“Dog’s auspicious gifts are unconditional love and loyalty to all living things.”
Building Beautiful Souls.com
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“I give you endless brand-new good wishes. Please accept them as a new remembrance of our lasting friendship.”
SayingImages.com
#180216#
Before I begin making a new batch of christmas cards early in view of this year’s christmas season that is coming in 2 months’ time, I thought I should finally write this super loooooongggg overdued post since February. Yes, here are the customised handmade ang baos (chinese red packets) for Taenggu, her close friends and family, and her SM colleagues that I had painstakingly made by myself over a few months at the start of the year for the Chinese/Lunar New Year season. There are 50+ pieces of them altogether (I have already forgotten the exact number by now) – a breakthrough from only 12 christmas cards for 12 people last year (see my christmas cards 2017 post). It was definitely an amazing feat on my own while also juggling with fulfilling some customer ang bao orders from Carousell too.
It took me a lot of time and effort in planning, designing and making each of these ang baos individually according to each person’s characteristics (mainly from my own impressions of them) or as a group in general. And since it’s dog year, I tried to induce some dog elements in most of the designs too. 🐶
So the following are each of my designs attached with a brief description of my motivations behind the design, one by one. ⬇️
<3 TAEYEON <3
This design was inspired by Taenggu’s secret love for Snoopy. I had talked about it on a couple of instagram posts before and in a blog post about Ginger’s birthday artwork here. It actually all started from a really cute Snoopy pyjamas that she wore during her instalive in January this year that I really liked!
In this design, I actually see myself as Snoopy in here. Sometimes when I feel bored, I wish I could play around with Taenggu’s dogs, Ginger and Zero too!
P.S. The way I drew Ginger and Zero was copied from Taenggu’s very own doodles of them when she was asked by fans to draw them on her fansigns. ✏️
<3 JESSICA <3
Jessica has always given me a very classy and elegant kind of impression. Often very poised. So I thought this princess-like poodle suits her best! 👸🏼
<3 SUNNY <3
When I think of Sunny, I would always think of the Sun. ☀️ Just like the christmas card design I made for her last year, I had the same kind of Sun placed in the middle too, but this time I surrounded it with 8 cherry blossom flowers (think SNSD) and a few clouds. Suitable for the spring season.
<3 TIFFANY <3
In my christmas card for Tiffany last year, I drew a snowflake in the middle of a diamond. For her ang bao, I thought I could put an image of a chinese firecracker – something that is representative of Chinese New Year while wishing for her year to be as spectacular as firecrackers and fireworks. Never forgetting that the diamond must be PINK (her favourite colour) too. 💗
<3 HYOYEON <3
Hyoyeon’s christmas card was a unicorn and her birthday drawing last year was a witch/mystic queen. So combining these two ideas together, I thought I should present her with a magic wand that shines rainbow colours. This magic wand has a star design on top as an adaptation of the pink star lightstick that I had used to cheer for Taenggu at K-Wave 2 concert in KL in January this year (read about the lightstick in CONCERT EXPERIENCE: K-WAVE 2 IN KUALA LUMPUR – A DELIGHTFUL HELLO AGAIN). I also wished Hyoyeon to have a HYOLO new year ahead as I heard she was preparing for her upcoming solo comeback at that time. 🦄
<3 YURI <3
Yuri was in midst of filming her upcoming new drama “Sound Of Your Heart” season 2 at that time so I thought I would make something that symbolises the title of her drama too, thus a picture of a heart listening to music with a headphone. I hope she could do everything to her heart’s content this year. 💗🎵
<3 SOOYOUNG <3
For Sooyoung’s christmas card, I did a piece of autumn leaf surrounded by snowflakes. For her ang bao, I did a similar piece of autumn leaf surrounded by cherry blossoms and fallen petals to suit the change of seasons. From winter to spring, the flowers had now bloomed prettily. 🌸
Recently, months later after this ang bao was made, I saw the poster of a new movie that Sooyoung has filmed which is titled “Memories Of A Dead End”.
In this poster, she was sitting on a bench with the lead actor in a park surrounded by very pretty cherry blossom trees. I was instantly reminded of this ang bao that was full of cherry blossoms that I made for her. The flowers have indeed bloomed prettily for her! 🎥
<3 YOONA <3
For Yoona’s christmas card, I hung a few shiny ball ornaments on a pair of deer horns. For Chinese New Year, I thought I should hang a variety of CNY items like lanterns, mandarin oranges, firecrackers and simply something gold for auspicious reasons on her deer horns this time. And I wished for the corner of her lips (嘴角) to be lifted upwards every day. In other words, I wished she would smile every day. “角” is also a chinese word for horns, so it was kind of a word play that I came up with.
<3 SEOHYUN <3
I made a christmas fruit tree for Seohyun last Christmas, so for CNY, it made sense to make a tree that is full of mandarin oranges this time! I wished her 狗年多吉 which basically means to have many auspicious things happening to her this dog year. “多” means many while “吉” means auspicious which sounds similar to the word “橘” (oranges) so “多吉” is also referring that there are many oranges on the tree I made for Seohyun! 🍊🍊
<3 JIWOONG <3
For Taenggu’s brother Jiwoong’s christmas card, I made him a storm trooper wearing a christmas hat. So for this CNY, I created a storm trooper wearing a traditional chinese hat with the word “福” (blessing) on it. “旺” means prosperous, so “May the force旺 be with you” means wishing for him to be prosperous.
<3 TAENGGU APPA <3
I made this dog figure wearing a pair of glasses for Taenggu’s dad who is always seen wearing glasses and owns a spectacles shop called Eyebis in Jeonju. 👓 I chose the word “寿” for him which means longevity because I wanted to wish him to have a long life.
<3 TAENGGU OMMA <3
Decided to make a lotus flower in a pond for Taenggu’s mother because I remembered the time during my trip in Inner Mongolia last year when I visited a temple there. The place was filled with lots of pure positive energy. And as I prayed to the buddha statues there, I saw images of Taenggu’s mother in my mind. There were some lotus flowers around too. I could feel that she seemed to like it a lot. I think that day also happened to be her birthday too, if I didn’t get it wrongly. “光” means light, my reflection of the temple where it was filled with gentle beams of sunlight shining through. 🕯
<3 HAYEON <3
Not sure why, but I thought bandana would suit Taenggu’s little sister Hayeon’s image pretty well, so I made this cute beagle wearing a bandana for her. 👧🏻
<3 TTOCHI <3
I remembered there was once Taenggu revealed on her instastory that Ttochi unnie was still single. So I wanted to make this cute beagle wearing a cool neck tie for Ttochi unnie to wish for her to meet a cute guy who is as awesome as this dog this year too. Keke. 👔
<3 HEECHUL <3
The brown dog in this piece represents Heechul’s pet dog named Zorr / Joreul. I also decided to surround it with cherry blossoms and petals to cater to the spring season as well as to reflect Heechul’s nickname of the “Flower Boy”. 花美男。🌸🌸🌸
<3 SIWON <3
This dog here is modelled after Siwon’s pet dog Bugsy. I deliberately made it look comical to suit Siwon’s playful and fun character too! 🃏
<3 LEETEUK <3
This dog character that I drew for this piece is actually Leeteuk’s pet dog named Shimkoong / Koongie. She just celebrated her birthday not long ago when I started making this series of ang baos so I wanted to make one dedicated to Koongie to wish her happy birthday with a piece of cake too! 🍰
<3 SHINDONG <3
I remembered when I attended Super Show 7 in Singapore in January this year, I was very impressed when I got to know that Shindong was one of the directors of the concert. I hope this talented Super Junior member can continue directing concerts and MVs and bring more awesome stuff for his fans and viewers! 🎬
<3 EUNHYUK <3
Eunhyuk is famously known as the “dance machine” in Super Junior, so this dog dancing on the dance floor suits him best! 💃🏻
<3 DONGHAE <3
Donghae has a nickname of Fish which I think is because his chinese name is “东海” which directly translates to “East Sea” in english. So I made him a fish that comes with an auspicious chinese saying that is related to fish. “年年有余” means to have surplus year after year / have more than enough to spend every year. 🐟
<3 YESUNG <3
I decided to make this for Yesung because he often posts photos on instagram to say goodnight to his fans before he goes to sleep. I also saw him post photos of the moon quite a number of times before too. 🌕😴
<3 EXO <3
I see that the EXO logos are often made up of geometric shapes. So I thought geometric dogs would suit EXO’s style too. I did 3 different designs of geometric dogs. 3 sets of 3 each for all 9 members of EXO. As to which design I chose for which EXO member, it was pretty much by intuition, whichever that I thought would suit each person best.
P.S. I liked their song “Universe” when I first heard it at COEX Artium during my trip in Korea late last year / earlier this year.
<3 SHINEE <3
This design is inspired by the new SHINee’s official lightstick that was made for their “SHINee WORLD THE BEST 2018 FROM NOW ON” concert in Tokyo Dome in February this year. The lightstick features a giant diamond-shaped ring for fans to hold onto by the band, and glows mint blue/green in the dark, which is really pretty! 💍
Here’s a photo of Taenggu holding the new lightstick in support for SHINee.
I made the same design for all 5 members of SHINee. The words “Keep Shinin'” were a reference to the late Jonghyun’s song “Shinin'” from his posthumous album “Poet | Artist”.
<3 RED VELVET <3
I made this same design for all 5 members of Red Velvet too. It is inspired by 2 of their songs, “Peek-A-Boo” (related to eyes) and “Red Flavor” (related to sense of taste – tongue). For the writing of the words “RV JJANG”, I chose a font which I think suits the Red Velvet style. Very bubblegum-like. 🍭🍬
<3 TVXQ! – CHANGMIN & YUNHO <3
In the Chinese culture, dragon dance and lion dance are often performed during festive occasions like Chinese New Year. They are believed to bring good luck and fortune to people. I chose the lion for Changmin because he is often the one responsible for singing all the high notes in TVXQ!’s songs as if he’s roaring like a lion. 🦁 The dragon for Yunho because he always dances with high levels of energy as if he’s breathing fire like a dragon. 🐲
“生龙活虎” (not written on the ang baos, but my personal thoughts) seems to be a phrase that suits them best, which means full of vigor and vitality like the dragon and tiger.
<3 BOA <3
I did an image of Mickey Mouse for BoA because I thought her two gigantic hair buns in her image for “Nega Dola” (her new song released in January this year) look like Mickey Mouse’s two round ears. A Mickey Mouse holding a gun on each hand because of her other song “One Shot, Two Shot”. 🐭🔫
https://www.instagram.com/p/BemrodoD_mw/?taken-by=boakwon
<3 KRYSTAL <3
Colourful crystals of different kinds because of her name “Krystal”. “Krystallize your dreams” – I hope her dreams, whatever they are, will come true! 🔮
<3 SULLI <3
I just thought the furry ears of this dog look like Sulli’s wavy hair in my impression. Very girly. Hope she will receive many blessings like this dog.
<3 AMBER <3
I decided to make a pineapple for Amber because of her youtube channel that is named “What The Pineapple”. Also found a pineapple related quote to go along with this piece too! Hope she will continually be blessed with boundless creativity in creating new contents for her channel. WHAT THE PINEAPPLE 🍍
<3 VICTORIA <3
Since Victoria is a Chinese and currently active in mainland China, I thought chinese calligraphy would suit her best. While working on this piece, rather than her English name “Victoria”, her chinese name “Song Qian” kept ringing in my mind instead.
<3 LUNA <3
This design was inspired by Luna’s solo song “Free Somebody” which was released in 2016. It features birds that are released from the cage. From a previously dull body, they instantly all turn colourful the moment they fly away from the cage to freedom! 🐦
<3 MANAGER UNNIE – MING MING <3
For SNSD’s long-time manager unnie Ming Ming who always wear a pair of round spectacles. 👓
<3 MANAGER OPPA <3
A bulldog which I think is fitting for SNSD manager oppas.
<3 STYLIST / MAKEUP ARTIST UNNIE <3
A stylish poodle for the stylists and makeup artists. 👗👠💄💋
<3 SHINYOUNG <3
For Shinyoung unnie whom Taenggu is close to who collaborated with her in a Banila Co CF earlier this year and has a nerdy bob hairstyle with straight bangs. 😆
Now 8 months have already passed since Chinese New Year. I wonder how everyone is doing… Have any of my well wishes come true to any of you yet? Well… if they haven’t or already did, it’s time for me to renew my wishes soon! Coz, jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way~ 🎄☃️❄️
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