A few days before the Lunar New Year, it gets a bit chaotic at my parent’s house. My dad will be off to the shops to buy the best crispy suckling pig or roasted duck for our reunion dinner. We’ll do a huge spring clean because on Chinese New Year we’re not suppose to do any cleaning. The Chinese believe that cleaning on New Years day is like sweeping good luck out the front door.

Even though it’s all ridiculously superstitious, we’ve adhere to this tradition every year. We also decorate the house by putting mandarin oranges in a basket and planting fresh cherry blossoms in a vase.

Since moving back to Perth, Big Mo and I have kept with this tradition. This morning after our spring cleaning, I decided to do some crafty decoration. I made paper hearts out of red paper and tied them to our plant. I pretended it was our little money plant!

The gorgeous watermelon bowl is by Samantha Robinson. I love her work. The tea set is a wedding gift from my mum, which we used during our tea pouring ceremony. In it are ‘Ang Pows’ or red packets. It is customary that on Chinese New Year, married couples or the older generation hand out red packets filled with money to children, teenagers or unmarried adults.

It’s also quite normal to see a lot of red during the Lunar festival as red symbolises good fortune and joy!

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 30th, 2011 at 7:49 pm and is filed under diy & handmade tutorial, Everyday, Home. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.