Mandarin firecrackers!!

CNY006

What would Chinese New Year be like without firecrackers...? No Chinese New Year celebration will be complete without it. I wanted to do the firecracker motif this year for my CNY cards......tried making one of those Mandarin firecrackers with paper hehehe....and gave it some dimension. Created a spark at the end of the string to show that it has been lit and all ready to fire up! :) It's very simple and very spontaneously done.....

I chose the tall slim cards again for this particular design....it suits the design well. The inside of the card is left blank for writing on personal wishes and it comes with a soft pink handmade envelope too.

Here are some information regarding to Mandarin firecrackers that I got from the net:
Did you know that this Mandarin crackers produced a less loud, duller thud when they exploded, compared to modern flash light crackers (which utilize a different explosive composition known as flash powder). Mandarin crackers produced a dimmer, less brilliant flash when they exploded also. Individual Mandarin crackers were most often braided into "strings" of varying lengths, which, when set afire, would explode in rapid sequence. Generally, the strings (sometimes containing as many as several thousand crackers) would be hung from an overhead line or high hook before being ignited. Most Mandarin crackers were colored all red and did not generally have designs or logos decorating their exterior surface (AKA a "shell wraps"). Occasionally a few yellow and green Mandarin crackers were created and would be braided into the predominantly all red strings, to symbolized the emperor and the ruling class, while the numerous red crackers symbolized the common man.