upgrade

Its funny how one easily looks at things differently after a long break from the usual routine.

During my hiatus, i took a long hard look at my wallets and felt like a major upgrade was necessary. I have to admit i had been avoiding this brain-racking and rather-frustrating process because i wanted to stay in my "comfort zone". Wouldn't it be nice to keep doing things the way you're used to?

But no, my mind didn't let me and it went restless for weeks after weeks.
Going back and forth to the studio looking for i-dont-know-what, endless browsing for inspirations, all these took place before i bumped into the answers to my problem which were found under my very own working table.


1. CARDBOARD

I finally decided to seriously befriend this material after making the Hardcover Folders. But this time for the reworked edition of accordion-style wallets. I love their hard surface and durability and it's nice to see that they feel nice to the hands too. (Thanks to Isur for the design inspiration!).

To make a difference from the previous non-cardboard wallets pictures, i also made this DIY lighbox (tutorial) that i use to take pictures of the Cardboard series. 

What do you think of the result?

my DIY lightbox

cardboard accordion wallet

see the collection here

 2. FUSIBLE WOVEN INTERFACING

Another humble material that works surprisingly wonderful with the wallpapers. It gives me a non-tear able quality and fluidity for the paper, although i still can't sew and turn it inside out (bummer).

I have tested it making the Big Wristlet along with some waxed string (to replace the nylon filament cord which is a NIGHTMARE to do by myself). Even though it still needs some fixing, i'm already liking its look.

new big wristlet

definitely need to fix the edges!

And that's a glimpse of my creative process lately. Thank you if you're still reading this!

roller-coaster

A series of happenstances took place these past few weeks. Some were good, some were bad, and some were surreal.

First, the BAD news. 

My only assistant / helper-at-home: Ningsih, made an impulse decision to get married to her ex-boyfriend during a 5-days leave.

(Read that again, and please emphasize on the word "only".)

Here I am, trying to juggle making 200pc of cardholders for a friend's wedding souvenir in July (my biggest order to date!) while also running my currently out-of-stock e̶t̶s̶y̶ facebook shop. By the time i wrote this, i still have 80pc to go, and i am up to my fourth book of wallpapers.

I love the idea of having more assistants for a long time but anybody who's in the handmade business will tell you that it's. not. that. easy.

... aaand it takes a lot of patience (which i am often lacking of).

Not everyone is capable or even has the same standard of neatness when it comes to making things apparently. I've had an assistant in the past who can't even cut straight lines with a ruler and a cutter (yes, believe it). 

This catastrophe is daunting me for weeks, up to the point where i find working by myself in the middle of the night was more bearable than during the day where we normally do it together. 

She was there when i first started Paperpleased and had constantly delighted me with her excellent standard of work. She was the only one i trusted with everything in the house and I always refer to her as my assistant (not a house maid). I encourage her to be on TV with me and along the way we've just sort-of become best friends since we spend most of our time together at home (cant believe, i am this emotional when it comes to her).

I'm still looking for a new assistant at the moment, while still persuading her to come back temporarily (u see how desperate i am?).

the only photo of me & ningsih (taken by hubby)

Now, the GOOD news.

As some of you might know if you follow me on @paperpleased, i had won a free Jakarta-Taipei-Jakarta ticket from Garuda Indonesia!

I've never won anything major before and this was... on a radio!

How many people do you know actually take part in joining them these days? i know none, but apparently this makes me one of them now.

The news led us to the SURREAL part of  this post... my passport.

It just so happened that my passport expires on Dec this year and i had to renew it. However, i found out that i had lost the original copy of my birth certificate and thus, couldn't do the normal procedure of passport renewal.

Being the wanna-do-it-all kind of person and not wanting to spend millions of rupiahs on some agent, i decided to take the trouble of renewing my birth certificate myself. It took 8 working days and cost me only Rp25.000. I felt proud of myself, even if the Catatan Sipil office took two hours to get back and forth (thanks Jakarta traffic!).

Back to the gathering of my documents, i had found out that i could not find my passport. 

Yes, my old passport that i had to renew and which i had in my hands prior to renewing my birth certificate a week ago! 

After turning the house upside-down,and preventing myself from going hysterical by taking a deep breath (it works), i checked the calendar and found out that i couldn't afford to wait til some fairy brought back my passport since i will be flying in July.

On Friday, I decided to go back again to the police station to ask for another Lost Statement (the first was for my birth certificate). Twice in a week to the police station for the same cause is embarrassing enough, but luckily i had a different police to assist me for the second time.

I was planning to go to the headquarter of Immigration very early the next Monday, when the night before just before the midnight strike, i received a tweet from someone. 

"Sis, I found a passport by your name few days ago. Did you lose your passport? If yes, how shall i return it?"

Unbelievable.

I went hysterical right away (this time for a good reason) and hurriedly arrange with the wonderful Atma Jaya student, Marcell, to meet up at Plaza Semanggi the next morning.

Apparently, his friend's mother had found it on a parking slot at where she works (which must be the Catatan Sipil office) and put it in her son's car, which then was found by Marcell who shared a ride with him. It had been laying there for days when Marcell found it and just instinctively tried to find me on facebook and twitter. (God bless him!)

By the time i'm writing this post, i have filed my documents to the Immigration yesterday and waiting for a photo-taking session on the 15th. What an emotional roller-coaster ride this thing had been.

Now, i'm still counting on Ningsih's comeback... wish me luck!

my new (celebrity) friend

My sister-in-law, Susy, was in excitement for having a couple-friend from Philippines to stay over at her place a week ago. 

This particular visit was different from the others because the guy was the youngest son of their close friend/pastor and his wife was a Filipino celebrity/presenter. I have heard of them before and even watched their touching wedding video which coincidentally took place not long after ours.

Upon meeting them the first time over breakfast at my sis-in-law's, i was keen to find out that Rica, the wife, got excited over coffee and bread, like i did. When lunch followed, however, i had found myself uncomfortable due to the fact of having to bow my face eating noodle while having a runny nose and wearing glasses on a particularly hot day. I'm sure i was not prepped for chit-chat while looking so unfriendly now that i think about it *haha*. 

It was the next day that i began to notice more of me and Rica's similar fondness for things, when my sis-in-law asked me where she should take them to see an old & historic part of Jakarta that was a favorite of Rica's. I suggested Kota Tua and Batavia Hotel right-away.

When they came over at our place later that night, our chat went frenzy. Similar interests between us proves to be an endless conversation subject. She was bubbly, intelligent, beautiful and funny. The sort of person you can't help but liking instantly. I was very happy to discover she went gaga over the wallets i make too.  It was one of those nights when you knew you've made a new friend and felt so excited upon discovering her, you just had to restrain yourself from freaking her out otherwise.

Few days later, when she's back in Philippines, Rica sent me her blog link (yes, she blogs too!) which features me along her other trip highlights in Indonesia. 

read it here

It totally made my day.

Her generous words and beautiful photos are just like a reflection of her personality, and
i'm glad to know she felt she had found a sister of a "kindred spirit" too. Thank you Rica and please come again soon to Jakarta!

friday the 13th

This is a long post due.

Turning 29 this year, i decided to get a tattoo as a birthday gift to myself.

I've always wanted one but never gave it a serious thought until i saw my cousin's cool tattoo and decided this is a now-or-never moment.

I started collecting ideas for the image a month before (a lot of tattoo-magazines reading and net surfing) and filtered the pictures based on the location i wanted, which was behind the neck.

A thing i wanted to avoid the most was tattoo-plagiarism (thanks to this eye-opening article). It's amazing how this is not an issue for some people at all. So, i stopped searching for ideas with the word "tattoo" on the google bar and instead went straight to "Line Drawing" on google images with any ideas for a tattoo that came to mind. 

I brought several images to my tattooist and we finally decided on an image of a heart-lock (based on Proverbs 4:23). Awi was also there to give his input as i am what you described as "plin plan parah". I usually give other people the privilege to make a decision for me rather than doing so myself (pathetic right?).

The two of them convinced me that the heart-lock combined with a little array of flowers around it would be much better than just a plain black-and-white heart-lock.

I was sold.

After 6 hours, here's what it looks like...

"Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life."

The pain was not that bad at all, just like what i had imagined really.

But the healing process, the scabs and the itchiness, were driving me crazy. 

It takes a LOT of willpower not to pick up any of the dried scab and/or scratch it when it feels itchy. Some mornings i woke up with the dried skin in shape of leaves on my pillow ("autumn" in my neck said awi). I guess this is the price you pay for beauty, right?

Finally, special thanks to Denny of INT Tattoo, my tattooist, who did a great job and kept me entertained for the whole 6 hours with his stories. He said "Welcome to the club" before we parted and i beamed with a smile. It was a happy birthday indeed.

Goodbye 2011

What an incredible journey this year had been. 

Paperpleased turned 1 this December (20th to be exact), and i still remember the very first time i blogged about it like it was yesterday. I certainly didn't see things would go this far. What started from curiosity had led me exploring this wonderful world i had never known to love. 

More than anything, i would like to remember 2011 as the year i started believing in doing things that are close to my heart. Believing in a sense that you love it enough to overcome any struggle that comes within its every aspect.

The constant tossing and turning of ideas, stretching the possibilities of taking things further, and the vision that i have in what i do fuels me to strive for more. Paperpleased had occupied my mind throughout the year and it doesn't look like it'll stop for the coming year.

Thank you readers and friends for constantly supporting me.

creative rut

You know that feeling where you just feel numb creatively? 

Well, these last few weeks, i'd been stuck in one. 

This is the first time it lasted more than three days, and believe me i did not enjoy it one single bit.

During such time i thought it would be a good time to try my hands on other projects. So i experimented making paper flowers out of recycled paper... 

The tutorials are found here, here and here.

peony

rose

buttercup

...and some other more from fabric.

I ended up making 200pcs of fabric flower corsages (with covered buttons) for my auntie who ordered them for her shoes. She runs a wholesale shoe shop here in Jakarta and regularly works with local craftsmen who make them for her.

 

Now, i was definitely happy with the opportunity to take my mind off of Paperpleased for a while. But with the absence of my second assistant, it took me & my first assistant the whole week to make the 200pcs (!). By the third day, i was already sewing and reading at the same time, listening to TED.com while gluing the flowers, etc, simply because i couldn't stand having a mind-numbing activity. 

Before we (almost) finished it, i had missed the joy of working with paper in my hands so much that i tried out a new design in the middle of the night. 

In the end, i guess we can only be reminded that being creative is a process. It takes time but it definitely can be learned by everyone (certainly so in my case). You might just surprise yourself along the way, and the result is always worth it. My sister uses the term "breaking the glass" and i couldn't agree more :)

How about you? Do you have any tips on breaking (invisible) glasses around you?