Buku Hantaran: Brown & Gold

Sigh... Card... sheesh.... Anyway!

The golden brown buku permintaan. A colour which I have never used before and not in my stock so it was an interesting challenge. I told the client we're going for elegant and classic. It was a last minute order and fortunately I did not have anything on my plate and I was able to do it. Call came in Tuesday morning and it was for the Sunday. That left me with not alot of days to come up with this, especially when I aimed for a Friday delivery.

Thankfully, when I was putting this together, it was like as if I was meant to. There was no hitch, no frustrating moments, everything was cooperating, from having to shop for the stuff right after receiving the order, to cutting up the hard boards down to the sizes required, gluing the different types of delicate materials (no glue marks, yay!) the embellishments, and it was almost too good to be true until the finishing touch, I needed to get the right ribbons and I couldn't find the right shade of gold any where! But, it was a good thing because the one I chose in the end pulled the whole thing together and finished the ends off with more gold. The folder can accommodate her A4 'permintaan' list with room to spare.

It came out perfect. It also reminded me of old world India, where everything was rich, luxurious and decadent. Well, that was the feel I got when I stepped back to admire it after getting its final quality check.


The client wasn't able to pick up the folder any earlier and was only able to do it on Saturday evening, a relief for both of us that she loved it. One less she'd have to worry about for her engagement day, and I have another happy customer. I can understand her being busy during that time with her engagement preparation, because I'm experiencing the same thing now.


I need to start making my buku permintaan :-p


More pictures of the folder can be found here.

Happy Birthday To ME

Great birthday this year, this evening was all about good food, good company, good times, good bash, unexpected cakes (yes, plural) and the largest bouquet of roses I ever got, all these arranged by my wonderful significant other. Brilliant surprise by him. 

I can start taking stock how the year went, but I'll leave that rambling on my other blog.

Life can only get better :-)

Another Award!

Long over due...

This came from Hazel and Reona, they had kindly bestowed upon me this:

Thanks you guys. Gimme a while before I get together a list of who to pass the award to because I haven't been checking out alot of blogs lately, been super busy and I hardly had time to even update mine! But anyhoo, I'll get around to it eventually and thank you again.

Teddy Sneak Revealed

Remember this post, here's the rest of it.

I was asked by Lin to make this for her friend who gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl. I kept the colours light and sweet and in order for the pink to stand out from the green out came my glitter pens and hand drew all the swirls, blue and pink naturally. I don't know how long that took me. Lin asked for teddy bears, I used a teddy bear punch on origami paper to decorate around the edges and dug through my stash of stuff found these brown furry teddies, only it had black beady eyes and tartan bows which I removed. Faceless teddies and matching bows looked more sweeter, it's definitely a marked inprovement to what it was before.

A sweet keepsake for Lin's friend in rememberence for the birth of her twins.

More pictures here from various angles and what nots.

Ketupat Manggis

For this year Raya I ODed the house with ketupat manggis (mangosteen in english). I learned this from my grand aunt when I was in my teens and I have taught this to several people over the years but I don't know if they practiced making it. The only other person apart from me who makes this now is my cousin Wina whom I taught the ketupat manggis and several others. I am slowly adding on the many different shapes for her to learn. Do you know, ketupat making is a Malay heritage? According to what little information I can get on it. Apparently it's on wiki. It's a dying art and I'm trying to keep it alive in my own way. I have plans, but I need an illustrator!

Anyhoo, this is the traditional ketupat manggis, it's has the flower part at the bottom, the 'fruit' and the 'stalk'. I just curled the ends of the ribbons to make it look 'prettier'.

Then, people would comment on how pretty the bottom is, I turned it around, removing the stalk to give a flat bottom and I added the pointy bits around the flowers (inspired from one of my many origami books) and ta-da!


So I got these spread all over the house, on table tops and hanging from the chandeliers. Got big ones and mini ones. When my brother was having his Raya open house, I packed a boxful of them and passed them over to him and he had them spread around his house too.

Traditionally, the ketupat manggis according to my grand aunt, were used for 'barang hantaran' (dowry?) it sits alongside with ketupat payau, panyu and ayam (uuhhh... deer, sea turtle and hen). I labelled them under decorative ketupats. I'm trying to remember how to make the payau, I managed to make the panyu and I can only make ayam biasa, I never mastered the ayam mengaram (brooding hen... I think...) so I'm in trouble and my grand aunt isn't exactly getting any younger.

My Preoccupation

Goodness, it's been weeks since I last posted.

Several images on backlog, just been preoccupied of late. Not to mention the two weeks of festive Hari Raya or Eid celebration, the best movers during the open house, mini mince pies.

I finally decided to take out my MacBook out of its box after it's been sitting there for several months and currently its an elaborate browser until I get my Adobe Creative Suite installed. And its also currently my gaming platform after my wonderful other half bought me Mystery Case Files: Madame Fate I've been hankering, finished it already, replaying it again. Really good stuff.

And several net sites been keeping me occupied, I can't seem to get enough of them...

• The Consumerist - money stories.


• Zen Habits - inner peace...


• Lifehackers, tips and downloads for getting things done - 'nuff said.


• Apartment Therapy - lovely lovely living spaces.


• Unclutterer, daily tips on how to organize your home and office, - ditto.


• Typies - have I ever mention about my interest in type?

I just received an order for an engagement book yesterday and the client wanted it for this Sunday... I'm not big on rush jobs, it's draining but I'll do my best at it.

Just finished the layout for the programme book for the convocation that was suppose to be for the end of this month but because the university decided to have theirs on the same day ours got postponed to the middle of next month. I need to get it out of the way anyway because not only it need to be sent for printing, next week I'm on a course at the civil service institute, won't be in at work at all, and right after that I'm on leave for two weeks! I'm hoping to be able to head down to Singapore to pick up some supplies and visit a couple of friends.

Yesterday I walked into that scrap shop at the mall and had a heart attack when I saw how much a bone folder cost. Mental! It can't cost that much... I was fortunate a friend in Greece sent me a real bone folder, what bone I don't know, and I have picked up several on my trips to Singapore and they cost way cheaper. Bone folders are one of my indispensable tools. 

Got a new pack of needles for book binding, now book production can start again.

There's a fair I'd like to participate in only I don't know if I'm going to be around for it... I don't know if I'm going to have stuff for it!

Irony...

Just a short post amonst the chaos of life, especially the past week being Hari Raya or Eid celebration, there's a post I wanted to do but that'll be another time. Anyway, I was just reading an article about organization and my mind wandered to the current state of the studio which is pretty much a mess 90% of the time, (hence the studio was closed during the celebration because it wasn't tidy-ed up, yet during the open house I still had people who insisted on seeing it with the response of "It's a studio, of course it'll be messy"). As I said, I was gonna sort out, organize, what have yous and I still haven't. Thought I was going to do it during the fasting month since I get to go home early but this year I was just drained and end up crashing out and my productivity level was zilch for the month... Oh wait, that can't be, I made those other stuff... Hmmmmm...



I was also suppose to do the inventory for the studio and that didn't happen. I asked a friend who just did the inventory for her shop if she'd do mine and I'll pay her to do it, it was a flat out no. It was worth a shot.



I remembered buying a book something to do with decluttering and feng shui, only I don't remember where the book is (lost somewhere in studio). Another reason why I need to sort out the studio was that I'm looking for a book a friend lent and she wanted it back, it's called 'The Power Of Now'.



I got a cynical smile on my face at the moment...