Typography Quilling Workshop

Finally! After so many delays!

Miyyah@Kertas will be conducting a Typography Quilling Workshop, co-organised with the amazing LittleSyam. Participants will be making typography quilling artwork and you'll be guided on tips and techniques of typography quilling, how to select your materials, colour choices etc. Registration opens now. For RSVP, please email miyyah@gmail.com or pm any of the social media account stated in the poster.

p/s: Yes, I have finally joined the Instagram bandwagon! Look me up at IG miyyahatkertas.

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! ;-)

Vietnamese Quilling

This, might take a while to read. I'm in the mood to write, thus you can expect a very long entry. Feel free to skip any part if you wish. :P

If this blog has an expiry date for a backdated entries, this one would've expired ages ago heh. I have the habit of leaving my items at the most unexpected places, and tend to misplace... almost everything. The photos from this trip were scattered in few different hard disks, so it took me a while to gather my favourite photos and put them up in an entry.

I went for a personal trip to Vietnam some time last year (told you it's been a while lol), and had the opportunity to explore the beauty of handmade crafts there. I was lucky to have a local guiding me around, and once she knew I was into arts and crafts, she brought me to all these wonderful arts/ craft places. It didn't take me long to realise that quilling artworks were sold EVERYWHERE. Not only the Vietnamese are able to produce quilling artworks in bulk and sell them on streets of Vietnam, they even export them to other countries!

I don't know much about Vietnamese Quilling so I'll leave it to you to find that out on your own (Mr Google, anyone?).  According to the local guide, quilling artworks can be found almost everywhere on the streets of Ho Chi Minh, and mostly targeted for foreign tourists, since the motives are very culturalistic - as in the recurring themes are Vietnam sceneries, tourist spots etc. Nature and animals are also the recurring motives in the quilling artworks. They even re-create some famous paintings into quilling forms too.
 

What amazed me most about Vietnamese Quilling was the thin paper strips used to make the design. They used as thin as 1mm paper strips to create the intricate designs. Mind-blowing! And I love how they shape the paper as well.

I shamelessly spent quite a sum for the artworks, so I could get inspired by them. I do have plans to go there again, and revisit all these wonderful places and learn them first-hand. One day, perhaps. :-)

Midnight Quilling

Mine (with a glass of teh tarik)

I went crazy one day and spent midnight hours at Mamak watching football with a couple of friends. And went crazier and taught them how to quill inbetween the football watching and eating my roti canai and teh tarik LOL. (Yes, quilling taught me how to multi-task!)

Mikko of Craftzmaniac

 Our tools were limited to quilling paper, cards, and glue, and suprisingly managed to get a few people intested LOL. One of the Mamak staff did approach and told us how much he's into arts and crafts too (drawing, in specific). It made us happy so we decided to give him my card LOL.

Fid of MisFidKrafts

And nothing beats the feeling of making someone happy. :-)

Craft with Parenthots 2012

The school holiday is coming and so is CRAFT WITH PARENTHOTS! Bring your kids to the specified date and venue for hours of crafting fun!

Date: 26th May 2012
Time: 11 am - 3 pm
Venue: Tropicana City Mall, Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia.

Programmes:  
11am – Paper quilling craft begins
12noon – End of paper quilling craft / Clean up
12.30pm – Decoupage craft begins
1.30pm – End of decoupage craft / Clean up
2pm – Craft with felt material begins
3pm – End of Craft with ParenThots / Clean up

For more details, check the Parenthots website.

Let's have a messy kind of fun!

(The above is too complicated, hard to read, too many colours, and over-accessorized heee. Let's do a better one next time!)

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...

The Royal Wedding (Part 3)

The favours.

Sorry for being quiet for a while. Life has taken its toll on me, and I was in a mess, trying to figure out things (my eyebags were really bad these few months!). It's calmer now, and I'm trying to pick up the pieces again. There are many new things I did and I can't wait to blog all about them!

Let's continue from where we left, shall we?

Here are the favours that we made for my sister's wedding. I altered the Ma'thurat (prayer book) for the Akad Nikah (solemnization ceremony), and gave them out for the guests:

And I made the tags stamped with white chalk ink for the guest reception favours (we bought the ready-made woven box):

 ... and packed the ice gems biscuits for our little guests as well.

Last but not least, these handmade fridge magnets were made few weeks before the wedding, for my sister's close friends:

(I know, I went a wee bit crazy with everything LOL).

Quilling Class Poster

Update: Slot 1 only have 4 more seats available! More seats available on Slot 2!

Quilling Class

 Miyyah@Kertas
and
Simple Rhyme

are organising

QUILLING CLASS (for ADULTS)

Venue:
CASTOR & POLLUX Professional Styling Studio, 31-2 (2nd Floor), Jln. Wangsa Delima 13, D Wangsa, Wangsa Maju, 53300 Kuala Lumpur. (map will be provided later)

Date:
Saturday, 14th May 2011

Time:
SLOT 1: 12.00 noon – 2.30 pm (10 participants  4 more seats left!)
SLOT 2: 3.00 pm – 5.30 pm (10 participants 8 more seats left!)

Fees per person:
RM70 (Deposit of RM30 to be forwarded before/by Wednesday, 11th of May 2011)

All-in Package:
Basic quilling shapes
Tips on choosing paper and materials for quilling
Techniques of applying quilling on paper/ other materials

2 card designs (flower motives and robot motives)

Quilling Kit (quilling tool, quilling paper, cards, scissors, glue & quilling module)
Refreshment provided.

How to book your place?
Email your details (Name, phone number, email address, choice of slot time and number of required seats) to miyyah@gmail.com

Account number will be given once you’ve confirmed your place. Deposit of RM30 (non-returnable) must be forwarded to the provided account number before/ by Wednesday, 11th of May 2011.

List of participants will be updated daily in the blog/ fb page so do check on the latest update on available spots.

THE PLACES ARE LIMITED SO IT’S FIRST COME FIRST SERVE BASIS. HURRY UP AND REGISTER NOW!

Wanita Hari Ini

Yep. That was me. On a live TV show. :)

I was informed that I would be featured on Wanita Hari Ini (WHI) talkshow merely a week before, and I was in the midst of preparing for my sister's wedding. Luckily, I was still on leave on the proposed date, and agreed to the request. (For my international readers, Wanita Hari Ini can loosely be translated as Women's Today - it's a daily 'live' talkshow which discusses different issues and topics and sometimes invites different crafters for the craft segment). The studio was pretty quiet, since there's no live audience, and that alone managed to calm my nerves. A lot. Heh. They didn't provide me any question beforehand so all answers were given impromptu.

They told me it was going to be 7 minutes. And it was the 7 minutes that changed a lot of things.

Within three hours after the aired segment, there was a sudden increased  of more than 600+ fans on Miyyah@Kertas FB page. A day later, the number reached more than 1000. The usual visitors to the blog always range between 100 - 200 visits daily. On 4th of May, the number spiked to 3929.  The pageviews that usually goes around 400-500 per day, went up to 23724 page views on that day alone! I was shocked. And stunned. And I've been bombarded with questions on the comment pages, and emails, which I still have to find time to answer.

To those looking for more info, and might miss the announcement on FB page, you can check Miyyah@Kertas Quilling FAQ section on top, which I believe, pretty much answered most of the posted questions. If you do have other questions apart from those already been answered, do post them on the FAQ section, and I'll address the answers later. I'm not doing this full time, and I still have to juggle between my day job (which! I! love!) and my other activities as well. I can only quill at night time, and during weekends, so please understand if it takes me some time to reply to them. Patience, my dear, is still one of human's biggest virtue, right? :)

I appreciate the sudden increase of interest in paper quilling - ecstatic was more like it haha - and it spiked the number of visitors to other quillers and cardmakers' blogs as well. It's about time Malaysian cardmakers get the lights they deserved, aite? :P

And amidst the chaotic week, I managed to finish up this frame hehe. Still had some neatness issue with the letters, and missing the dots on the i's due to the rush! LOL! :P

Still, enjoy the frame!

p/s: TV does make you look fat.

CARDS AUCTION GT2.0

As promised, the cards made during the GT2.0 have been put on auction. The Auction starts now and the closing time is at 11.59 am (GMT), on Monday, 7th March 2011.

 (Some of the cards made during GT2.0)

This auction is opened to serious bidders only, and does not include the shipping cost. Have fun!

To bid, please go to CARDS AUCTION page, and put your bid on the first picture of the design (the one with details.)

To my fellow crafters, please help spread the words ya!

Paper Crafters Get Together 2.0: FULL REPORT

It has been a tiring, yet very fulfilling weekend. :)

I was really looking forward for GT2.0, since it's been almost 5 months since our last GT1.0. I would like to consider it a success, and I had tonnes of fun meeting other crafters. I humbly thank everyone for attending, and for supporting this little get-together. Organising wasn't easy, but I've had help from other crafters and art enthusiasts, who gave me more supports than I've ever needed.

Eco-cent$ had been very accommodating in providing a place for us to hang out for the whole day. It was truly an act of kindness that is very hard to come by. Eco-cent$ imports pre-loved items from quality-obsessed Japan, and range from winter apparel to home goods. The quality items are generally sold at value & warehouse prices, suitable for the whole family. The owners are lovely ladies who support Arts & Crafts and they've been such a great help in making GT2.0 a success. For more info on Eco-cent$, you can visit their Facebook page.

As for the lovely 26th of February - I seriously thought my cheeks would be hurt from too much grinning and smiling the whole day. I'd the chance to meet some beautiful and talented paper crafters for the first time - Azilah, Aziha, Musfirah, Fatin, Nazirah, Iza and had great fun in reuniting with As, Lin, Tania and Nadia. I've also received supports from crafters of other crafts as well (felt, crochet, knitting etc), so thank you Mikko, Shikin, Sab,Fyd, Mizam and Norlie! (hope I don't miss anyone!)

For more photos of the event, here are the links:

Miyyah@Kertas Facebook Page
Azilah of Cupcake Craft & Handmade Cards
Sekoci Norlie's

For those who missed the event, no worries. Watch out for our GT2.0 CARDS AUCTION -  we decided to expand the fun online and auction all the cards made during the Paper Crafters Get-Together, so you'll have your chance to bid your favourite cards. It's not really about how much they worth, it's just for the fun of it (thanks Mangosteenskins for the idea!). The collected amount from the auction will be used for the upcoming get-together/ paper-crafts demonstrations. Details on The Auction will be given later. Watch the space okay! :)

Paper Crafters Get-Together - The Map!

Here's the map to Eco-Cents for Paper Crafters Get-Together tomorrow! (I'll provide the confirmed attendees with my number, just in case you'll get lost okay!)

** From Federal Highway - exit Subang Airport first.

I know I wouldn't be able to sleep tonight hehe - am just so excited to meet everyone tomorrow. Probably lots of grinning and less card-making, but who cares! :) See you tomorrow!

DIY Engagement Ceremony - Part V (Final): The Decorations

I can't usually think straight when my energy level is low. Especially at midnights.

The decorations, and the additional labellings weren't in the original plan, but I think I went a wee bit crazy the midnight before the ceremony, and started printing out some weird things. LOL. (I always do funny things at 12 midnight haha).

First, I printed the mineral water labels, and wrapped around all the mineral bottles.

The tissue and the stone was dad's idea, which I LOVE! We added a glass of water with extra flower from the hantaran. Just a quick, and simple table centrepiece.

 

Second, I printed the menu cards, and paste them right beside the dishes.

The sad part was, I totally forgot to take the pictures of the food. I wish I could show you how the food looked like! All the food were prepared by my awesome aunties. :). I made the menu labels using simple Photoshop design and laminate them so they could be recycled later hehe.

Third, I started gluing my extra quilled flowers on hairclips, for the little girls.

Erm. Okay. The last picture was of my wicked cousin haha, whom had hapilly demonstrated on how to wear a flower on your head LOL!

The hairclip experiment wasn't really successful, because I didn't use strong enough glue, that the flowers didn't stick very well haha. Well, at least I tried. :P

Phew. Finally, that's the end of my sister's DIY Engagement Ceremony! I have to thank my great assistants (my sisters, aunties and cousins) in making this a success. It's not the end yet, as we have a DIY Wedding to plan! See you then! :)

The poster is up!

Thanks Miezam for the poster! :)  Click HERE to go directly to the Discussion Board. Feel free to use the poster to spread the words too. :)

Pictures credit to:

Namizam of MiezCraftShop
Asma' of Simple Rhyme.