Hari Raya Greeting Cards

Every year I since I've been abroad, I scramble to get a decent looking eid greeting card printed for all my aunts and uncles and grandma's in Malaysia. Every year after I slave away at the computer trying to design a special greeting I think about how I should've started the project earlier and not wait till the middle of ramadan to come up with a design. Alas, that never happens. This year, without fail I spent the whole of yesterday designing very simple cards to send to my relatives back in Malaysia. I think about just buying the eid greeting cards that might be sold in the US but huh, it says Eid on it.... not Hari Raya, or Salam Aidilfitri which is the malay greeting for Happy Eid. So I refuse to buy those english greeting cards.

But oh my goodness was it hard to design a card! I tried to even take pictures of my 'kain songket' to maybe incorporate as a border. Then I thought of maybe putting a picture of hubby and me in a frame that was shaped like the state we live in. hehehe lame! Then I stole another person's picture of a mosque and tried to work with that. But it all printed out oh so horribly. So in the end I used the little creative drawing skill I had and used M@cromedia Fl@sh to design some designs.

This is one of the designs that I came up with:


It printed out better than this one:


Ok, so it's reeeaally amateurish. But it's not too bad is it? At least I tried. Anyway, I also spent the day writing messages and short notes for all 20 cards. My minds all muddled up. I was trying very hard to write in proper malay. You know, the whole "Kehadapan nenda yang dikasihi" stuff. Huahahaha.. fail I tell you! Fail! I ended up just writing in English to my relatives who lived in the city and would probably be more forgiving to me for writing in a foreign language. tsk...tsk...

Anyway, I found some pretty nice greeting cards on ebay when I almost gave up designing this year's card. Maybe I'll just buy some off of that website next year. hehe.....