Christmas Cards I Save!

Traditional Japanese objects that are part of
Oshogatsu New Years celebrations

Christmas Cats!!  I actually bought the long accordion fold card
and saved it to display every year.  The little cards on the left: I
bought a box of these cards and send them out jurdiciously to those
who I think love and value cats; the littlest one was sent to me.

I used to do the One-of-a-Kind Show at the Chicago Merchandise Mart
every early December, and received this Christmas card from them.  I
love the scenes of downtown Chicago and the bright colors.

LaVonne Marshall used her painted
watercolor papers to collage this
Christmas tree long ago.

Japanese cranes from my mother-in-law
in Tokyo.

As I mentioned in my previous post about Japanese Pop-Up cards, I save the really unusual ones, especially if they're handmade.  This group are mostly multi-fold accordion style.  I set them up all over my main floor so that in the white landscape of winter (really bright from all the ambient light reflecting off the snow) or the dark overcast days and blizzard conditions (like today), I can see them.  And I have to admit I keep them out until I know that the snow and ice are really thawing, the sun is getting higher in the sky and the intensity of light is greater.  So hope you enjoy these, too.  (The cat ones are my favorite, of course!)

The accordion fold cards are inspiring me right now as I am working on a piece for my Lakeshore Fiber Arts Guild's brown bag challenge which will be accordion folded but a hanging piece (vertical) rather than a horizontal standing form.  That post to come.  Actually the next post will be about handmade ornaments.

Unique Christmas Cards: Japanese Pop-Outs

This card has side tabs (pink at edges) that you pull
to open the window and show the landscape.  I always
think this is Kyoto in cherry blossoms.

A lovely very small (3"w x 2.5" t) pop-out
card from friends Asayo and Tom Toyota.

Side view to illustrate how it's
put together.

I love the cards that my friends send me, especially those that are unusual and colorful.  My friends in Japan often send what are called there "pop-up" cards.  These generally now are multiple layers of 100s of Santas (definitely wouldn't be done in the US) although back in the 80's and 90's my former husband and I received some that were of landscapes and birds.  Some day I'm going to try my hand at making some pop-up cards like the first two above---my favorites!

As you can see I hang many of these over my slider door on ornament hangers from the top section so they can hang in pop-out form.  Most of the cards I hang on a wide cotton lace piece around  my dining room window and the overflow get taped to my front door (inside, of course!)