Meeting new people here in Japan involves developing more formalized graces. As a farm girl from the Midwest, this is always an area of improvement for me.

One artifact of the Japanese getting to know you ritual is the business card and/or name card. When you meet someone new in Japan it's considered polite to exchange your contact information in this tangible, well organized way.

I for one love the practice, as it's elevated me from the frantic find a pen and write your name and phone number on an old receipt routine to a calmer more professional approach. Proper procedure involves offering your name card with both hands (as shown above) with a little bow of the head.

Now that the blog is becoming more of it's own entity, I put together a name card using some brown Kraft paper grocery bags that I found in someone's recycling the other day. It's not as heavy as a traditional business card, but I think it's really nice, and still very durable. If you have a business card template on your word-processing software it's a very easy process.

I originally wanted to print onto post-consumer cardboard, but my ideal specimen would be a cereal box, and unfortunately we're an oatmeal and eggs family. Cereal is not widely eaten for breakfast in Japan, so it's also been hard to find used cereal boxes. I'd love to hear if anyone has tried printing on cereal boxes, did your printer take them?

I also wanted to share this great link with you, showcasing a letterpress printer that prints business cards onto old cereal boxes. (If I ever get a business info stamp, this could be a possible approach for my old tea boxes.) They are BEauTiful! Lots of other great ideas there too...

So hey, even if you're business-less, how about a name-card or blog-card to step up your game? Why not?