Lunar New Year 2025: Year of the Snake

Happy Lunar New Year! The Frisco Public Library sends you its warmest wishes for the Year of the Snake. Celebrations for Lunar New Year are common across Asia and typically last up to 16 days around the months of January and February, usually ending with a Lantern Festival on the last day. It’s a wonderful time to dress up in new clothes, feast on good food, celebrate with loved ones, clean and decorate the home, and gift or receive some cash through hóngbāo (red envelopes)! Participating in such traditions is customary to help manifest good luck and fortune in the new year.

This Wednesday (January 29th) begins the transition from the Year of the Dragon into the Year of the Snake. Since there are twelve animals in the Chinese Zodiac, we won’t see the Year of the Dragon again for another twelve years! If you’re curious to know what zodiac animal sign you were born under, you can check out this site: https://chinesenewyear.net/. For an additional fun and easy activity, try figuring out what composition of animals make up your family or friend groups. Below is a pie chart breakdown for some of our library staff:

We’ve got an awful lot of Roosters here, don’t we?

While you wait on your loved ones to get back to you about what year they were born, you could also create your own custom snake and lantern vinyl stickers on Frisco Library's vinyl cutter, opens a new window.

To start, you will want to select your vinyl material. I used my favorite holographic gold vinyl, but a matte or glossy red would also be completely on theme! Choose a permanent or waterproof vinyl if you plan on applying your stickers to surfaces that see a lot of wear-and-tear, like a water bottle.

Next, prepare your design using Inkscape. I like to find clip art through Microsoft Word.

Make sure the images you choose consist of bold line art. If you search for “lantern” or “snake”, you should get a few options, such as the one below. You can also draw your own designs if you’re feeling extra creative!

Once you have saved your images as JPEGs or PNGs to your device, import them into Inkscape to convert them into an SVG file format. While your image is highlighted, simply select “Path” and then “Trace Bitmap”.

You will see a window pop up on the right-hand side of your screen. Try different “Detection Mode” options from the dropdown menu to see which method gives you the cleanest lines around the edges of your image. I typically choose “Brightness cutoff” for bold, filled-in images and “Edge detection” for designs with a lot of negative space. Once you have decided, click “Apply”, and then save your file! It is now an SVG that can be used on our Titan3 Vinyl Cutter. Once you’re done converting all of your designs, just download them onto a USB and bring them to your Vinyl Cutter appointment.

At your appointment, follow our step-by-step instructions to operate the machine, and before you know it you’ll have some beautiful custom stickers to commemorate the holiday!