Work In Progress: Long Overdue... Part 3

The home stretch is almost near, if only I could remember where the heck I place the rest of the material so I could do the covers... In mean time, cut boards to make covers... One is landscape and the other is portrait, can't wait for them to be finished. Dare I say by end of the week?

A Thank You Note

Don't you just love it when you open up your email and you get this waiting for you in your inbox. Things like these makes all those late nights, fretting when will the paint/glue dry, accidently cutting your fingers with the knife, and so on and so forth worth it...

Dear Rozi,

I would just like to take this opportunity to say THANK YOU so much for the wonderful and creative wedding invites, they truly are more than what I expected or wished for! You truly are a talented and vibrant young women that really knows her stuff about product and "paper" he he he ....
Thank you for all your hard efforts in creating such a memorable wedding invitation.
Much appreciated
Raewyn Smith
New Zealand

This was the client that I did the Chinese themed wedding invites for! Wheeee!

Second Batch of Twenty

The first batch took me about fifteen hours to make from start to finish. Started on a sunday morning and didn't finish until about two in the morning the following monday. Somewhere in there was the toilet breaks and feeding. I was surprised that I was able to make all twenty and finish them in that time, but at the same time realised it's not a good thing to do it all straight in one go, not fair to the darling husband because it made me snappy *sorry sweetie*.

waiting for the next step, holes!

So with the next batch, I took my time. These are the second batch of autograph books for an international school here, for them to give to their middle school students when they leave. They couldn't find suitable autograph books in the shops, mainly because of the covers, ie Ben Ten, Hello Kitty, very uncool with the teenagers.

All bound

But, with the amount of work for these particular style I thought I'd use, stab bound, initially I thought it'll be perfect for what they want and their budget. Until I realised the amount of work involved, and this thought kept on nagging at me while I was making them, the amount I'm getting is it worth the time and effort? So, I turned to the Book Arts Forum to ask the opinion of the experts. And the result, they all said I should be getting more for these particular books and gave me a different structure that will fit the budget better. Since for the second batch I already had the boards cut, figured I'll just use them up, and for the third batch of twenty they want, I'll be using a different binding structure.

I'm so glad the forum is around to help.

Work In Progress: Long Overdue... Part 2

Part 1 is here...

This is the second installment, This particular order is done between orders, a bit at a time, been hanging over my head, will be very glad when they're all done. Will do a proper post when they are all complete...

So briefly, the end result would consist of three seperate structures, one is a folder that contains the main family photo, the other two consist of the rest of the family photos in landscape and portrait format.

This is the main family folder, structurally it's all done, but it could do with jazzing up a bit and I need to get around to finishing that.

I never like gluing photos down whenever I have to deal with them, maybe because I like the idea that you can still change out the pictures to update... so in this case, what's holding the picture down are the ribbons in the corners of the frame.

Stay tuned for more... soon, I hope...

Buku Hantaran: Effa's Bronze & Purple

When this folder was done, I thought she needed it this weekend, turned out I was early by two weeks! Even better, more time to do the others on the list.

Effa and I been emailing back and forth on this one, I lost count how many colour changes she went through. And this was just for her engagement, I can't imagine what she's going through for her wedding end of the year.

Heh, at one point, one of her colour theme was camouflage green. I was like, how the heck do I pretty-fy that? Fortunately it didn't stick. And blessedly it was settled on a bronze and purple theme.

Detailed close up of the lower left corner

I used up three different shades of purples for the roses, I lost count how many there are in total on the folder, probably over 50, and one of the shade I ran out of completely.

After I did the first corner on the lower left of the folder, I didn't want to overwhelm the folder and had to figure out how to fill up the rest of the corners to balance it out without fighting the heart lined roses in the center.

I like the placement of the organza bow right in the center of the heart. I'm always trying to find new placement for the bow, which also acts as the tie for the folder's double doors. I like putting in some sort of bow, just makes it so much more prettier!

Ta-da!

When I first bought the ribbon it looked purple, a pale purple. There was nothing else available that would work with the bronze. When I attached them to the folder, I had a slight heart attack, it looked pink! Did I make a mistake somewhere? Do I go on? In the end I decided it was a very pale purple and it'll work, and it did. Bottom line, when my client came to pick it up, she was so happy she was speechless. She was the first client who didn't want to open up the folder for fear of spoiling the way the bow was tied. Lovely girl she was, so petite and adorable. We chatted a bit on where she's getting her wedding outfits done and all that and I enjoyed the time we had.

Effa, all the best to you and the future and may happiness be with you always! And yes, you can come to me to get your bow tied up pretty like again when it's time for you to use it for the day ;-)

Check out Effa's blog on their Journey to be Kanda & Dinda (husband & wife - old school malay way of saying)

More detailed photos of the folder can be found here.

The Last Trip...

Well... since I am at the end of my second trimester and we figured lets have a last trip out and spent almost a week in Singapore, we didn't go far, but different enough. Besides, it was great to meet up with friends who lived there.

Where's the pregnant belly?

We went during the Chinese New Year period, and this fantastic floral tiger was outside the hotel where we stayed, there was a pair of them. And every morning they'll take out the dying flowers and put in new ones.

We shopped alot... ate at great places... and looked at baby stuff, not that we got much, everything was too pastel for my taste, heh...

Me, Sweetie & Wei Wei

The one person we managed to catch up with a lot was Wei Wei, she's an old time friend from school days, we lost touch and I found her on facebook and learnt she works in Singapore. So every time I'm there I make a point to meet up with her and we always have a great time!

So this was us at a place called Bedrock, a bar and grill joint which got fantastic service and the food was great. We were lucky they got a table for us since we just walked in. Just don't mind the bill at the end.

We had a great time and it was a nice break for the both of us from the daily grind. Wonder how it'll be like when we go travelling with baby...

The Chinese Themed Wedding Invitation Cards

Clients loved them! Very important that. And they were involved in the process too, which made quick work. The whole point was to keep the cost of the invites down. Points I needed to consider...

• The print run was low, 70 pieces. No commercial printers are willing to do that without charging you an arm and a leg.
• The clients requested different RSVP dates on some of them, which printers are willing to accommodate that I tell you?
• I want the clients to have hands on involvement, always nice to know you made it, or part of, for your wedding.
• Colour themes of red and gold.
• Tags for the money pockets that to be included with the invites.
• How to reproduce the double happiness character without breaking the bank.
• Clients like the printed on parchment/velum paper look for the text and all in caps.

This was the final sample that the clients agreed to. The idea was for a double happiness character printed in the center on a beautiful textured red card with bits of gold in it with the text on top.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find anything like the card in this region. So, I modified and adapted what was available to me.

What was left of the stencil after using it 80 times...

The Card

• I designed the invite on a 15 by 15 centimeter square.
• I decided to make a stencil of the double happiness character instead of making a stamp initially.
• Printed out an outline onto tracing paper and stuck it onto a thin acetate to make the stencil.
• In hindsight I should've made at least two.
• It took me 6 hours to stencil onto 80 pieces of red card and dry brushing all over each card to get the gold streaks on them.
• Used up a whole small jar of gold paint.
• Started at midnight and went to bed when the sun came up.
• Amazed I didn't get bored as I did them in one sitting.
• Listening to stand up comedians helped.
• Only had an hour's sleep after that as the whole day was packed with agendas.

The completed invitations

The Text

• The layout was done few days after the initial meeting.
• Lots of emailing back and forth of the design.
• Clients happy with layout.
• Three different sets of RSVP dates according to guests numbers in various quantity.
• Printed everything out onto tracing paper in one afternoon.
• Dropped them off to clients with instructions on how they should be cut.

Gold on the edges of the cards

Putting Card and Text Together

• Came over with the already stenciled red cards armed with a bottle of spray glue.
• Set up gluing station and work station.
• Clients amah became a 'christmas tree' as amah referred to herself as I stuck on the already glued up text on her to transport them to other side of room to the work station where clients are busy eyeballing sticking them onto the center of cards.
• Did same thing with text for red packets.
• We got everything glued down in record time.
• Clients very pleased with results.
• Clients also very happy with newly acquired spray glue.

Poem on the back of the red packets

The Red Packets

• Raewyn emailed the following poem.
• Layout for text arranged and printed.
• Cut and stuck down onto the back of the red packets to be included with the invitations.

Isn't the angle on the envelope cool...

The Envelope

• Keeping with theme, pink is the way to go.
• Gave clients a cheap and simple option creating an envelope from an A4 paper.
• Did demo.
• Did a step by step with clients how to fold.
• Bought pack of mini double happiness character stickers to stick onto back of envelopes.
• Clients very happy with outcome.

keeping everything all in one spot

So all they need now is to write their guests names down and mail them out. I had a fun time hanging out with them as we made their invitations. Lovely couple they were, beautiful inside and out. They're from New Zealand and been living in Brunei for the past two years teaching here and they loved the fact that the rest of south east asia is within arms reach, and because of that decided to have a chinese themed wedding for their big day to commemorate their time of living and travelling in this region.

A friend of theirs recommended me to them and it was a challenge I was willing to take up, something about making editions that always intrigues me. Thank you Yann for introducing them to me and thank you Raewyn and Stewart for believing in me to make your invitations and loving them.

Oh, the invitations, they came out to about 70 odd cents each, it would be less if the spray glue didn't take up 1/3 of the total cost. Either way, still good.