2014 Gallops in like a Horse!

Happy New Year! Or as the Japanese say, "Akemashite Shinnen Omedeto!" Hope everyone had a good time welcoming in the New Year of the Horse. Every year we celebrate New Years Day with friends and family at a huge potluck style lunch, a tradition which the Japanese believe assures our ties will continue to remain strong throughout the New Year.
These are jars of treats I decorated for each family to take home after lunch. I used washi paper to wrap around the jars and created a medallion to stick onto the front.

Found the image of the Chinese papercut horse after doing a Google image search for "Year of the Horse" and the Japanese pine or "matsu" icon was purchased from GL Stock Images. Using the MTC program, the two images were rendered into cutfiles. I used the shadow feature to create shadows of each and welded them into an open circle. Everything came together pretty quickly, which was a good thing because I had less than a week to put 12 of these together. I think I need a New Years resolution to start planning sooner! Well now, Chinese New Years is just around the corner at the end of January...guess I need to hurry and start thinking of something new soon!