Wedding Guest Books: The Daryline Wedding

The guest book in action, not many signatures yet as we got there early so there would be parking in the basement as it was raining that evening...

The happy couple! Ok, so we can't really see the groom's face and you can see how pretty the bride is and reason why I chose this picture was because of the cake, how many brides actually made their own five tiered wedding cake, each tier a different flavour, which she finished baking and decorating (covered with tiny pink fondant butterflies) at six in the morning the day before? Cake was served up to all the guests and the table I was at got the chocolate and orange ones, it was yummy...

And Baby D came to the wedding too at 7 weeks old! Her first social outing and she slept through out, apart from waking up to nurse twice, she didn't bother with all the noise around her.

Wedding Guest Book: Concertina Turquoise & White

This is part 2, the guest books, part 1 was the buku hantaran. Now I'm going to refer the guy who's wedding this was for as Gorilla Guy because the very first time I met him, he was wearing a gorilla mask and that stuck with me, first impression, hehehe...

The one who contacted me to arrange all this for him was Gorilla Guy's sister, and she wanted the buku hantaran (engagement folder) as well as guest books in the colour theme of turquoise, white and silver. I managed to do that with the folder, found lovely silver plated leaves but I wasn't able to get them for these books unfortunately but I have managed to keep to the same elements.

>When the sister came to pick them up, she brought along Gorilla Guy's fiancee and explained to her this was the reason why she got the corsages to have blue feathers as part of the arrangement to tie everything into their theme. I didn't realise me using feathers would have an impact into their wedding, cool...

Because of Gorilla Guy's heritage, they will have lots of chinese relatives coming to the malay wedding, and Gorilla Guy's sister said she wanted a chinese style guest book but unfortunately chinese guest books are always red (to denote luck) and it totally doesn't go with the theme colour at all.

So I made a concertina style book, that way it could be stored neatly and folded up, and when stretched it spans over 6 and a half feet long. Easy access for guests to sign their wishes without having to queue much.

On top of that, they are expecting a lot of guests and Gorilla Guy sister asked for three books!

Initially I thought it'll be great to make a slip case to store the books together, but because of the three dimensions of the flowers the gaps between each book when stacked didn't look right, and had to think up of another idea and I thought of why not a slip cover? It'll protect the books and it'll look pretty won't it?

Had a bit of drama with that aspect, we don't need to go into details, I'm just grateful it's done.

Three wedding guest books, in individual organza slip cases with pretty fun ribbons with roses at the ends, don't they look like dragonflies somehow when tied...

More images can be found here.

I'm so glad Gorilla Guy's sister likes them as she is the client, and I'm pretty glad how they turned out as well, considering I was experimenting with this, and so now I know what do to with my next guest books that are for a July wedding!

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.

My Wedding: The Dais

Being king and queen for a day, you also get to have your throne. Here, it's a big business when it comes to weddings and one of the expenses is the dais. You can choose to make your own or rent. When my sister got married ten years ago she had hers specifically made. Nowadays there are lots to choose from to rent.

I had two, I had some of the functions at home and I had the main event at a hotel. Initially we thought of just renting one and disassemble and assemble at the other. Logistically it'll be a rush job and the stage at the hotel is pretty huge and I didn't want the dias to be dwarfed by all the empty space around it.

This was the one we had at home, we positioned it to be centered to the chandelier of the living room. I wanted something which was all white and with more swags, I wasn't too keen with the box like shapes at the back, but it was already 1 AM and I just didn't want to argue anymore. Turns out, it was the same wedding dais my cousin used for her wedding the year before, with a change of seats, hers were two single chairs and I wanted a double seater.

This was the dais we had at the hotel. I was told I was the second person to use it and it filled up the whole stage. I had the colour of the flowers changed to reds, pinks, and whites, original colours were champagne. I'd like it to be all red roses but they didn't have enough.

I never saw the set up nor when it was completed. I only saw it when we officially came into the hall with the guests already seated, and the first thing that went through my mind was, "Wow, it's big, wasn't expecting that."

Only thing was to move the seat from the dais at home to the hotel. We had our fan bearers, my significant other's nephew and my niece (traditionally they would be two golden aged women who would guard the newly weds from the start of the wedding ceremony up til the end of the ceremony) and flower boys and girls made up of my nephews and nieces.

It was fun :-)

My Wedding: The Wedding Invitation

Continuing on the wedding series, man I'm really dragging it out aren't I...

The front of the invite

Pop up flower!

Close up of pop up flower

I designed the invitation myself, keeping to the colour theme of the wedding. The intention was to keep the design minimal, non fussy and low cost. I stuck with black and white with a shot of red. For those of you who got cards to do, keep the following in mind when going to the printers. Factors that pushes up the prices are:

1. Any die cutting (cut shapes other than a straight line)
2. Any embossing (those raised patterns on the cards)
3. Any foil leafing (usually text in gold or silver)
4. More than one colour (more inks and mixtures of inks to get the colours you want)
5. Extra pages inserted in (more paper, more inks)
6. Fancy envelopes (especially if it has to be customised to the cards)
7. Type of paper or card used (anything which isn't a flat non laminated or pearlised)
8. Awkward shape (more paper had to be used to account for wastage)
9. Any extra emblishments that needed to be added on (more work)

So, the fancier your invite, the more it will cost.

For myself, I designed my wedding invite around the pop up flower. I already knew how the card was going to come out physically with the prototype I made and had the information laid out using Illustrator. I then bought the prototype and the file to the printers, after fiddling a bit more on the file with the head designer the layout was done. Chose the paper and came back a week later to collect all 600 pieces.

During that week I hunted for the right shade of red and grey for the flowers. 600 pieces of red and 600 pieces of grey flowers were needed. To see the process of making them click here.

Then it took me another week to stick all the flowers together and into the cards. I glued half in already when I realised the glue I was using was staining the card which was visible on the front, I half hoped majority of the people who recieved the invite had poor lighting.

After the wedding mom announced she held back 100 pieces. I slightly had a fit because we could've invited more or save money and time on not having to print out that extra hundred and make the extra hundred flowers.

So what am I going to do with these extra cards, If you're interested in recieving a wedding invitation with the pop up flower, email me with your address and I'll send one over to you.

P.S, my wedding invitation worked out to just under a $1 each. Not including the cost of pizzas for the volunteers to help cut the flowers out.

Ryan & Christine's Wedding Guest Book

The book is making it's debut tonight for their wedding dinner. I kept the look simple and uncomplicated. I forgot to bring my camera so was using my camera phone to take these shot at work. My office roommate thought the book is for my wedding, nope, not my colours. I have a different idea for mine, providing I remember to do it.

The covers is a textured purple paper, with a big pink with gold trimmed organza bow that is both practical and decorative. And I dressed up the ribbon with paper flowers at the ends.

To open up the book the bow is untied and I added two tiny bunch of flowers with skinny purple bows just so the front won't look so empty. Roommate asked where I bought the tiny bunches and was amazed when I said I made them, it was a no brainer. Then we went into a discussions on how to look for inspirations, more of me doing the talking and she listening.

 
When the pages are turned, at every gutter is a pop up flower! I had to do that. And decorated the sheets with punched out flowers in the same paper that I used to make the pop ups. Sticking those down took ages and sticky fingers. The pages I used are perfumed light pink with roses on it.

A little glimpse of my table at work and that the guest book is a concertina. so tonight Ryan and Christine can just stretch the whole thing out on a table and people can write their well wishes without having to cue. And I supplied about eight pens in pink, purple and grey for the guests to use to write in.

After the function is over, they can stick in pictures of the dinner into the book as well on areas of the pages which aren't signed, so they can personalised it even more and whenever they look through the book, they can recall the happy moments of the night as they read the dedications that will be written in the book.

Congratulations Ryan and Christine, my wedding gift to both of you.

I ♥ Nik Kershaw & Some Other Stuff...

I only have one more weekend left until the whole wedding thing happening *eep*. Is everything prepared, I don't know. To catch those 'moment' shots, I don't know. Are my outfits even ready, I checked and was told they're not even sewn yet! Gee, that really helps with my anxiety level... Am I getting enough sleep, not really. It's one of those tossing and turning and tossing and turning and upset over things cos your mind is all confused and jumbled up with what's going on and unfinished dresses(!!) and trying to keep your cool and pretty much probably have stepped on some toes and you're upset you made them upset and this can go on but you get the picture.

So one night because of not being able to sleep, I was chatting online to a fellow book binder in Germany (Hi Sandra!) who is totally excited because she's going to catch A-Ha in concert, I bet you it's front row seats. I mentioned I've always love Nik Kershaw since I was a kid. He's so cute! And so spent the next few nights on YouTube watching his music videos. I'd like to share this one song of his with you all. The music video speaks to me, and the lyrics I love.

Just in case you can't see the video, go here. I got the chorus on repeat in my head alongside with 'Dancing Girls', quite fun seeing a bunch of senior ladies dancing.

My friend Sarah sent me a really nice text on my phone this morning, thanks Choo. It helps. My Soon-To-Be said something really sweet to me last weekend, it was very comforting and reassuring and solidified that we're meant to be on this journey.

I'm trying to finish the wedding guest book for a friend's wedding this weekend, for some reason I'm struggling with it. No worries Ryan and Christine, it will be in your hands before the day complete with glitter pens! And dammit I forgot to bring the glue.

I must be hormonal-ling since I'm having all these emotions at the same time, my period is late.

Anxiety.

Big time.

Oh So Pretty!

I've been saving this image to post up for a couple of weeks already, remember a couple of weeks back me going on about my wedding invites and all... How I went and cut up sheets of paper and folded and folded and outlined and got my relatives over armed with a pair of scissors each for a couple of nights... Well, you're looking at some 1200 pieces of red, white and grey what-the-heck-are-they. After everybody had left, these covered the whole dining table and Shazam! playing games where she'd plow through the pile, jumped off the table when I scolded her, jumps back on when I'm not watching and repeat. In between her messing about she was constantly changing the little hillocks. And this was a picture op not to be missed. Since the nearest thing was the phone, used that to take this shot. Then Shazam! jumbled it all up again. What a coincidence that the light caught that one piece and highlighted the heart shape just so. Happy accidents!

Mom spent the past couple of days labeling the envelopes for the invites, not to mention that there was a slight error with the naming (*koff* somebody got promoted *koff*) and had to do a re-labelling on all 600 invites. I don't know why we even have 600 invites, the place can only hold 600 people. But yes for those of you who happen to be in my FB contact would have noticed how my status was having a countdown to what was in the picture above.

More pictures to come, most likely next week, I still have offloading camera challenges.

Corset Binding Stab Album & Hair... Hair?!

Here's a detailed shot of the binding that I've been teaching in the Stab Binding Intermediate Class. It's a very sexy binding I must admit, kinda look slightly raunchy. I'm not sure if you can say that about a binding...

Here's another detailed shot of the ribbon bow that secures the album. It acts as a practical and a decorative feature. That's what I've been teaching the students as well.

Where is this album now, I gave it to my wedding hairdresser because he is a nice guy and he did a fantastic job trying out different hairstyles for me for the wedding, all I have to do was sit there. Almost all my cousins goes to him and my mom and sister got converted to go to his place for their haircuts and are now regular customers.

Wait til you see my wedding hairdo, so cool! I can't wait! Woo hoo!

The Invite Card - rambling rambling...

I'm designing my wedding invites, it's more or less done. Just need to talk to the printers and look for the right paper. I'm going to fold and cut up 500 pieces of flowers. Between me, my cousin and several other people, it is possible. I just need to find the right paper, cut up into squares and fold them up into triangles.

Mom has been reminding me to keep the card simple. Just make it a regular card she said. No need for the fancy shmancy pop up she said. I'm not going to make a fancy shmancy pop up. Even I know I don't have the power to make a fancy shmancy pop up in the time that is left. My cottage factory only exist when the need arises and even then they can only do so much.

I made several mock ups. The first one, I was like, yeah, this is it. Simple, nothing to it. That was the inside, open up the card and a heart pops out, text all laid out on either side. Then I did the outer part of the card, family list, cover. Thought I was being clever with the rounding off one end of the rectangle. Then I stepped back and realised it looked like a giant silhouette of a tampon

Scratch that.

Fortunately, the fiance's invites were already done. They were lucky, the place where they're having the do is packaged with the invitations. I like the typeface it had. I went back to mine and rid of the fancy shmancy curly type I had earlier, it was just messy as there was so much text to fit in. The malay language just have too much protocol.

Following the steps of the other half I did a simple layout with an overhead fold (A4 folded in half). Arranged the text to one side leaving space for the flower. Made a mock up and it worked. There's an empty space at the top left corner and I don't know if it's something I should fill in...

I tested out the mock up and my subject, aka sister, was suitably impressed. Hence, the plan will continue. Meeting printers next week, in the mean time, will look for suitable paper for flowers. It has to be red, as the card will be on pearliest white with black print. I shall live up to my motto, make do with what's available locally and maximise on it.

There are also mini invites for the other two functions, since those will be in a smaller run, I feel that it's easier to print them out myself. And it's designed smaller still, it'll be on an A6 format. So 100 pcs = 25 print outs... (4 per sheet of A4).

and the other one 50 pcs = 13 print outs on A4.

I just need to buy a pack of scented rose print on white for about... how much did I buy for a pack of 100... less than 40 bucks that's for sure.

If I buy them 40 cents per sheet that's... 25 + 13 = 38... multiply that by 0.4 = 15.20 bucks... oh, much much cheaper... if I buy stack, I could always use the rest for other projects... will have to think about that one.

Still have to factor in how much the printing of cards is going to cost at printers and how much the sheets of red paper is going to be. I'm aiming wrapping paper, that'll be about a dollar per sheet at the most. Just need to know how many squares I can get out of a sheet. A ballpark figure of maybe 12 squares at a dollar per sheet will give me.... 40 bucks! That's a lot to spend on wrapping papers...

And if the printers are going to charge me say, $1.50 per card that's another $750 for 500 invites. Shit that's expensive... work out each invite is going to cost $1.58. And if it's the one with the extra invites that'll be $1.78. When you break it down to unit cost that's cheap.

But I haven't factored in the, will we be using envelopes? Are the envelopes thrown into the price or is that an additional price? The pizza to be ordered for the flower making crew and assembly? And the glue used for assembly, not counting time and effort put in... My cousin and I have been brain storming this, when it comes to the planning and doing, she and I are gold.

I think I can keep it well below $800.

Must take pictures of mock ups and final pieces when ready... if I remember to charge up my camera.

This is going to be fun

I'm curious, how much did your invitation cards cost?

Oh gosh, I just remembered, I have to do 50 handmade invites for a friend's wedding!  

they changed their mind, they want a guest book now...

My Engagement Folders (Buku Permintaan)

Option A

Option B

You got that right, it's folder with an S.

When I got engaged several months back, I was in a dilemma... and a bit stressed. More along the line of what my folder is going to look like than anything else (everything else was great) my folder was nonexistent until the nth hour. 

After all these times of making custom orders for other peoples' engagements I was stuck with mine! I didn't know what colour scheme I was going to do. I didn't how I was going to design it. Most important was the colour scheme, it wasn't until the week of the engagement function did I finally decide on the colour scheme, more along the line of the fiance decided on the colour scheme, I just ran with it.

Option A was a bit ostentatious for me, I was just trying to make the feathers work because I already bought them. I thought it'll be something different. 

Option B is more classic. More me, but of course this was THE function wasn't it.

In the end, on the day itself, I asked the family, and they chose option....

Which one would you have chosen?

All That White and Red II

This was a commission from a dear lady, who asked me to make a book from her son's wedding pictures. It was a mixture of portrait and landscape shots which she had selected and had printed out. I didn't want to do just a regular book and the pictures were beautiful and I felt it would be a shame to just keep it in a book only to open when you want to see it. Since the pictures were about 8 by 12 inches, I told her that I would make the book into a concertina so that not only can they keep it as a book but also able to pull it out as a display.

In theory it was a good idea.

I just had to find the courage to make it.

I'm glad I went with my gut instincts. Here's one of the two books I made.

The book when closed

I kept the front simple, with details coming from the sash of satin organza ribbon across with the bow and little red roses hanging from skinny white satin ribbons with silver details on the side. I used chiffon with silver dots throughout the book to add sparkle and glitter.

Book partially opened

As you can see, it opens up like a regular book with pictures of a beautiful wedding couple. The bride was so pretty and her dress was beautiful, I used her as the inspiration for the books.

Book/Album when opened and displayed

I used the red roses on ribbons at the side as accents and they add colour as well as pick out the bouquet of red roses the bride has. Took me several hours just to put those roses on. In total for the three books I used almost 80 roses.

The pictures are recessed so even when shut they do not touch each other and are not glued down. The only thing that's holding them in place are the ribbons at the corners. That way they can choose to move the pictures around or change it for a different set of images.

The landscape version is the same as well, only when you stretch it all out, they better have enough table space for it.

All in all, the client and husband was blown away when I presented the books. She was so happy I got an extra tight hug from her when she was saying thank you. The books have flown off to Europe as Christmas presents for the wedding couple, and I hope that they feel the same way as their parents did when I presented them the books.

At Work & All That White and Red

This is me, at god knows what time in the morning. There I am trying to figure out a placement for all those red roses and ribbons. I moved into the living room and took over the dining table. I needed alot of space for this. I lost sleep doing this order but well worth it.

And after no sleep and working straight into the night and back into day, I came out with two 16 inches by 12 inches album books and I made the smaller book as a present for the client.

To be continued in the next post...