Her Majesty's Birthday Greeting

Apologies for not updating regularly, there's a reason, hopefully it won't be for long because it's very draining. Anyhoo, it doesn't mean I've stopped taking orders and if I haven't gotten back to your email or messages, don't worry, I've already blocked in your order in my time schedule, I just haven't discussed the details with you yet.

One of the orders came from the Brunei Women's Group. I think specifically Bistari because it was the president that got in touch with me. How she got to me was because she was impressed with my wedding card (Woohoo!!). Few things she asked me to do, one was create a birthday card for Her Majesty which they are hosting a function in honour of her, the second one was to design the program book for the function.

With the timeline that was given, I could only do one or the other, and I wasn't so keen to do the program book when they already have the committee for it, or else why have the committee in the first place right?

Now the president wanted something nice to give to Her Majesty, and I showed her some of my previous works and she imediately latched onto the one that was given to Muji, and wanted that! The pop up flowers did it.

With colour scheme in tow, dictations over the phone on the greet, photo CD delivered to my place, and several hours just individually gluing every single flower and heart gem, that was after agonising over trying to get the right colours for the internal, this was presented to Her Majesty in celebration with the conjunction of her birthday that was held at the International Convention Center last Saturday night. Through twist of fate I had to be sick that night, go figure...

The original colour scheme given was peach, orange and yellow. I was very worried on how to make all that work, until I remembered they were only a starting point. I picked the base as peach and used my eyes to get the most pleasing colour combination when picking out the flowers, with touches of gold from the bow and heart shaped gems.

With the bow undone and the doors partly open...

I used a textured deep bronze for the insheets and coincidently it matched the photo. I used a particular origami paper to create the vibrant pop up flowers and punched out smaller flowers to tie in the overall look. The frame looked a bit empty and used more gems to fill it up. The body of text on the right have extra space for the Bistari president's signature.

The president was happy when it was delivered and was thinking of asking me to do the same thing for her next wedding anniversary, sure, more than happy to, I'm just a call away!

Buku Hantaran - Gold with pink and purple

I love this shot, I had to make it the first picture for this post, plus, it shows the true colours used for the base, the other shots I think I over did it on AP. Nevermind, artsy shots always good.

See those tassles? Perfect! A bit stiff here because they hadn't soften up yet, but it's all good, don't want them too limp either now do we...


I stuck the flowers down in pairs randomly over the cover, and I used the cylinder glass beads with the tiny pink rosette to finish off the wide organza gold ribbon used to tie up in doors closed.

The base was a two layer process with a cream patterned (you can just see it) and then over layed with a slighty bronzy organza with glass beads, the material was called Princess Organza when I bought it. Pretty isn't it...

Here's the overall look of the folder, the colours don't do it justice, I just can't get the AP right, and I can't retake the shot either since it was already picked up by the client. Fini was cool, in the sense she sent me images of things she liked colours or look of, the only thing was, she kept on changing her mind until the last image she sent. Which we both liked and I decided to use the colour pallet from that for her folder. Glad you like the folder Fini, I hope your engagement day was fantastic and happy occassion!

Buku Hantaran - Purple with a dash of Silver and Pink

This was a double layer process, as I first had to use a light purple base and then an organza which got the deep purple spirals with silver detailing on top. Since the pattern was already busy I kept the embelishments simple, a wide white organza ribbon which edges echoes the silver pattern on the folder tied into a simple floaty bow and pink flower gems to add punches on an already very purple folder, and I just had to add in the deep purple heart gems just because they look right at home.

See, even the interior is pale purple with silver ribbon corners. A very purple-y folder indeed. Who likes purple? A bunch of you out there got your arms up I see...

But then, the client that ordered it, never got back to me when I said that it was all done. I'll hang on to it for a while until the end of the month to see if she'll contact me eventually, after that, anybody wants it for their engagement? It is made to fit an A4 list. Any takers, just get in touch with me!

Buku Hantaran - Gold, Cream and Elegant

This order came during the fasting month, she wanted gold and cream to fit her theme colours, I assume it's also for the wedding, that would be nice... she saw the emo one during Hari Raya. Well, you can't compare really, the style and colours are so different!

I knew I wanted the beautiful spiral pattern on either side with the soft floaty bow for a ribbon in the centre. But I was stumped on how to arranged the gem crystal flowers and hearts. After many attempts I decided that this is the one, normally I'd like the gems to be secured whole onto whatever I'm gluing, but this time around, it looked right for the ones in the center of the folder. I used a different glue (E6000) for that, it is known to be a very strong glue.


The client was very happy when she came over to pick it up. She was very excited seeing it, I'm glad. And to show how happy she was, she texted me again that evening to say how happy she was! See, used the word happy bazillion times in this sentence already.

I love seeing a happy client, makes everything so worth while.

Buku Hantaran: Cha's Silver Black Theme

Remember this...

They contained these...

Silver black with a romantic Emo...

Inside the black folder

Inside the silver folder

I almost had a hard time trying to figure out how to do this. The request was for two folders that could fit an A5. One has to be black with silver, and the other has to be silver with black. And Cha wanted it to be an emo romantic love theme and she loves hearts.

With trusty old google, I checked out 'emo romantic love' and all I'm seeing was red, black and depressing looking characters. Oh dear... Cha added me on FB and was hoping to find some pictures which inspired this whole emo romatic love theme. Surprisingly, there were none. Double of dear...

After trying out several ideas and not liking any of the designs and last thing I want is to recreate depression, I went back to her original email. She mentioned she liked one of the folders that I have already done, and I decided to use that idea and it fell into place. I was over complicating things originally, thought too much about it. I keep on forgetting to stick with my preference of clean lines.

I finished one first before I finished the other. By the time I glued on the roses, it was missing something. They were nice, but they weren't nice enough for me. The roses looked too flat. I messed about with glitter and wondered if using glitter was emo, I messed about with tiny padded hearts and I didn't have any in black for the other folder, it needed something bling, something catchy, wondered where my mini rhinestones were...

Tiny silver beads were perfect! They looked like drops of water catching the light. Added on a pair of budding roses at the corner for blooming love.

When she picked them up, she was so happy. I was happy that she was happy. Makes all that work worthwhile. Later that night she sent me a text which I told her I'm going to share with you all:

Rozi.. thank you very much! I'm loving it! Feel like I wanna cry just now and my hands were trembling (when I first held them)! Hehehe, thanks SO much!

What a fantastic client, I really appreciated her telling me how she felt. You're very much welcome Cha, and I hope your engagement function yesterday was a joyous one!

My Wedding: The Dower and Dowry

I know it's been months, I just haven't had the energy, but now, we'll continue with my instalments about my wedding! Ha ha! More cultural lessons...

In an Islamic marriage, one of the requirement is the dower, groom giving to the bride. In the Malay culture, we have the mas kahwin and the belanja angus or belanja dapur as the dower, the mas kahwin goes straight to the bride herself where as belanja angus is to help pay for the wedding expenses on the bride side. There is no fixed amount, but there is a minimum, it's negotiable and depending on current market situation. This sum is normally asked during the engagement proceedings.

The dower consisting of mas kahwin and belanja dapur

This was the dower I received, my mum-in-law and her sister decorated it. The mas kahwin is the brown notes rolled up on the lower right of the arrangement and the belanja dapur is the greenish notes cradling the crystal flowers MIL made. The red box tucked around back is the jewellery, necklace with pendant and bracelet.

Male members of the bride family inspecting the hantaran received from the groom side

The dower is part of the hantar berian or hantaran, loosely translated as gifts given. Traditionally these gifts consists of items that are to help the bride prepare for her wedding and new life as a wife. In the olden days one of the items were material to make her wedding outfit as well as a complete sewing basket set. This wasn't that far back, maybe about two generations ago.

Nowadays, the hantaran can consists from anything from the latest Ipod to a brand new car, depending on the wants of the family. Usually the bride and groom prior to the wedding would get their own stuff for the hantaran, and families can contribute to add on.

Part of the hantaran I received, my beaded wedding shoes

The hantaran is normally arranged and decorated on an elaborate tray which has a stand (click here for picture) or baskets. Depending on the number of items will depend on the number of trays required. The fun part, or headache, is decorating.

Normal practice is the family members will do the decorating, it is a time for family bonding. For his hantaran to me, it was my mother-in-law, the sister, and several female cousins who did the decorating. I wasn't allowed to enter the room where they did it.

People can get real creative with decorating the hantaran, some of the length of cloth given to me got turned into flowers using paper and wires as backbones. Others can be a disaster, like my aunt's white goldfish when her son got married (it looked like a white ghost to us cousins) Then there are those who use hantaran decorating and the hantaran themselves to really show off, sort of like keeping up with the Joneses.

Some soon-to-be-married-couples would send their stuff for the hantaran to the shops to have them 'professionally' decorated, you get charged an arm and a leg per tray or basket!

The balasan hantaran for him from me

Traditional practice was receiving the hantaran from the groom, nowadays the bride would give which is known as balasan hantaran, exchange of gifts. The amount can be the same or less as the hantaran from the groom side and most of the items would consists of food. I'm speculating on various reasons why this practice is becoming more common, maybe because the guys didn't want to be left out, or the girls just like to get stuff for the guys, or the girls just want to have fun decorating the gifts too. So it's a dowry, only it's optional *hehehe*

I remembered helping my cousins who got married with their hantaran and it was always a family affair, each person would decorate at least one item and I have done quite a few.

When it was my turn, I was quite surprised that nobody helped me with arranging and decorating my trays. Turned out all my aunts and cousins figured I could handle it while they were busy decorating the rest of the house.

I spent a week doing the balasan hantaran, one or two tray per night with very minimal tools and items. The trays and tray covers were rented, and I was determind to spend as little as possible on the decoration yet pretty happy with the outcome. I realised several lessons about decorating and arranging hantaran, cellotape, double sided tape and pins are your best friends because I don't believe in using a glue gun and I wanted for the ribbons and roses to be reused again without damaging them when they get taken apart.

Us after our solemnization looking at my handywork

I stuck with the wedding colour theme of red, black and white. Since the tray covers were already white all I used were red, black and silver ribbons in various sizes (which I already have), styrofoam circles (which I had to get, they're costly! about $20 in total), and four bunches of fake red roses (less than $10). Other tools I needed were scissors and wire cutter, double sided tape, cellotape (which I already own) and two containers of darning pins (which were only 20 cents per container). I like clean lines and non fussy, simple and elegant.

I 'm proud of the dastar I made (on tray behind shoes), I learnt it during the adat istiadat, royal protocol, workshop I attended. My DH was well impressed, he didn't want to take it apart *big grin*

By the end of it, I quite enjoyed decorating my balasan hantaran. But I'm not sure if it's something I want to do again. It's a lot of pressure especially when people know you're capable of such things, it has to come out looking really good.

All the decoration pieces I used, his aunt from out of state took them all! The ones they used for mine, my MIL loves her glue gun, I salvaged what I could :-p

Someone Was Really Pleased Today...

This was picked up this evening, they're for this weekend. I promised her I'll keep it under wraps until next week, then I'll show you what is underneath the wrapping :-D