I Don't Wanna Grow Up, I'm a Toys'R'Us Kid...

...there's a million toys at Toys'R'Us that I can play with!

Well now that I am 22, the toys are a bit different. iPods. Cell phones. Laptops. Kate Spade bags. Nintendo DS Lite. Shoes. My Kate Spade business card case and my new business cards.

You really can't say that business cards are a toy, but I ogled them like a toy at Toys'R'Us. Add to the fact that they are in my nice chocolate brown Kate Spade leather business card case (albeit year old, but never used; got it on sale as a college graduation gift to me), it's quite nifty. I feel all "PROFESSIONAL" now! Big girl moment. I have cause to not only make business cards but hand them out - at the conference in Tokyo next week.

I actually made the cards myself, using a template, stealing some graphics off the Ritsumeikan and Crane's websites (the paper company). Why Crane's? I got a Kate Spade graphic (the one for the Airmail calling cards) off the site and edited it to fit the cards. I love the Kate Spade look but alas, I cannot afford it. So, I pick and choose and get crafty where I can. So I have two designs - one with the Rits logo, and one with the Kate Spade airmail border. Unfortunately, when I printed the Airmail, due to the fact that it's a border, it sort of turned out bad with the edges running into the next card. So I guess I will do it again (with the font that I wanted) with the special cards that allow to print to the border that Avery has. They also have doubled-sided, which is necessary for English-Japanese cards. So for now, they are regaled to the "future projects" section - and maybe one day can get them for real.

I printed them at Prof. S's office at KCJS; I told him that I needed to find a place to make business cards during a dinner at his house last month (where I met other cool, famous professors) and he offered to let me use the printer at his office, provided I get the paper for it. After making a panicked call to Mel, ordering him to get a particular Avery business card set, I actually found business card paper (and "clean edge" to boot) at the Kyoto Uni Co-op. Thank god. In the end, Mel returned the paper to Staples and got his $16 bucks back.

For 100 clean-edge cards here, I paid about 5 dollars. Pity though - I can't do double sided in both English and Japanese due to the fact that the cards peel off instead of tear off from one another. But frankly, having more professional looking cards without that perforated edge is more important. Instead, I made some in Japanese, most in English. Behold! My first business cards: