Sakura Spell Out

Have you seen Dandelion Designs' adorable Sakura Alphabet set? It features tiny kimono clad girls each holding sakura bearing an alphabet. Uh, did I mention these are tiny? Coloring them up are pretty quick because they are so teensy, but better make sure you have both a sharp pair of scissors and eyes to cut them out!

Nevertheless it was fun putting them together to spell out words...for this card, I lined them up and had them spell out "A-R-I-G-A-T-O", which means "thank you" in Japanese.

Used foam tape to pop the girls up and placed them into another recessed window card. For the backdrop, I scattered mini sakura cut from my mini Punch Bunch punch onto red cardstock which had been spritzed with Tsukineko Gold Shimmerz. After adding the gold and red border accents, my card still felt like it needed something more. Went thru my stash and found some gold mizuhiki cord, and decided it was finally time to learn how to do something with it. Found a tutorial  over at Zakka Life and was able to make my very first "awabi musubi" or Josephine knot, a Japanese symbol of good luck. It was just what my card needed!

On the inside, I used Chopin and Gabriola fonts for my message and embellished with a border of sakura cut with the WikiCAPS die and Nellie Snellen flower centers punch.
I must say it was quite satisfying to get this card done. Had a chance to get my hands inky from stamping again, and even learned to do a mizuhiki knot...LOL, and guess what, no electronic cutting machines used to create this card!