My Newest Indulgence - Shanghai Jazz

Yay finally last Friday, woodblock and me finally bought the Shanghai Jazz Music Cd, yep of cos other then live band, in between the intervals I want to make sure my guests are pampered wth great music to get them into the magical mood of the Romantic Shanghai Night with us. I shall play this music and enjoy it now myself =)

Freshly bake - A Expensive Looking yet Cheapo Costing Envelope

As peepom have mentioned, it is definitely a crazy challenge I have set myelf for the envelopes... hmm 200 definitely no joke but thanks to smart woodblock who surprising do better mathematical calculation for me we realise that we may need only 150-160 envelopes instead =)

I rem during those days for the prepping of the rom, woodblock and me spent like 2 days to churn out only 20 plus envelopes. so today i deliberately time myself - 4 hours for 20 envelopes, not bad for a starter because I was still toying around by doing one envelope at one time while watching video. So when I realise I was at tortoise speed I realise i need to redevise and reorganise the envelope making procedure. So thus pace got much faster as time goes by =)

Presenting the first batch of 20 envelopes, another 130-140 more to go. I'm sure it will be much faster when woodblock and my aunt steps in to help me with the tedious repetitive job =) so i won't get stuck so long just on one DIY project.

Perhaps I should get a kickstart with the card design by engaging Ah li's help soon =)

Let me see total costing for the envelopes(let's take it as 150 of them): (3x$2.50) +(2x$4.10) = $15.70 (hmm not bad)

Cost per envelope (well we are always into averaging right lol) = $0.1047 (hmm not bad at least it is cheaper than popular bookshop ones haha)

Now even thought some might say wy so stupid isn't Grand Shanghai going to provide u withthe cards? Well yup it's free but the only catch is that we need to print the inserts ourselves which cost slightly more than $100. So if I can reproduce DIY envelopes+ cards at around same price or so why not make it a personalise one for my guests?

Ok i need to meet woodblock and his colleagues for dinner at cafe swiss =) heard its a 1-1 buffet so gonna look forward to it !!!

Brids who are DIYing your own doily envelopes , do send me your photos of your work because I am really interested in the variation of the doily envelopes with locally sold doilies too!!!

True Unique Crystal Bouquets

Now a few days ago, when I saw the advert on the bridal forum on the rental of crystal bouquet I was like dumbfounded , rental fee of 100 plus for a crystal bouquet? ell it be truly value for money if it had been made with real swarovski crystal but i have been going down to craft shop in amk all these while it doesn't really take much time that under close examination to realise those aren't even those super reflective kinda crystals woah.

Now it's not that i'm trying to pour salt into wound, but if you ask me why michelle chia's bouquet look so gorgeous, here are the points:

1) It's geniuine bling swarovski crystals!
2) Look at the no of crystal count : 999 (no joke)
3) most importantly which some may not notice=> the crystal stalk are place very compact to each other so as to cover the WEAKEST part of a CRYSTAL BOUQUET => the ugly metallic stems!!!!

However, if you have that much money to spare, you should just go ahead and buy the crystal bouquets from overseas =)

Ok anyway just in case we all become country bumpkins, crystal bouquets has been going on for a REALLLLLLLLLLL long time overseas and the design of crystal bouquets ep by the original creator has already been evolve into what I would call a piece of ART (serious!)

Below are some of the shots of her ART work(but some of them is a little overwhelming for my likings though maybe I'm that into my royalty life as a Princess yet):

Picture source: http://www.crystalbouquets.com/

Reminds me of Lee Hwa Jewellery trademark Diamante Purple Gem Pendant/Ring

This is one of my Fav bouquet


Now that's what we call gorgeous!

Below are other pieces of crystal bouque design from other various sources

This is a DIY bouquet from some bride! (it's pretty becos it's compact to cover the ugly stems)

I like the mixture of beadigs such as pearls and black beads=> but i dislike the sparse effect of showing the ugly stems (imperfection)

I reall wonder if anyone of you can have suggestion so as to cover up the ugly stems?

Below are the ones that was highlighted from various sources and are my fav

Main reason for liking No. 1: I love the richness of the red which gives an oriental vintage feel which is like my latest craze now.

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THE BEST????

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Source: http://www.angelsinteriors.co.uk/bridal_bouquets_crystal.html

I would love this as my bouquet seriously !

Trial 3- Doily Envelope

Today I went shopping again for craft material and yay I stumble gold material (becos mainly it was REAL CHEAP) while looking for buttons for woodblock's shirt. Now the doily which I have been using previously was from Diaso, costing me about $2 for 10 pieces. But today I stumble the golden find which is . . . .
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50 pieces for $3.20?????? OMG

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BUT WAIT, there's more!

$2.50 for 50 pieces

After half an hour or struggling and toggling between the 2 new doily designs, I decided to go for the second one finally. SO here the third trial

THE FRONT THE BACKZOOM in on the FRONT

Simply love the emboss parts of the paper other than the standard lace patterns!

ZOOM in on the BACK (1)

I deliberately choose the positioning such that the roses will be at each end - giving a more romantic feel to it.

ZOOM in on the BACK(2)

Did a little detailing with my flower punch

Trying the envelope wth a dummy card

Ok i admit that I was still kinda of lazy so I did hide the folds at the top but hey this is a TRIAL right =P anyway i must give credits to shi yun(my other younger sis-in-law who is a few yrs older than ah li) who has been giving me comments for the processing of the third trial =)

Wonder when woodblock will be back......................???

I'm so hungry waiting for him to eat dinner.

Ok shall do mass production soon when i get more feedbacks and comments from friends for the third trial.

Interesting way to torture your partner

Now while I was surfing through the net, somehow i recall the time whereby Qi told me how "creative" I am in torturing woodblock with the piece of crap wall paper on his notebook's desktop(which is still there) and of cos another secret torturement which I have failed to tell others

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YEP Believe it or NOT, I ATE UP woodblock's whole box of Sun Biscuits!!!!

Obviously I know it's his favourite but what to do when I know exactly he will be heart broken to find his fav food

GONE

GONE

GONE ........................... (MUAHAHAHHA)

The best thing is I'm never ever out of ideas to "PAMPER" woodblock due to my flair of creativity => here's the latest one "nice" idea for btbs who have headache on

HOW to MAKE a BOLD statement

without saying a word of cos (chuckle)

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nice isn't it? I luv the description of the feelings of the individuals at the corner shoulder. I shall name this the punisher shirt -> to be worn on your partners when they are making you VERY VERY unhappy!

I found it on ebay => however, I am not a fan of pure red and I prefer other colours MAYBBE this can be a nice vdae present next year (muahhahaahha evil laughter filling the air again)!

OK GUYS you can officially HATE this BLOG lol for all the evil doingings I have been teaching your wives to be.

P.S.: Hong and Qi shall I get you guys a pair each as wedding gift? I'm so gonna get my camera ready for the guys(Woodblock, M and HX) to take done their expressions - PRICELESS!!!

Which one Trial 1 or 2?

Trial 2: this time round a symmtrical wrap and I realise it can still look good.

lol of cos i use back the doily and thus for the line crease. sigh now i am caught whether to do it symmetrically or assymmtrically. anyway some may wonder why i am not doing anything extra like adding other fanciful stripes etc decor to the envelope => very simply reason cos i need to re produce like 200 plus of them so each extra step means i might kill myself from tirednss leh!!! so this is good enough for a mass DIY production. if we are talking about less than 50 than it is another story of cos =) actually i might play cheat a bit by combining cutouts from the orginal grand shanghai cards with mine so i can save up on more work.

anyway i saw this sleek casual bridal dress online !!! oh my it is simply gorgeous to the bits!!!!



You know i think wedding dresses should not be always the usual wdding gown +evening gown combination. the best way to end a wedding is with a comfy small sexy sleek dress to party out for the night after the wedding!

Recently there was a hype on Michelle Chia's crystal bouquet which actually has been used like for so long overseas and i saw that there was a crazy rental price of 250 bucks to it!! Super crazy esp when the bouquet doesn't seem hard to make => all u need is a hardworking person perhaps like woodblock who can sit there and reproduce things like perhaps 200 times of so and voila a crystal bouquet is born even from one who has no flair for the art at all.

if I'm that crazy i might do a demo next time to show you how it can be done. bt for now i need to complete the crazy envelopes first.

So which one should i choose? trial 1 or trial 2 or any suggestions?

Trial Run on "Singapore" First Made Doyley Envelope

These days I wanted to try out the local doilies to show to the readers how we translate the Martha Steward idea Singapore style with little effort =>if not you guys will prolly say I KELONG anyhow suggest but cannot work in Singapore (and most importantly I am doing it for my wedding.)

The sad thing was that I am so brought down with attending full days courses until I hardly have time of my own at own to do any art work (so UPSET like NUTS => I seriously need a break leh!=> I haven stop working since last monday?!?!?!)

So all I can do is use the little night time and did a simple trial with the doily. I decided to use some coloured background paper to complement the plain white doily as the doily paper is just WAYYYY too flimsy on its on.

Good thing that Ah li reminded me that it is afterall an oriental shanghai wedding, so the use of the colour should exude some oriental feel to it. I did try it out with red, orange, fushchia pink and black but somehow Fushchia pink was the best one so far.

Ok shall not be too long winded about the process and let's jut fast forward to the trial product:


The back of the envelope. I din use glue at all cos i am too lazy to do it for the trial.

I bought the pink papers from popular => cheapest one I could got hold of 80 pieces for $4.10 (due to it being a photocopier paper but the colour is not the optimum but I wanted to save up for my pocket so I settle for the less) Ayway the pink is darker real life and slightly nicer than the pic tho.

Now the sucky thing about using the doilies sold locally as mentioned before by one btb (was it Rachael?) was that the center part of the locally sold doily has no print at all, looking freakingly ugly plain with no design details at all. So after much thought I realise that the solution can be both simple or hard.

If you are making cards with low pax count, you may go purchase those super small paper doilies for cups => i saw it at one of the store at jurong point(real cheap) and you can just cut and replace the circular part by proper and neat pasting but of cos you need to make sure the pasting is done with right precision if not it will just appear terok and even worse than no design at all.

but i mentioned that I wan to be more subtle this time round with diys as I dun wan to tire myself out and be more readily there for hong's wedding so I came out with a simpler solution
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TADA!

Just fold it assymetrically to reveal an arch design on the front cover. Yep the corner are torn becos i m quite stingy to strongly stick to using the same doily for the trial over and over again.

Simple but I like the effect. Actually just an experience to share = > the lace part looks good when we have plain areas to complement it actually. of cos, the doily looks best without any background at all but the thin flimsy doily material can be troublesome for ur guests as it is easy to crumble and crush with little force.

Ok time for my Detective Conan comic reading session in bed with my comfy silky bedsheets muahaahah.