Fan Side Gifts - Touken Ranbu - Gokotai

Welcome to the first of a new kind of post you’ll get to see on the blog. This is ‘Fan Side Gifts’, a post

which will include gift ideas inspired by some of our favourite characters and/or stories. Some ideas will only be mentioned or drawn as I don’t have the ability to make or acquire them as of yet. While other ideas may be printables or crafts you can do yourself.

The idea of these posts is to give you inspiration/ideas on themed gifts you can make/get for your

friends/family who like these particular characters/stories. (Or make/get these for yourself ~ or suggest to others to make/get them for you.)

If you have any specific characters or stories you’d like to see Fan Side Gifts posts for, let me know by contacting me at: fansideolife@gmail.com

In this first Fan Side Gifts post, we’re looking at Gokotai from Touken Ranbu Online/Hanamaru. In the Touken Ranbu Daily Surprise activity set, one of Gokotai’s options is to make a gift for a friend. Thus why he became the first topic for Fan Side Gifts.

In regards to coming up with gifts inspired by Gokotai, the tiger theme is quite ‘strong’; particularly white tigers. Also, when coming up with options inspired by Gokotai, we need to take into account his colours, which are: a dark or navy blue, a bronze colour, gold, a little bit of orange, white (pure, ivory or cream could work) and grey or black.

Things that come to mind from looking at Gokotai include:

• Packaging:

- White tiger print wrapping paper/gift bags.

- White background with black paw prints wrapping paper/gift bags.

- Gokotai crest gift tags. (I’ve included one type of these in the printables set.)

- Black or grey ribbons; perhaps a ‘velvet’-like ribbon?

- Dark/Navy blue, gold, and/or bronze curling ribbons.

• Gifts:

- Plush toy white tiger(s). (If purchasing from a store; add the black/grey ribbon yourself to add that

‘Gokotai’ touch.)

- Mini plush white tiger keychain(s). (Again, if purchasing from a store, add the ribbon around its neck yourself.)

- Zip-up pouch for make-up, stationery or something else in white (or maybe ivory or cream) or dark

blue with Gokotai’s crest embroidered or iron-on transferred on in a contrasting colour. For the crest,

gold or bronze could work with both colours while black or dark blue would only work with the white

pouch. Making the zipper gold or bronze too would be a nice touch, yes? Also, adding on a black/grey

bow as a decoration on the zipper could add to the look.

- Sleeping tiger cub hand-warmers: little rice/wheat bags that you heat up in the microwave and then

stick into your pockets to help keep your hands warm on winter days. ^-^ (I really want to make these at some point, but I just don’t have the resources right now…)

I’ve created a few printable gifts that you can print out and put together for yourself or someone else who you may know really likes Gokotai. Click here to go to the download page to download the set.

(For some of the items, the pages are not A4 in size. Their paper sizes are mentioned in their titles to help you print them at the correct size. I’ve done it this way for two reasons. One: some items may be better printed on specialty papers; see below for more information on each item. [As a side note, all my items seen in the picture at the top are printed on regular A4 paper.] Two: to make it easier to re-print items that you may use up and thus need more to keep using them. Let me know if you have any trouble with the printables and I’ll do my best to help you out. ^-^)

Amongst the printables are:

• A two-sided bookmark (which could also be two individual bookmarks if you cut the pair apart; if using regular paper, consider sticking or printing them onto some cardstock to give them a little strength). This could be printed on regular paper or on cardstock. Print, cut out and fold in half. Use either glue to bind the unit together or use double-sided tape between the two sides.

• Stickers. Printing these onto sticker paper will make things easier. However, if you can’t get sticker

paper, use regular paper and then DIY these into your own stickers (you can find tutorials on YouTube

or elsewhere online) or, if using them to decorate a journal or other paper item, just glue them to your

project with a glue stick. (The only sticker I have to ‘warn’ you about is the one with the paw prints on it. Be careful not to remove the dark blue and gold outlines when you’re cutting out – unless you don’t

want them there, of course – as they were intended to be part of the sticker.) In regards to packaging

them, how about decorating a matchbox and placing the stickers in that? (You could use the decorative

wraps I’ve included for the matchbox diorama – see last note below.)

• Gift tags. These could be printed on either regular paper or cardstock. (If printing on paper, consider

sticking them to cardboard to give a little strength before using as tags.) As you can see in the picture,

I’ve cut one tag so that it doesn’t have the outline and left the other with the outline; you decide how you prefer your tags to look and go with that. ^-^

- Consider attaching these to your packaging with dark blue and/or gold/bronze curling ribbon.

• Memo sheets. Print on regular paper, cut out and maybe gently tie up with a little blue and gold curling ribbon or clip together with a gold or bronze paperclip. If you’re really feeling crafty, how about compiling a bunch of the sheets into an actual memo pad and creating a decorative cover for it? (Just a thought. ^-^)

• Cards. These can be used as decorative pieces as is or stuck onto boxes or books to add a little Gokotai flair to them. (For a sturdier item, particularly if using them as decorative pictures on their own, print on cardstock or glue to cardboard once printed on regular paper.)

• Matchbox diorama. I recommend printing this one out on regular paper. You can make this little décor piece before giving it to someone or, by including the matchbox needed for it, you could give it as a ‘craft kit’ gift and let the recipient have fun putting the craft together. (Please see last week’s post to see how to put this together; if gifting to someone else as a craft kit, write down the link so they can

reference the instructions there.)

Well, that’s it from me for now. I hope this has inspired you to come up with some fun inspired/themed gifts to give to your friends, family or yourself. If you’ve already made or compiled something along these lines, let me know!

Until next time, keep enjoying your fan side of life!