Of Whimsical Colours.

It was hard to let go of this one.

...simply because I'm in love with the colours. It took a while to choose colours that could complement each other - but I was pretty satisfied with the outcome.

The colour tones reminded me so much of Irau Mountain, which I had the chance to climb a few months back. The gorgeous and whimsical sceneries on our journey to the top were breathtaking, and they inspired me so much when I designed this.

 

I'm glad that Anuar & Hani love the signage as much as I do, and may both of them have a wonderful journey going forward in life. Happy ever after! ;-)

Who's thinking about you now?

Who's thinking about you now?
If you were building a wall, who would tear it all down and pull you through?
Who's thinking about you?

Who'd care enough to send you flowers, that you could call at all hours,
And give your love to?



Somebody must believe if they could see what I see
If they haven't, well they will
Baby they all will

Just when you suspect that life couldn't get no harder, something comes
Along and makes your dark day darker
The weight of it all falls on you

Who will be the one to listen when it's time to listen?
Who will be the one to miss you when you've gone missing?
Well, I do.

 (J-Mraz)

Saying yes to forever

Thank you for being patient. I'm not going anywhere, and I'm still trying to bend the time-space continuum to be able to do everything that I love to do. I'm not sure whether it would happen soon, but I'm still trying hehe.

To Hafeez and Umainah, thank you for trusting me with this signage for your big day. It was fun to be able to meet the bride to be (despite only at a hotel lobby on a rainy night haha), and it made my day to see her beaming with smile and looking happy.

I love making the swirls (they're my favourite kind!) and it was fun experimenting with the flowers! And the colours! And filling the letters with shades of purple and blue!

Definition of Happiness

I found happiness in collecting smiles and making people happy. How do you find your happiness?

In true words of Alice Walker, "don't wait around for other people to be happy for you. Any happiness you get, you've got to make yourself."

So dear friends, do more of what makes YOU happy.

Love, meet hearts.

How do I love thee, let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight 

For the ends of being and ideal grace. 

 

I love thee to the level of every day's

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. 

I love thee freely, as men strive for right.

I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose 

With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath, 

Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose, 

I shall but love thee better after death.

(Elizabeth Barret Browning, Sonnet 43) 

Soon.

Soon. Very soon.

Wait for me.

It's all because two people fell in love.

The story started when two people fell in love.

And decided they should spend the rest of their lives tormenting with each other.

Come rain and shine.

For better or worse.

May you both love each other every step of the way, Insya Allah. ;-)

Classic Wedding (Part 3: The Withered Roses)

(Please be warned that this entry is laden with pictures)

The withered roses - it started off as an experiment, as I love withered flowers so much. Then it became an obsession that was hard to let go, and the next thing I know, I had made aplenty of them. In variety of colours too. +__+

 So, we had the withered roses everywhere during the wedding hehe. I put them on some boxes for the bride’s family...

 

… and made some of the flowers as the corsages & buttonnaires…

 

.. . and some, on the wedding guestbook (one of those rare cases where I made one)

And plastered them on the wedding signage too…

The signage, bearing the groom and the bride’s names, was quilled in Jawi writing (Arabic alphabets being used to spell Malay words and pronounced as such). All quilling strips were hand-painted and hand-cut. Tedious job, but I’m loving the outcome so much I might do it again. ;-)

Classic Wedding (Part 2: Hand Bouquet)

The best part of preparing for our brother's wedding was that I was allowed to experiment with things I've always wanted to do, but didn't really have time to do them. Hee. This time around, I was going crazy over hand-painted papers, so I thought I could give it a try with this wedding.


Remember my first paper bouquet? It was such a mess and took a lot of my time that I almost gave up on doing another. However, with the current trend of handmade bouquet going rounds, I ought to give it a try again, right?

The tutorial for the ranunculus flower can be found here (amazing tutorial with detailed explanation). I made the hydrangea using a tutorial from a Chinese book (which I didn't understand, and relied totally on the pictures). Instead of using the ready-made coloured papers, I prolonged my suffering by hand-cutting and hand-painting my own paper to get the desired colours. Messy techniques.

It took me almost a week to frantically finish everything, but I think I'm quite satisfied with the end result. Yes, it could be improved in terms of durability and colour choice, but for a last-minute work, not bad, right? :P

I'm not sure whether I'd be able to do the bouquet again, since the process was so taxing, and I almost got insomnia from all these.. but again, you'll never know. ;-)

Classic Wedding (Part 1)

The uniqueness of Malay weddings lies in the very culture-specific celebrations. Let's see - we'd first have the akad (solemnization ceremony), usually organised by the bride's side, and is usually done either at the mosque, or the bride's house. Then there's the reception on the bride's side, and another reception thrown by the groom's family. The reception guest would vary from 400-500 people up till 1000 + guests since we'd usually invite everyone that we know of, instead of having a small ceremony between close friends and family. Yes, wedding is always a huge family event in Malaysia.

So when another in the family got married, I got another excuse to keep myself busy with the preparation. The last preparation of my sister's wedding was way more hectic, since we had to prepare for 2 occassions - the solemnization ceremony and the wedding reception. However, since now it's my brother's turn, we don't have to worry much about the solemnization ceremony apart from preparing the hantarans (wedding gifts) to be brought to the bride's house.

For the akad, my brother decided to give dinar as dowry for the bride, so I prepared the (paper) frame for the dinar on a small canvas board. The paper was hand-painted to give that rustic look, and cut into strips of paper before moulding them into the geometrical shape.

The writing on the board says "The Solemnization Ceremony of Wan Ahmad Asyraf & Siti Fatimah)

I still love the use of pantun like the ones that we did for my sister's wedding, so we decided to preserve the use of pantun for the hantarans.

 

It's quite difficult to translate what's written on the pantun (a traditional poem of 4 verse that rhymed) since the first 2 lines of the verse didn't really have any connection with the latter ,apart from they rhymed. The last 2 verse were the real intended message, and since my dad created different pantun each for the hantaran, each pantun carries different message.

For example, the above pantun carries the message that "you shall befriend aplenty, but you shall be in love with one and only." Or something like that. I might mistranslate that a little since I want the lines to rhyme hehe but you get the point :P. And the below pantun gives the message that you should ask from those who are willing to give, and long for those who are willing to love.
 

We also decided to use rehal (book rest normally used during Quran recitation) as the hantaran base.

We bought the rehal at Mydin Hypermart Kuala Terengganu at RM25 each, which I'd consider quite affordable (and the cheapest I can find), and the rehal won't go to waste, and can always be re-used. The flowers were from Floristika, Bangsar, KL - a wholesale-like emporium specifically meant for flowers and plants. Special shout to Natasya, our cousin, for preparing the pretty sireh junjung.

Till Part 2 then! ;-)