年賀状 (Nengajō - New Year Cards)
![Photobucket](http://i556.photobucket.com/albums/ss1/HelloSandwich/FINALNYcard01.jpg)
![Photobucket](http://i556.photobucket.com/albums/ss1/HelloSandwich/FINALNYcard02.jpg)
Hello Sandwiches!
I hope you had a gorgeous Christmas. My first Tokyo Christmas was lots of fun and we even had a little Christmas party at Hello Sandwich HQ. Lots of food, mulled wine, Christmas carols, and no Tokyo Christmas would be complete without a tacky Christmas Cake. (Okay I caved in after last minute Christmas shopping in Shinjuku on Christmas eve listening to 'クリースマスケーキいかがでしょうか?’at every corner!). But now it's on to the next big exciting day - New Years Day.
Japan has so many lovely New Year traditions. I'm a little late (they are meant to be in the post before 25th December to arrive by 01/01) but I've just finished designing my (year of the rabbit) 年賀状 (New Year Cards). This year I used a super cute MdN mook to design the cards.
![Photobucket](http://i556.photobucket.com/albums/ss1/HelloSandwich/cover-2.jpg)
The mook came complete with a CD-rom of all the cute elements any Japanese-wanna-be girl (Hello Sandwich) would ever need to create a card that looks like it just stepped out of a puri kura print club machine! Think tapes, ribbons, bows and cute handwriting style fonts. This mook is worth every cent.
![Photobucket](http://i556.photobucket.com/albums/ss1/HelloSandwich/tape.jpg)
![Photobucket](http://i556.photobucket.com/albums/ss1/HelloSandwich/bows.jpg)
![Photobucket](http://i556.photobucket.com/albums/ss1/HelloSandwich/font-1.jpg)
For the time poor, or those who are not as comfortable using the computer, the mook also comes complete with a large range of pre-made cards to simply print out.
![Photobucket](http://i556.photobucket.com/albums/ss1/HelloSandwich/cards.jpg)
![Photobucket](http://i556.photobucket.com/albums/ss1/HelloSandwich/117low.jpg)
![Photobucket](http://i556.photobucket.com/albums/ss1/HelloSandwich/408low.jpg)
![Photobucket](http://i556.photobucket.com/albums/ss1/HelloSandwich/119low.jpg)
There are lots of free printables online (for example here and here) that you could crop and play around with to make your card. Or you could stock up on a collection of BNN pattern books. Either way, I'm sure you will have a lot of fun making your own 年賀状.
Love Love
Hello Sandwich
xoxo