Camera, action!

It's been a loooong time I haven't been involved in a TV shooting (last time was when I was still in high school, shooting for a TV musical,lol). But, on Thursday May 31, 2012, I had a chance to do it again.


The shooting was for Trans7's programme, "Warna", a programme which usually features small businesses. There supposed to be three of us, me and my partners in craft, mbak Vivi and ibu Pia of Idys. Unfortunately ibu Pia unable to come due to her business in Bandar Lampung. So there we were, me and mbak Vivi, talking about Calyx's batik products. Taken place in the Idys Store and ibu Pia's house in Jakarta.

It involved two 9 months old smiley babies, a curios 3 years old girl (mbak Vivi's niece), an active 1,5 years old boy (Arka, mbak Vivi's son), a pretty 3 years old girl named Alby and a gorgeous 10 years old girl whose name I regretfully forgot (hey, I'm not 17 anymore! Lol!)


Anyway, it was aired on Monday, May 04. It feels kinda weird though, to see yourself on TV after a loong loong time...heehee...
My father recorded it, so here it is...

Too passionate about the job :P

Pfeewh, it's been like decades I haven't been updating my sites ...

It's because I've been busy doing orders and stocks, I'd been through human resources crisis here... Can you believe it, I've changed assistant(s) 3 times within this last couple of months! With some bazaar events approaching, there's no way I'm doing them all by my self, I still have house chores, a husband and a son to tend to...

It's quite hard to find someone that can share the same passion of the craft. But now I found the one that I think pretty acceptable, alhamdulillah, though there's one funny incident that I'm gonna tell you here.

I was explaining to the assistant about the red backpack for my dear cousin, Jia's daughter, to her. As she looked at the fabric, she said it was too much for 1 backpack only. I said, that's ok, she can return the rest of the fabric to me, just make the red backpack 1 piece only and the rest (I was giving her other fabrics too, to be made as multifunction backpack) in black color. Then off her went home, to do the orders.

Yesterday, she gave me the backpacks, including the red one for my cousin. Surprise, surprise, she made 2 of them, the other was made by using other stitched fabric intended for the black one ! She said, it's because the fabric was enough for 2 backpacks, instead of one as I instructed. And she made the side pockets for my cousin's backpack, which I strictly prohibited from the beginning (as Jia's wish), just because she thought it will looked better with them, lol...

My cousin's backpack

My newest project; what do you think?

Remember the multi looks bag I posted previously?
I made another one, similar to that on the post, but it reversible, so even more looks I can get from only 1 bag .
But because it's reversible, I made it without any embroidery/embellishment, I'm afraid if I do, when it's on the inside part, it will ruined because it flattened or tangled with the things I put inside.
Instead, I just put my magnetic corsage on, so it can be detached or moved from 1 side to another.

Look no.1: Denim clutch.

My Very First Craft Swap

It was started when I was expressing my admiration on a craft swap made by mbak Ina Kusumastuti for another crafter.

When mbak Ina asked me to do a craft swap as well, I was so excited. It's an honor to be asked by a fine seamstress and talented crafter, an artist like her. I was also a bit nervous, because I'm afraid my creation wouldn't met her expectation, it's my first craft swap after all. So it took quite a while for me to finish it, because I kept changing my project.

Anyway, it's done now, alhamdulillah .

The theme of our craft swap is "something that tells story".
Everyone who knows me, knows that I have a thing with fairy tales and double (or multi) functions bag. So this time, I was inspired by one of my favourite fairy tales, which is Alice in the Wonderland. I took the character of Queen of Hearts to represents it.

Why her?
Despite of her being mean, I find her funny, a bit gothy and the most glamorous character (she's a queen, obviously ). And I thought her colors, black, white and red, was a very good color combination. Thus, she likes roses, which I thought a popular flower and will be very pretty on ribbon embroidery. The roses also were telling a hope, that my friendship with mb Ina will blooming like the pretty flowers, that our silaturrahim will last forever, insha Allah .

So, I drew The Queen of Hearts on fabric, cut it and stitched it to the bag, embellished it with beads and ribbon embroidery roses. The bag itself is a simple tote, which can be worn as a sling bag or a clutch.

You can wear it like this...

My purchase this week

I bought some of my supplies online, for sometimes I cannot find the things I need for my creations in my town.
Most of them are MP shops, but recently I found a shop in E-bay who sells many cute fabric & quilt blocks. Mind you, I love Indonesian batik and traditional fabric, it's just sometimes a crafter needs variations .
So, the shop I was talking about is Grandma's Sewing Room Stash, located in US. I managed to purchase one panel of 33 Fairy quilt blocks and won a bid at the same shop for a panel of 9 Boutique Items quilt blocks, which I thought would be perfect for my pouch projects.

I've already made stitches on some of these small blocks (Grrr...can't wait to finish 'em all!)

Try my hand on drawing (again)

Drawing is my hobby when I was very young. My father was an architect, drawing tools were cluttered around the house so it's easy for me to got influenced (apparently it wasn't only me, later on my brother become a graphic designer). Funny thing was, I only drew with markers, I wasn't interested in other notions.

But I stopped drawing since, I think, around 3rd or 4th grade. My hobby was shifted to writing. I wrote teenlits, poetry, etc (but never got them published though, my readers were all my close friends ). When I got older, when I was at high school, I stopped writing because of my extra activities at school, namely acting class, discussion group, choir, joining a band & vocal lesson. At college I was even more busier, juggling between study and part time job as a radio DJ.

And now, I got interested in drawing again, since my collaboration with mb Puri on Calyx products got a good response at the Inacraft. They were mb Puri's drawings on fabric, so I just curious to try my own. A bit rusty though ...
These are meant to be on the new batch of Calyx Multi Function Backpack.

Alice's fall to the rabbit hole

Corsage Craze

Some of you might have noticed that I'm crazy for corsage right now.
I searched the net for the tute, found some that I think simple & interesting.
So, below are my results of learning to make corsages. Apologize for the poor quality of the pictures, they were taken with a cell phone camera because hubby left the camera in his office (again), sigh...

(Just for fun/Iseng) Calyx is...

...the sepals of the flower (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calyx).

(INACraft sneak peek) The Return of the Storyteller

So, for the Inacraft Exhibition 2010, I ve been preparing several Calyx products, the new & old ones. Here, I'll show you a few that almost ready.

Calyx Storyteller pochettes will be returned with a little bit of different tweaks.

"Swan Lake", obviously inspired by a composition number with the same title by Tchaikovsky (my favorite composer ;)), which tells a story of Odette, a princess turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer's curse (that's why the swan's bling-blinged, she's a princess afterall ).

Calyx Interchageable-reversible purse

The concept of this purse is to have 2 looks in 1 purse; one side for party/evening look, the other for day/casual look. You can even change the base if you tired of the old one.

My Very first teen/children hijab

I've tried embroidery on hijab before, but it was a big square scarf...I've never try to do it on a ready made children/teens hijab.

So here's one of my first creation, complimented with novelty flower buttons, directly imported from Brazil (thanks to my very dear friend, mbak Mina at http://yuwatiecrafts.multiply.com who helped me supply the buttons :)) and ribbon embroidery.

Well, what do you think?

My First Punch Needle Creation

I've been interested in punch needle craft for quite some time, but found it difficult to find/buy the tool. I looked for it at Crayon Craft Bandung, it was sold out. I asked Hobbycraft Karawaci Jakarta, they said it's been ordered but haven't arrived yet (it's imported). But they willing to take my number and will let me know if the needle has arrived.

Three months past, finally they called me to advise that they've got it. I quickly transferred some amount of money to buy it and tadaaa...three days ago it sent to my address.

So, this is my first punch needle creation, what do you think?

I know, it still need a lot of improvement, I'll keep practicing...