The Royal Wedding (Part 4)

Out of all the handmade things I made for the wedding, this ought to be my favourite. These hantarans were made a day before the wedding reception, and took me less than few hours to assemble everything - it's nice to have natural resources (lots of trees) around your house hehe.

Each of the hantaran was decorated with a pantun plaque. Pantun is a four verse poem that rhymes and always been associated with expressing poetic feelings in Malay culture. My father is an avid fan of anything poetic, so he made 9 out of 11 pantuns all by himself. Trust me, even I have problems in understanding the words that he used for the pantun heh.

I bought the plaques at one of the art stores and decoupage them with the pantuns. The process wasn't that hard, but it took me few days too, since each step needs to be thoroughly coated with sealant to make the plaques waterproof.

Oh. And I did incorporate a lil bit of quilling in one of the hantarans hee...

DIY Engagement Ceremony - Part III: The Gift Boxes

I love repetitive geometrical patterns (and by now you should be tired reading that haha). I'm so into Islamic Arts right now, and been reading on the fascinating geometric patterns in Islamic Designs - the beauty of geometric ornamentation in stressing the importance of unity and order.

I've decided to do something that is not too complicated, and ended up on this design. :) Bought the box at D' Nata, Tropicana City Mall, Petaling Jaya (during Christmas sale!).

And these biscuit boxes carry the same design as well. You can find the plastic boxes at any bakery shops. I found mine at Bagus Baking Solutions at Section 13, Shah Alam. That's the nearest to my place anyway.

 

We used three different types of biscuits - all are store-bought: Almond Biscotti, Raspberry Viennese and Chocolate Chip Cookies. (The Biscotti was superb and dad's favourite- bought them at Chocolat World.).  I used my reliable CS2 Photoshop to create the simple tags (yeah, need to upgrade the CS soon haha), and cut them using EK Success Circle Scissor Plus (love the toy!). Enjoy! :)

Up next: The favours! :P

DIY Engagement Ceremony - Part I: The Hantaran

I've talked about Merisik in Malay culture before, and this time, it's my pleasure to share the uniqueness of Malay engagement ceremony. Unlike most parts of the world, the engagement ceremony in Malay culture is done in a much bigger scale, and it isn't just between two people. The ceremony (cum celebration) involves the whole of both families, and sometimes, friends. It's more like an official ceremony where two delegations meet and confirm (verbally) on the upcoming wedding - and celebrate the agreement with delicious food afterwards hehe.

I personally think that the uniqueness of Malay wedding lies in the hantaran (sets of decorated gift items that sometimes include a ring, fruits, cakes, biscuits, clothings etc which are exchanged between the two families.) The word 'hantar' means 'send' in English, and the additional suffix 'an' refers the word as a noun, which derived the meaning as 'the items that are sent'. Basically, hantaran are a must during engagement/ wedding ceremony, and were always exchanged in odd numbers. For example, if the man's family brings 5 trays of hantaran, then the lady's family will have to reply with 7 trays of hantaran, if it's 7 trays, then the lady's side will have to prepare 9 trays etc. All the hantaran decoration are hand-made, and usually use lots flowers (fresh/ artificial) and ribbons, and always in theme colours (Try image googling "hantaran" and you'll see what I mean).

For the past few months, I've been quite busy juggling between my day job and preparing for my sister's engagement ceremony. Seriously, my sister is a hopeless soul when it comes to the art of making hantaran, or any other types of DIY decorations, so I completely took over :P. We were going for a more modern design, and I couldn't help but included quilling on each of the hantaran. Yes! Quilling! On hantaran! :)

We gave out 7 hantaran, which include:

a fondant cake (home-made by my cousin, Najwa)

Urat Jati (literal translation= wood teak texture), a Terengganu delicacy by my aunt, Teh Lah.

 Sampin Songket (hand-woven fabric worn as part of Malay wear) and Songkok (traditional cap)

Baju Melayu (traditional Malay outfit worn by men - this one is for the upcoming wedding)

a box of chocolates (with quilling-adorned box)

biscuits (almond biscotti, chocolate chips & raspberry viennese)

a tray of fruits with sparkling red grape drink

I had a blast making these, even though it was my first time trying my hand at flower decoration. :P The 7 butterflies were a huge hit and stole the limelight of the hantaran haha. I'll write in details about the butterflies in the next entry! Watch the space for more details (Part II) on the DIY Engagement Ceremony, okay! :)

Hues of blue.

I don't like the fact that I missed this wedding. :( But I love everything about these.

It's a close cousin's wedding, and since I couldn't be there physically, I sent these to represent me lol. It's just a little something I loved to do, and a little something that is needed in the wedding.

My aunty wanted something plain and simple, without too much of exaggerated design on the boxes for the high table favours. So I made 10 of these:

Yes, the design looks simple, and yet cutting and gluing each paper together took me few sleepless nights and 100 of many different kinds of blue quilling strips. I'm loving the gorgeous off-white textured paper (found them on shelves in a stationery shop) and decided to wrap the box with it.

Shahir and Murni, congratulations on your wedding. Sorry we couldn't make it, but we're there in souls. :)

Teacher's Day

Happy Belated Teacher's Day everyone!

16th of May actually marked my 5th year of becoming an official teacher. There were some gaps in between those days where I was more of a student than a teacher (and I'm still on 'leave' right now -read: jobless :P), but the fact remains, I stepped into the teaching business exactly on 16th May, 2005. So I am a teacher, right! I was born in a family of teachers, both my parents were teachers, I was brought up in a neighbourhood where teachers ruled (whenever I mentioned my housing area, people would start asking,"So, which teacher's daughter are you?") and even most of my friends are teachers - okay, that's a given, since we are majoring in teaching anyway hahaha.

This year I got a chance to prepare some gifts for Teacher's Day celebration, as requested by Miera, a lovely girl from Johor. Though there were some miscommunications involved, I'm glad that the gifts had safely arrived and I sincerely hoped that everything went well for the celebration.

The gift comes in 3 forms: the boxes, the glasses, and the cards. Here are the cards:

The close up of the cards:

Here're the glasses:

By the time the pictures were taken, the red glass were yet to be buttonized (is that a word? :P). The close up of the glasses:

And here're the two types of boxes made - I've always wanted to do milk-carton boxes, and here's my chance of doing that. The white box actually complimented the white-based cards with red/ dark blue/ light blue/ pink theme, and the matching cards.

I added up the altered cloth peg and a tag (it was last-minute addition - but totally loved them!)

And this yellow box is actually meant for 12 special sets that she requested. By the time the pictures were taken, I've done all 12 boxes, but the glasses and the cards were still in progress. And I totally forgot to take the aftermath pictures.

And here's an example of the end product:

I made 94 sets of these, and this would be my last bulk order for a while. I decided to take a break, and won't be taking orders anymore, until August arrives. I need to finish up the remaining requests (should be done by June), and seriously need to start experimenting again. I love entertaining others' requests, but once in a while, I need time to do my own favourite things as well. And I've already listed few new quilling projects that I need to start gearing up to!:)

The Black Box

It has been a tiring week week so far. I've been running around and trying to settle few things in between.  My convocation is coming up and I just noticed a mistake in my name (so need to do correction with the university), there are more permanent jobs to apply, orders to fulfill, things to buy etc. Oh, and there's KL International Book Fair to go. Well, I've been there twice already, and bought few interesting books (that I would love to share later!), and am planning to go again on Saturday. There goes my budget for the month!.

Let's go back to the main agenda: The black box.

I didn't plan the box to be black and white. But I happened to go to a stationery shop last week and saw this gorgeous looking wrapping paper. with. eyes-rolling-with-excitement. price. tag. I ended up buying 3 pieces with plentiful of ideas of what to do with them. And I will probably go back to buy some more hehe.

This is actually meant as a packaging for a bulk order that I received. I've done making all of them (with tons of FUN in between). I can't reveal what yet (though totally tempted to) since I'm yet to send them to their owner, so for the time being, just enjoy the box okay.

I'm totally into packaging right now, and boxes are always my favourite. I thought of adding ribbons to the box, but then, it doesn't feel right as it would take away the beauty of the pattern paper. So I simply gave a dash of a quilled flower on top. After all, simplicity is what I always go for. Let's take a sneak peak of what the inside looks like :P

I've included the card since it fits in the whole black and white theme. It even matches the quilled flower outside.

I hope Are-ween would love the box, and the things that come with it!

Merisik

Def. in English: pre-engagement ceremony that usually been directly translated as asking/ spying ceremony.


Merisik according to wikipedia:

The adat merisik (asking ceremony, or more literally 'spying custom') is the traditional Malay system for arranging marriages. When it is time for a young man to get married, his family will look around to identify a number of potential brides. Nowadays, the man might suggest to his family who he would like them to consider, and it may be that a romantic link already exists between the man and woman. Having decided upon one particular woman, the merisik, or investigation process, takes place. For this ceremony one or more representatives (wakil) of the man's family pay a friendly visit to the family of the woman whom they have in mind as his potential bride. The visit is purely for the purpose of further investigation, and it gives the visitors the chance to see the woman. A hint will be given to her parents regarding the purpose of the visit, and their reaction will be assessed. The woman's parents may also give the visitors some idea as to whether or not their daughter would be interested in the match. The merisik does not constitute a formal proposal. Following the visit both sides can begin to think more seriously about the possibility or otherwise of a marriage. It is possible that no progress may take place, and the man's parents or representatives will then look for another possible bride.

Simplified version of merisik according to me:

It's the first official visit that marks the seriousness of a relationship. It's more like the official visit to introduce your boyfriend/ girlfriend to your family (despite the many unofficial ones haha), with the intention of discussing engagement/ marriage. A merisik ring would normally be given to the woman as booking fees (haha - no pun intended!), and both sides would normally exchange few gifts (fruits and food) as token of acceptance. Back in the old days, wikipedia entry would be a much better definition of merisik, but in these modern days where love marriage rules, I think my definition would be better haha.


It was a cousin's ceremony. We could simplify the whole thing and transformed the whole merisik thingy into a simple engagement ceremony, but the groom-to-be side wanted to do it properly, and we're going to have another official ceremony for engagement.


It was a truly family affair (more like a small family gathering with lots of food). I was asked to help out with one of the gifts, and thus, the box with plums in it. It took me a day to prepare everything - the plums, the mounting boards for the box, the box template, the yellow wrapper, the quilled pieces, the idea arrangement etc.


I'm all for simplicity, and it's the best I can do in a short time. The design was inspired by Arabesque design- an element of Islamic art where geometrical patterns are repeated to form artistic motives.

Goodies for Aqiqah

Ayra Natasha must be one lucky baby.

That's what I thought during the process of making these goodies. Ayra's mum wanted specially made goodies, and handpicked each items carefully. And my task was to design the paperbags, wrap each goodies carefully and later tagged them with hand-made tags.

This is my first bulk order, so I'm very meticulous with the outcome. At first the order was for 50 goodie bags, then was later increased to 100. I think she wanted to order more, but due to time constrains, I have to stop at 100. It's been very tiring, but I think it's all worth it once I've seen the finish products.

Let's start with the invitation cards to the Majlis Aqiqah (she only wanted two for her husband's boss and office):



The cards came in two colours, and they're made with similar design concept for the whole Aqiqah event - pink and white. (p/s Ayra's parents were in the blurry background frame on the the top pic). Here's the close up for the flowers and the invitation:


As for the goodies, these were what's inside the paper bag:

Lollipop(s):


(this is how the original lollipops looked like)


Marshmallow packet(s):



Cute Pink ladybird (or was it a bug) saving(s). I totally forgot to take the aftermath pics for the saving, so it's a bit sad that I can't show how it's done here. But at least you could see the bug, right? The bug was wrapped in a tulle, and was also given a tag similar to those of lollipops.


And here's the paperbags that I made:


Altogether I've done:

100 paperbags


100 medium-size tags (for the paperbags)

100 medium-size flowers (for the paperbag tags)

300 small-size flowers (for the lollipops, marshmallow packets and the bugs) and 200 small-size tags (for the goodies)


*Pat on my back for finishing all of these on time haha*

This should be how the goodie bags looked like once all the three items were arranged inside (sorry the pic was a bit blurry - I was in a hurry!):


And last but not least, after seeing Ayra Natasha's name for the 102nd time, I finally got to meet the lucky girl:


Such a lucky cutie! (LOL for the picture-spam entry haha)

Footnote: Aqiqah is an Islamic event done to welcome a newborn baby to the world, by sacrificing animal(s) and the cooked meat were served during the occasion. Aqiqah is also known as a baby announcement event where families, friends and neighbours were invited to celebrate the blessed occasion. And sometimes during the event, (where it's more like culture-related) the newborn would have his/her first haircut.