Bookcase Tour Tuesday - Nengajo Sourcebook

Every year in Japan, as the year is coming to a close there is a flurry of "nengajo" printing, creating, writing and sending. A nengajo is a New Years postcard, much like Christmas cards that are sent in other parts of the world. Stores in Japan are filled with not just pre-printed cards but also blank cards, rubber stamps, stickers and all sorts of supplies to create your own.

The first nengajo I created I used my friend's Gocco printer. In those days you could buy books filled with designs to copy with the printer. More recently however, the "Print Gocco" has been pushed aside in favour of the home computer printer and so design sourcebooks became popular.

Every year, around November, new publications are released to help people create their own cards. The books are filled with a huge range of designs, from the traditional to the cute, all saved on a cd for the user to upload.

2008 was the Chinese Year of the Rat, so this particular book was filled with many mice, mice being much cuter than rats. It's funny I remember that for the Year of the Dragon, there were many seahorse designs going around as seahorse is called a "sea dragon" in Japanese.

I really love these matryoshka mice!

Other than using the books for the Japanese writing on my nengajo, I mostly bought these books each year as they were jam-packed with inspiring illustrations and for a really reasonable price.

And lastly, my favourite piece out of the whole book...

You can see the card I sent out that year here, and a couple of the ones I received here.

Hmmm... I'm thinking... how fun would a crafty bloggy nengajo swap be.... anyone interested?


***Update - My good friend Mel from Crafty Japan has kindly offered to pick up a copy of one of the 2011 releases for anyone that is interested.  Please contact her through her Etsy store if you'd like her to get you one.***

Nengajo Design

Yah! I've just finished designing my 2008 Nengajo, Japanese New Years card. I didn't end up using any of the images from the nengajo book I bought, but rather used it for inspiration. I decided to stick with my origami crane theme for the year, you can see the Christmas cards I sent out below.

The watermark on the card says "Akemashite Omedetou!", which is Happy New Year in Japanese.

For our 2007 nengajo, we stuck with tradition and used our wedding photo as we had gotten married the year before.

Mmmm... so now, I just have to finish printing these, and then address them all.... better get back to it!

Nengajo Time

Sorry! Two book related posts in a row. I'll stop soon I promise. I'm just quite into Japanese design and craft books at the moment. With holidays coming up and no travel plans, I will have a lot of creative "play" time and am looking for inspiration.

One "must do" is to get my nengajo done. Nengajo are Japanese New Years postcards. As they don't celebrate Christmas (unless you count decorating stores, playing Christmas carols, getting right into the commercial side of the holiday and then on the day itself going to work and ignoring it completely as celebrating), Christmas cards aren't sent.

An interesting thing with the nengajo, is that you post them before January first and the post office keeps them and does a special delivery on New Years Day of the cards only.

Last year, we did the traditional thing and used a photo of our wedding as we had just been married. You can see a picture of the result here.

This year, I want to do something a little more fun. I may design it from scratch, but I may cheat, and compile a design from a CD. That's where this book comes in.... At this time of year, the shops are filled with rubber stamps, stickers, gocco supplies, blank cards and books with CD ROMs filled with royalty-free designs.

After drooling over many of the books, this was the winner for the year. It has a great range of styles of designs to choose from. I picked up an extra copy in case anyone else wants one. You can see it up for auction here. Even if I don't use any of the designs, I find it great inspiration.

Once again, I'll leave you with some pictures.

Bookcase Tour Tuesdayish - 2011 Japanese Nengajo Book

The day late but just arrived version of Bookcase Tour Tuesday.

A couple of months ago, I showed a Japanese Nengajo Sourcebook - a book that comes with a CD-ROM filled with designs to create New Year's postcards.  The lovely Melanie from Crafty Japan (with a name like Melanie, how could she not be lovely) was kind enough to pick me up a copy for 2011.

She did a great job at choosing one for me with a good mixture of traditional and cute.  One quick flip through the publication and you'll soon realise that 2011 must be the Year of the Rabbit.  There are so many cute bunnies adorning these pages.

I was really drawn to the gorgeous colours in some of the designs.

This phoenix is just spectacular!

With most of the main designs, it appears that you're given three options, one with just the picture, one with the basic greeting and one with a full greeting.

I'm tempted to just print this teapot and cup image and frame it.  It's stunning.

There are a number of papercut designs in this one too.

And the part of the book that I've always found really useful - the Japanese script.  My Japanese writing is awful, so even though every year I'd create my own design (usually a photo), I'd use the book to for the Japanese greeting.

You can read a little more about nengajo and Japanese New Year traditions here (though be prepared for the red background on the site).

ISBN:978-4-04-868873-4

Now I haven't checked with Mel yet, but if you'd like a copy, maybe if you ask her really nicely, she might be able to pick you up one on a special order...

Akemashite Omedetou Gozaimasu!

Kotoshimo Yoroshiku Onegaishimasu!

....or in other words, Happy New Year!

It's snowing outside! The first snow of the season has come on the first day of the year, how cool is that?

I hope everyone had a good evening and has started off 2008 with a happy note. We had a quiet one in, just the two of us with some yummy food, some DVDs and a bottle of Dom Perignon, a very generous Christmas present from my boss.

Our first nengajo arrived before we even got out of bed (though this is more an indication of how late we slept in rather than how early they arrived). 2008 is the Year of the Rat, so many of the cards this year had cute little mice on them. Here are a couple of my favourites from today

This super sweet one comes from a student at my school. Funnily enough, I've never actually taught her, which may be a good thing, it would be hard for me not to favour her. My very first day at the school, when I was very nervous and didn't know where to go or what was going on, she and her friend came and introduced themselves in English and helped me out. Since then, we've become email buddies and we remember each other's birthdays. She's a very good calligraphy artist and I have a piece on my wall that she did for me. I suspect she painted this card and then had them printed out. It's hard to see on this scan, but the pink details have been done by hand.

How gorgeous is this little kogeshi doll? The black parts of the face and the Japanese writing look like they have been printed, but everything else is hand-done. The beauty of the yuzen paper doesn't show up in the scan. This is from one of the Japanese teachers that I teach English with. She also is a very good artist and takes care of the art club after school.

It's such a delight having the postman arrive with these on New Years Day. What a wonderful tradition! I feel like 2008 nengajo design is really quite dull.... Oh well, there's always next year.

Today, Wayne and I are going to head into the "big city" and go to a large temple to watch the New Years festivities. In the first few days of the year, most Japanese will go to a temple to pray for the year, some of them in their finest kimono. My camera should get a workout today!