the thin mulberry, so as I was pasting each leaf on, I was careful to blot away any excess glue. It was definitely time-consuming, but was worth every bit of the effort. For the finishing touch, I tied a partially sheer ribbon around each invitation. The full project (~200 invitations) took about 4 days to complete. I’m very pleased with the overall results.
