As the summer holidays approach I've been thinking back over my recent trips and how they've influenced my designs. I wanted to tell you all about my latest card design and how it came to life - here it is!

These guys were influenced by our trip to Japan last October. They are called Daruma dolls and are good luck charms. They mostly come in a reddish colour and feature a man with thick eyebrows and no, one or two eyes (legend has it that you fill in one eye thinking of a goal you want to achieve and you fill in the other eye once you achieve it!). They are thought to bring power, good luck, courage and love. The two that I've turned into cards represent luck and good fortune (red) and health and longevity (blue).

We found these dolls all over in Japan - from shopping centres to outside shrines in the hills. Here are a few sightings from our trip. They are so popular that they've been made into stamps and ornaments - I'm a big fan of stamps so had to snap some of these up during our time away - naturally I've then filled in the back page of my diary with them!

When I got back I started to play around with the design and repeated the shape lots of times. A lot of the charms have a frown but I wanted to make mine a little more friendly! I wasn't quite happy with lots in a circle (below) so ended up with four small daruma dolls to print onto cards.

A few hours in the studio later and I've made up a batch of cards - mostly in red but some in blue too! Here are a few process shots and the finished card in blue. These will be up for sale in my online shop launching in October - watch this space!