I absolutely love creating unique cards specifically designed to embody someone’s passions, hobbies, or preferences. In doing this I’ve created some unique cards most of which have been for my brother. However, today I have two cards to share with you for a young lady who recently purchased her first home. Yeah!!! She has many interests one of which is Anime and Japanese culture. So, I decided to make Japanese themed congratulations cards and did a little research to find features for this theme.

I discovered some digital stamps of Kokeshi Dolls. These wooden Japanese dolls were originally crafted as toys but have come to signify hope for good fortune and bounty. So, I decided to use these Kokeshi Doll digital stamps as the focal points of both cards.

I printed the digital stamps on Spectrum Noir paper and colored each with Copic Markers. I used handmade Japanese paper to accentuate the theme and wanted to be able to see as much of the background paper as possible, so I decided to fussy cut each doll and put them both on top of vellum. Always wanting to add Bling, I sprayed both the dolls and the vellum with Iridescent Glitter Dust and then added even more sparkle to the dolls by using Yellow Stickles on their clothing and hairpins.

I thought the printed paper background might drown out the doll’s image, so I used the scalloped frame diecut from the Taylored Expressions, Frame In Frame set to help subtlety highlight each doll. The handmade Japanese printed paper is so beautiful I didn’t dare do anything to alter it. In other words, no Bling needed.

My initial thought was to put “Home Sweet Home” in Japanese characters on the inside of the card below. However, it was way too long so I combined Japanese and English using the Japanese character for “Home” and hot foiled Sweet Home below it. I cut the Japanese character for “Home” on my Silhouette Cameo six times and stacked them using Gina K, Connect Glue to adhere them together. A close up of the sentiment is pictured below: