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| interior of our handmade cards to invite friends |
Last year I designed and printed the invite cards for all the districts in our chapter using MS Publisher. This year I refused Angie's request to do the same as our home computers somehow no longer have MS Publisher. Also, I would like to make use of the card making session as a bonding time for our district WD members. I'm sure the other districts would benefit much from this bonding activity too.
My initial ideas for our handmade invitation cards were grand.. to make use of fabric or felt to create simple but pretty pictures on the front cover; or to make use of stock paper for layering to create elegant yet simple effects; or do a paper handicraft of a sun to suit our theme to become brilliant suns of the world.. Eventually, all these grand ideas, breakthrough ideas couldn't materialize because I simply have insufficient creativity, experience and resources to make them happen. What turned out was juz a simple card, a patchwork of what I'm very experienced at -- bookmarks and cards. The outcome was satisfactory enough.. though the entire process of conceptualizing this was stressful and truly agonizing!!
As planned, our district members met at Sam's home for our first WDFD prep meeting on a Sunday afternoon. Those two days before were damn stressful for me as I couldn't decide what to do for this invite card. Finally at the eleventh hour, I came out with the artwork for the four elements on the card and decided how the card should look. Most fortunately for me, Hougang Mall has recently a new tenant, Xorex Press, which could print good, reliable color printouts on the spot quickly. A trip to Xorex Press and Popular on Sunday morning relieved almost half of my anxiety and tension before this first prep meeting. So lugging 4 sets of color printouts, 3 packets of maroon and gold card papers, 2 laminating machines, and lots of miscellaneous stationery and pens, I set off to our first prep meeting.
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| exterior of card, beautified by Mona's painting |
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| buddhist god Nancy's creation of my WDFD souvenir prototype |
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| sachets for rice beautifully sewn by Karen |
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| final souvenir with En'en who insisted on taking picture with it |
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| basket of souvenirs all ready to be given to attendees of WDFD |
The souvenirs for last year's WDFD was provided by SHQ - an A3-sized 20-year calendar till 2030, SGI's 100th anniversary. This year however, it's on our own, another source of stress and headache as I have to crack my head to think of something simple enough, functional, presentable, and involving group preparation. Wow.. that's a tall list for me!! (-_-;;
After much surfing with Uncle Google, I finally decided on making a fragrant rice sachet.. that model I saw don't even required needle and thread; I juz got to glue the two square pieces of muslin fabric together!! Sounds easy enough.. but what is muslin fabric and where can I get some pretty ones? If can't find muslin, will normal fabric allow the fragrance from the rice to come out? And where to get fabric glue?? Uncle Google was good enough but down to the specifics in Singapore, I need to speak to a pro! That very morning immediately after I decided what to do, I called up Nancy who's the expert where it comes to craft and stuff; she sews her daughter's bags and purses, and hubby's keyboard carrier bag on top of baking own bread, logcakes and mooncakes among her many varied endeavours.
Nancy was really my buddhist god and such a angel.. the following day I met her at her home where she showed me how to make a fragrant rice sachet from scratch with her rice, lemongrass essential oil, rustic linen cloth and her sewing machine. She taught me how to cut the cloth, stitch up the cloth patches with her sewing machine, mix the oil and rice, and finally hand-sew up the sachet. In less than an hour and a half, I was ready to go chiong to make the souvenir with my WD members!! What's more, she gave me her beautiful rustic linen cloth, equally rustic plain ribbon (as hook for the sachet) and all available ribbon labels to make 30 rice sachets for my WDFD.. Boy, I am so very touched!! But that's not the end, that evening, she went to shop for more ribbon labels and even bought for me another roll.. Nancy is really such a godsend and my true blue buddhist god, isn't it?
As all those happened before our First Prep Meeting, I was able to show the prototype and cloth and ribbon labels to the district ladies. Before the end of our card making session, Karen volunteered to sew up all the sachets with ribbon labels and plain ribbon as hooks!! I didn't know she was such a accomplished seamstress that I even repeated everything Nancy had taught me to Karen.. Who knows, Karen completed sewing all 30 beautiful sachets in juz one afternoon, and even ironed them neatly before handing them to me at our yonsha rehearsal juz three days after our First Prep Meeting!! Karen was so amazing..
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| hard at work puttin & sewing up lavender-fragrant rice into sachets |
We found out that most of us couldn't sew so well. Mona and Kumari were almost intoxicated by the strong french lavender essential we used to mix with our rice before we put them into the sachets and sew them up. We really had a good time working and chatting!! (^_^)
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| thank u Nancy, for givin me idea for craftwork for WDFD |
I had initially wanted to do away with the craft time, but realized that craft time also makes very good bonding time.. which comes in useful if we want our invited friends to feel comfortable and warm up quickly with us.
This craft idea came about after buddhist god Nancy (again) came across this on the internet and actually made one and posted it on her fb. I became a sucker for its ingenuity and usefulness.
While bathing one evening, I stared at my empty shampoo bottle and realized that I could use that as well instead of juz getting J&J body lotion bottles!! I became all excited once again and began my search for empty plastic bottles.. After getting the bottles, the next tedious task was to wash and clean them.
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| Sam & I performin transformation work with dangerous tools |
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| totally transformed shampoo & shower gel bottles !! |
Although we did not have time for craft time during our WDFD meeting, Sam and I had a wonderful time yakking and joking as slaughtered those plastic bottles!! :D
I am sure we could fit the craft time into our zadankai one day soon.. (-_^)
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