Ready-witted Parents: Homemade Cards: Admiring Cherry Blossoming

Soon cherry will start blossoming in our country – in about a couple of months . And in Japan, sakura – a Japanese ornamental cherry tree – has almost broken into blossom (in the south of Japan blossoming start on about March 12). So, we suggest you enjoy the "hanami" – Japanise holiday of admiring blossoming sakura – right now

And not only to admire but also to create your own Japanese garden – on a card . And then to present it – together with some, exquisite in a Japanese manner, gift .

Exquisite homemade cards

So, we will need:

dense paper (better for watercolours as it is rough), colour paper tinted in mass (preferably pink), black Indian ink (also called Chinese ink), a cocktail straw, a hole punch, glue, cotton wool, a sharp knife for paper, a ruler and a pencil.

?he technique in which we will create the trunk and branches of our sakura is called "blow paint". Simply speaking, we will blow onto the ink through the straw and, because of it, it has to spread about the paper like wonderful cherry trees . So, we are taking a sheet of paper, pour a large drop of black ink onto it from a small bottle, take a straw and – here we go Isn't it breathtaking?

At the very first stage, the result can disappoint you – it is possible that instead of a beautiful sakura you will see something like this on the paper Don't worry – within this plant monster a delicate cherry branch is hiding (and, may be, not even one!).

And our task is to find it .

So, the branch is found. Carefully mark a rectangle with 4 dots and cut it out with a knife and a ruler. Now, let's allow the sakura to blossom . It will blossom, as you might have guessed, with pink confetti (made with the help of a hole punch). I took dense pink pastel paper – it is important that the paper should be tinted in mass, otherwise the confetti will be with white stripes on the edges.

Confetti is prepared. Pour a bit of glue on a cotton ball and carefully, with hits, put the glue in chaotic spots about the card and then pour the confetti onto these spots and carefully press them with fingertips. The ink can spread under the influence of the glue – so, be careful: check the cleanness of the cotton ball each time before touching the paper with it.

Sakura is ready – the last step is to glue it onto the card. Cut out a rectangle of the required size. To fold dense paper in two parts press the fold line with a hard narrow thing – for example, with the blunt side of the kitchen knife.

Glue the picture of sakura to the front of the card. You can also make some impression around the rectangle with the sakura (before sticking it to the card). It is made in the same way as we've made with the fold line. The card is ready!

One more fragrant tree for dessert – for the perfect hanami

Homemade Gifts

And the gift going along with such a card can be a small pot for flowers bonsai tree. Buy a pot made of clay and decorate its outer surface with some pattern or words (you can take any kind of paint: gouache, oil… as then the pot will be lacqured).