Covered in Glitter and Screaming

I made two waterfall cards with very different visual flavors. Both are adaptations from one of these tutorials from Mixed Up Craft , but with different proportions so I needed a few prototypes to get all the math right. The first one was for a sakura-themed baby shower. Nearly everything on my friend's registry was already spoken for other than a gift card, so to give that a more personal presentation I made the waterfall card. Here's the final! If you want to see my trial and error, here's the process: The second one was the original goal, but harder to implement because of the dimensions of the cards. This is, however, the more clever card because it was given to a magician, and there's a classic card flourish called a waterfall. So this is a waterfall card made of a waterfall of cards! Final product (minus the outer shell): Prototype plus final:

My holiday cards for 2021 were inspired by Japanese kokeshi dolls , modified from the version I made for a pen pal earlier in the year. SO excited to finally have an excuse to use some of this gorgeous handmade Japanese paper! I'd had my eye on that green pattern since the first time I laid eyes on it. Bonus, I also found good holiday colors (for Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Year's) and a pattern appropriate for the Year of the Tiger. The process is pretty straightforward: sketch what the final should look like (or, in this case, lift from a previous project to modify) trace into vector shapes in design software, resize to fit into regular-postage envelope (black rectangle). The lines are instructions for the Cricut – the gold lines are to be drawn with a gold marker, the magenta lines are for cutting a slot for the obi (waist sash) to slide through, and the vertical cyan lines are score lines for folding. I make 50-60 cards every year, I want to make sure they're as consi...

Mystery gifts are my way of thanking some of the donors to a fundraiser I did some years ago. I ask for a theme, and then I make a thing in as much secrecy as I can manage and send it to them. This gift's theme is Kitty Glitter, for someone who loves her tabby cat, her garden, cherry blossoms, and things that are pink and sparkly. Here's the short version of how it was made (30 seconds): And here's a more complete version (4 minutes): Lessons learned, materials used Okay craft nerds, this part is for you. During the trial and error phase of figuring out what the base mask should be made of, I tried revisiting the pattern I made for my Bast mask. I didn't love that overall mask shape to begin with, but thought I might be able to improve upon it. I was mistaken . I couldn't even get it to look like the original, I'm not sure how that happened. I also tried using Crayola Model Magic on a wig head because it's pretty light, but I'm not a sculptor and it jus...

In 2020, a fairly obscure yokai called  Amabie  started to trend on Japanese Twitter with #AmabieChallenge.  There are variations to the story, but the legend says that a mermaid-like creature with long hair, a beak, scales, and three legs or fins emerged from the sea in the late 1800s to give a warning and advice. It predicted six years of good harvest and then a pandemic. To stave off the disease, Amabie said to draw its picture and show that picture to as many people as possible. Since this whole concept was still relevant in 2021 but not bad enough to cancel Halloween altogether, and Amabie has become near and dear to my heart, that's what I did. Process Beak There are two parts to the beak, the beak itself and the mask to hold it to my face (note: also thematically appropriate). While I was developing the beak from paper and then craft foam, I was also looking for me-colored masks to attach the beak to. Both of these took a few tries and some trial and error, but the...

 My illustration pen pal loaned me another  Griffin and Sabine book , and I returned it with a card holder inspired by modern kokeshi dolls . Process the process almost always starts with a sketch Some math was done to determine how big the finished doll should be then the sketch was traced and I used a grid to enlarge the sketch to the final size using the new drawing, I split out the individual pieces to be cut out The body (red) is cut from craft foam, the other pieces are cut from paper The patterned paper at the bottom is usually used for origami Front and back of assembled doll Front and back of finished doll holding the folded letter

In 2020, Amabie  started to trend on Japanese Twitter. Amabie is a Japanese yokai that was fairly obscure until last year. There are variations to the story, but essentially a mermaid-like creature with long hair, a beak, scales, and three legs or fins emerged from the sea in the late 1800s to give a warning and advice. It predicted six years of good harvest and then a pandemic, but to stave off the disease, Amabie said to draw its picture and show that picture to as many people as possible. So artists took to the interwebs with #AmabieChallenge and there are tons of interesting drawings, sculptures, and whimsical lunches in the shape of Amabie.  This is my version: And here's the design process video: If you want to learn more, there are a number of articles from the  Asahi Shimbun ,  NHK , the  Japan Times , and Western networks like the  Guardian ,  BBC , and  NPR . To see other artist interpretations, check out Twitter, Instagram, Pinteres...

My cards for 2019 were not just Happy Holidays cards, but also Goodbye cards. Right after Christmas, my husband and I moved from Boston back to Tokyo. I usually write something for my holiday cards. One year I wrote a poem that drew a parallel between holiday shopping/expectations and living under an overbearing regime, another year I modeled a piece after The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe (2016 was a tough holiday season), and one was a Rickroll. For 2019, I put my Cricut to use and designed a card with a wheel-based mechanic with Godzilla as the central idea. And I wrote a haiku, because it fit the Japan theme with minimal word-writing. I put this all together in the Cricut interface. I have some qualms with Design Space (can't rename layers, for example), but that's how it turned out. Next time I do something similar I'll use a different program. The blue rectangle is the open card, the vertical dashed line is the score line for the center fold, and the yellow sha...