Chinese New Year 2016: Monkey Cards DIY

[2015: Goat]

This year, I continued to handmade Chinese New Year cards to my friends. This was my first time to try for blowing Chinese ink. First I put a drop of Chinese ink on the white paper and started blow it to become plum tree. Blowing seems easy but when you blow for around 24 pieces of papers then you will feel faint because lack of oxygen. Haha..Then need for a rest.  

As the quantity of Chinese ink drop, blow power and blow direction will influence the outcome of plum tree therefore each plum tree is different.

After wait for ink of plum tree dry then I started to use cotton swab to dot some red color ink on the plum tree to make it like plum flower.

I quite enjoy in dotting the plum flower because it is super easy.

As the white paper is so thin so I paste the white paper on a card so that it won’t worn-out easy.

I am not talent in drawing so I searched for monkey stickers but it was quite difficult to find such stickers. Lastly I used monkey red packet as sticker because it has many choices plus so cute.

After paste the monkey and write some words on the paper, I found out that the card is quite blank so I paste some butterflies on it so that look attractive.

The outcome of my monkey cards at the end of the post and all of them are very unique. This drawing was from my monkey postcard competition. As I did not win for it so I use it send to my friend with her husband.  

On the envelope, I would like to draw monkey fingerprint so I had tried drawn some on the paper. Look at my monkey, I did not know whether I draw monkey or mouse because they are alike. Now I just knew that monkey and mouse looks the same. Haha..

Beside monkey fingerprint, I also cut some pictures from red packet as decoration on envelopes.

This year is Monkey year so I want to paste some monkey stamps (released on 25^th January) on the envelopes before send out. After the staff weighted my envelope, the stamp within Malaysia is RM 0.80, to Washington is RM 6.80 (beside card has some gifts) and China with Taiwan are RM 1.40.

My monkey cards (*o*)

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Hand Drawing Snoopy Postcard

Snoopy is Charlie Brown’s pet beagle in the comic strip Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz. He can also be found in Charlie Brown movies and television like The Peanuts Movie.

Through Postcrossing blog, I knew that it has Snoopy exhibition at the Singapore Philatelic Museum. I think I have not chance to go there because the flight ticket quite expensive. The museum invites all postcrossers to send in Peanuts’ themed postcard to:

Singapore Philatelic Museum

23 B Coleman Street

Singapore 179807

Singapore

I did not have Peanuts’ themed postcard so I hand draw it. I not sure whether the museum accept hand draw postcard or not but I just tried sent to there.

In the blog stated that the exhibition closes at the end of April and museum promises to send an exclusive museum Peanuts postcard to anyone who includes their address on postcard.

On 18 February, I had received a Snoopy postcard from Singapore Philatelic Museum. If you are interested, you also can send one.

Hand Drawing Monkey Postcards 2016

On December 2015, I had participated a postcard design competition which organized by Malaysia Stamp Club. It has 2 themes which are year of monkey and 2^nd Anniversary of Malaysia Stamp Club. Each person maximum can submit 2 postcard designs with size of 165 x 115mm.

After the closing date of competition, all the postcard designs will open for voting by “Likes” the pictures in Facebook. Each person maximum can “likes” for 3 designs. The winning design will be print as postcard for selling. Profit of selling will as donation to related association.  

In this post, I just want to record my own postcard design for monkey year although I did not win for the competition.

This was my first time to draw using Zentangle method. The Zentagle method is an easy-to-learn, relaxing and fun way to create beautiful images by drawing structured patterns.

My postcard design is using blow ink method to create the plum tree and draw a couple monkeys.

Wordless Wednesday: CNY Watercolor Postcard 2016

'Wordless Wednesday: Postcard' is recording all the postcards that I had bought from time to time for exchange purpose.

This was Yue Er first time tried for watercolor method on postcard because before this she used pencil for drawing on postcard. The outcome is beautiful.

2016-01 Favorite Songs by Postcard Senders

In this month, I just received two postcards which share with me about their favorite songs.

Katja from Russia likes the song of “Kerfank 1870” from Tri Yann.  She loves this song because of its historical plot and music genre. This song has a fast melody.

Tri Yann is a Breton band from Nantes, France who play folk rock music drawing on traditional Breton folk ballads- Wikipedia

Kristine also from Russia likes the song of “Mad World” by Gary Jules because this song describes her emotions and state of her mind. The music video is interesting because you can see ship, house, reindeer and many more which form by people.

Gary Jules Aguirre, Jr. known as Gary Jules is an American singer-songwriter, best known for his cover version of the Tears For Fears song “Mad World”, which he recorded with friend Michael Andrews for the film Donnie Darko- Wikipedia

As two songs were quite few so I added on one song from me which recently heard from radio station and reminded me of my University life. The song is “Touch My Hand” by David Archuleta.  

David James Archuleta is an American singer-songwriter, musician and actor- Wikipedia

2016-01 Favorite Postcards Received

In January, my Postcrossing ranking as below:-

On 82nd most postcards sent from Malaysia

On 87th longest distance sent from Malaysia

This card is so cute because it can hang on table as a small calendar. At the back of the postcard has a magnet.

One of my friends likes to collect dolphin related postcard. As I had 2 pieces of dolphin postcard so I sent both of postcards to she and she was very happy especially saw my hand drawing of dolphin.

Do you know what I received inside of envelope beside postcard and stickers? The answer is used condom package. OMG! I not sure the sender is purposely or non-purposely. The postcard and stickers are smell good because of the scent from condom package.

This card is so special because it has a cutting word of “Happiness” in Chinese.

This postcard has a short poem. I like the back of the postcard because it has a cute Christmas girl with Santa Claus, Christmas tree and snowman. It has 2D effect because the picture paste on Polystyrene. Creative!

If I have chance to Hong Kong, I would like to try on their transport include this Star Ferry which I usually saw in Hong Kong drama.

Not idea what places can go in Taiwan? You can refer to this hand drawing postcard of Taiwan’s famous places such as Dragon & Tiger Pagoda Kaosiung, Ximen Red House (Taipei), East Gate Hsinchu and many more.

This year is monkey year sure I will receive monkey postcard. Dragon812715 is so nice because every year he will give out his postcard in his blog. On the postcard, he told me that he was very happy saw I fill in the form to get the postcard.

This otter is so cute and enjoyable in bathing. It reminds of me the otters in Bangkok. 

This Christmas postcard was draw by Dowi (8 years old). This is Christmas tree fingerprint art and drawing by him.