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| Love how the gems catches the light |
When I was asked to do a Maharani themed folder for a mas kahwin (dowery), I was not sure where to begin. Google search didn't produce anything much and my other concern was do I make the folder specific to the amount it will contain, ie follow the size of the money.
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| 360 individual blings, yes, I counted. |
Fortunately the client was able to provide images that inspired her to choose the theme when I asked, just so I know what it was that attracted her to choose the theme and that I'm on the same page. What I saw was glitter, gold, opulent and paisley.
Oh no... 'Oh no' in the sense, 'Oh my god! I have to recreate that!' And I couldn't resist a challenge. At the same time I had to work on two other engagement folders as all three were due more or less around the same time.
I was lucky. I had this gorgeous glitter design paper and fortunately it had paisley as part of its patterns which I made sure I took the area that had them.
Normally I would make a folder from the inside out. But in this case after I had covered the front, I immediately worked on laying out the gems in various sizes and shapes to determined their placement to give me that maharani look. And when I was happy I started gluing them down.
All 360 individual pieces.
One. By. One.
And this is working on an area that is slightly bigger than an A5. 16cm by 22cm to be exact. I was so glad the folder wasn't any bigger as this size alone took me several days just to glue down the gems.
It was one of those, 'I'm not doing this again' moment.
Strangely after I was done, I kind of missed it. Go figure.
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| Purple ribbon detail on gold tassel |
I then realised why I left the interior last, my subconscious mind was already planning ahead without me realising, the tassels.
Had to debate whether to just use the purple tassels only for the door or do I also use the gold tassels. After putting the purple tassels in place, the folder was looking a bit 'bald' in a way, and gold tassels were put in. I used gold and purple ribbon to add interest to the tassels and to tie the gold and purple theme together.
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| Unfortunately, this was the only shot I had that showed the interior... |
For the interior I used a royal purple satin with gold ribbons corners. Lovely contrast when the folder was half opened.
The client was suitably amazed when the folder was presented to her and she went home happy. I have no idea how the folder was used, I measured using the largest denomination note we have, lots of space surrounding it, and I wondered how they managed to fix the money in.
I kind of missed this folder, but it's ok. It was a nice end to the year as it was the last order for 2011. Let's see what sort of new challenges I'll be facing for this year... I wonder whether I should be saying that... It's like asking for it...
Happy New Year 2012!
