Inacraft - Gift Favors Part 2

As I felt that I haven't fully explored Inacraft, I made another trip on Friday morning and I was glad I made the effort! The traffic for weekend to Inacraft was just horrendous...so many cars that they caused major traffic jam. Here's some more exhibitors worth mentioning:
Iluvitz - Makes multi-purpose portable table for laptops, book and food tray; very useful gift favor for older children. Showroom : 021-83796601, Jln Tebet Timur Dalam II No. 3b, Jakarta Selatan.
Guru - Sells a large variety of educational wooden toys. 021-78839430 and has a site here.
Char & Coll - Makes unique personalized gift favors for all ages. I like the personalized make-up bags and canvas bags (good for bridal showers)
Honey Bear - Wholesales cute girl accessories, a tiara hairband costs about Rp17.500/pc. 081615433888 (Evi) Surabaya.
Inet Toys - A huge range of wooden toys and retails in ITC Permata Hijau. Has a site here.

Funny Cookies - They can also do cookie painting for children party activities.081311104004 (Asti)
Cyber Art Studio - They have many activities for children parties such as sand art, t-shirt painting, face painting, and etc. 021-70505687, also has a site here.
Sweet Cotton - The company pack the towels as rolled cakes and cupcakes.08161113435 (Aileen), also has a site here.
Forshka - They make cute Matryoshka dolls.081382909355 (Ratna), also has a site here.
Rakita -Produce and sell in discounted prices for customized embroidered towels, clothing, and blankets. 021-68888333, store in Jln Cilandak V/5 Jakarta Selatan.

Make biscuits without preservatives and export to Malaysia and Singapore. What's unique is their range of packaging and jars. There's a miniature metal Javanese house that becomes a cookie container by opening the roof. Cool. Has a site here.


Also, for those brides-to-be, mommies and others who wants packaging contact, here's another company you can try. 08161976044 (Irene) and has a site here

Inacraft - Gift Favors

Confused what to get for children favors as I do? Head down to JHCC now (22-26th) for the Inacraft fair that happens annually during April . I have been waiting for this fair and I wasn't disappointed.
1&2. Lisa Souvenir - Beautiful plaster figurines made into lampshades, candy holder and many others. One of my top picks for Baby J's favors :) Price for 1 lampshade Rp175,000 (USD17).
3. Temple Trees- A big range of gift favors ranging from combs to measuring height to homewares. Has store in Senopati and site here
4. Kado Kita- Assorted baskets, boxes, recycled gift boxes, wedding baskets, etc. Affordable prices. Has site here
5. Incraft - Cute stickies for bags. They also make the plastic material bags for children. Has many outlets such as in Mall Taman Anggrek on Lt-G and Supermall Pluit Lt4, has site here but under construction.
6. Sophisticate - handmade and eco-friendly soaps and super expensive boxes from Bandung.

Left- Tiara Craft sells their glass cookie jars from Rp30,000 (USD3) each
Middle and right - (*** lost name card) sells handpainted bottles, cookie jars and eggs? Phone 031-5047162

Other gift packaging:
Kantong - sells some handmade paperbag. Has site here
Cardose - custom make hard gift boxes. I made Graha Baby's gift boxes from them too. Has site here

More on Inacraft findings, please visit my other blog

Good Gestures

We receive this cute package from Nat for her baby's Manyue (1 month old celebration)- Almond cookies and butter cookies in jars and a cow toy (toy symbolizes year of cow for the baby) displayed in pink rattan tray.

Thanks Nat! I love the cookies~ We'll finish the cookies before the one month expiration! The butter cookies with sugar icing is yummmm!

Displaying Cupcakes

How do you like your cupcakes displayed? On tiered cake stand or in teacups?
Many times when I put out cupcakes or muffins during events, I realize ladies tend to stay away from chowing down the cupcakes for worry of being a mess.
Me, when coming to cupcakes, I spare no decorum. I eat as I go when I'm hungry or when I crave, and check with any available mirror (or anything that reflect) on crumbs or leftover butter.

Serving cupcakes in teacups can be pretty and I can get to show off my cups from wedding gifts. Handing a guest the cupcake also can be more convenient for the guest and she can eat pretty with the teaspoon. I would hate to see, but quite understand, when ladies spoon away the buttercream. I mean thats the goodness of cupcakes... if you want healthy, get a muffin.

Cupcakes from Chocolate Amore (shown above left) uses fresh and quality ingredients. Tried and tasted :)

Hosting Lunch Idea - Indian Theme

Nigella Bites episode on Indian dinner was drool-worthy and I was inspired!
Dress by Marchesa SS08 (of course I'm not gonna wear a evening dress for my lunch:) it just serves as a inspiration), gold lotus embossed social cards, DIY carnation centerpiece, and velvet bound gift favors (which I haven't come up what will be in it).

Menu:
Palak Paneer
Chicken & Apricot Masala
Pork Tikka & Fruity spiced rice
Fresh Yogurt
Naan

Hosting Lunch Ideas

I like to host a luncheon for friends, those whom I haven't seen for months, ever since I put myself on a social hiatus. A lunch with good company and food (booze will enliven atmosphere) ... at a economic sense, meaning small costs on decor.

Here's some recycled inspirations:Romantic Pink
My peony stamps can be reused for invitation, pink roses for table, those yummy butter cream cupcakes from Cupcake&Co., initial stamps/ DIY peony flower pens as favors.

Spring

Recycling those poms2 from baby shower (considering it will different lot of guests) for table setting, scented candles for extra decor touches, daisy pens for favors and also for decor, stamped table name runners. Invitation? SMS.

Chic Orchid
Hanging small flower balls in my artificial tree (I got to remove those christmas decor first!), sticking butterflies on paper lanterns, artificial orchid flower on invitations, and potted orchid with paper butterflies as centerpiece and favors.

Buffet Table on a Budget

A tip for my fellow blogger readers- attend any home, furniture and craft fairs and exhibitions if you can. I had found some really cool stuff just by attending these fairs.
I bought some cool vases and serveware in one of the furniture fairs.
In International Womens Fair that occurs annually in JCC, has Turkish plates and Mexican table runners. If you are patient, you can score many other things for home.

The colorful mixing bowls used as elevations for the dessert offerings and appetizers are from Pantry Magic in Kemang.

Inacraft is happening this 22nd April, I had it marked on my calendar for months!

Mulia Hotel Cake

Another cool bakery is Mulia Hotel's. The chef can whipped out some cool creations! Me and my sister ordered a custom Chanel bag for our sister-in-law's birthday and she love the bag...umm, the cake I mean.

Jakarta Wedding Info

A fellow blogger had requested for information for wedding costs. Honestly, I have been out of the wedding loop :) Although I still enjoy flipping through magazines and picking up inspirations here and there, they are mostly for children and for work.

There are many good wedding channels to find out more and there are wedding fairs that can be super helpful such as 'Glamorous Wedding of All Time' in JCC on July 24-26th, and Bazaar 'Opulent' Wedding Bazaar July 25-26th.

We all love to have a memorable wedding, with pretty decor and great photography, but whats the costs behind all the glamour? Well, as fas as I know, 3 years ago, you can get a beautiful and glamorous wedding decor in a 5 star hotel for about 300j (inclusive of flowers and stage, exclusive of hotel rent). Some good decorators are Soeryanto (SYU) and Amarilis. All good decorators can work with their clients' budget and come up with wonderful, fresh ideas.

As for wedding cake, theres many vendors but I worked with Pasadena and so far, I have not been disappointed by them. Cherry Red is also good.

Hope these info are useful. If you like other recommendations, please let me know.

Vintage Inspired Cards

I'm been browsing around for Baby J's birthday invitations and I came across some really cute ones.

Clockwise: 1. Love the illustrations by Sarah Jane Studio. Stickers included in the box set; 2. Looking like out of a classic fairytale book images by Hidden Eloise; 3. retro circus by Dolce Mia (check out their resin frames! A keeper!); 4. very cute children silhouettes By Cherly Images.

Baby G's Man Yue Cake

The Box

Cute fondant mini cakes.

In lower drawer of the cake.

I love my niece's Manyue cake. In fact, I still kept it and displayed in my library shelf. Its so pretty don't you think?

Baby Man Yue Cake

I have always rave about how much I love crystals and after searching on flickr and other cake sites, I finally found one I love. It has to look luxe and somewhat affordable as I had to make 100 over cakes to send out to relatives and close friends.

Cake inspiration from Estilo Weddings.

Once I had delivered Baby J, I contacted several bakery specialist for quotation and settled with Pasadena Cakes. They were very helpful and made the crystal monogram using wire and glue.

Finding the crystals and butterflies took sometime but by chance, I came up with some suppliers in Indonetwork. I cant possible afford hundreds of real crystal to form the monogram and flowers so I searched for arcylic ones. It was cheap for 144pcs considering at $1 :D

The butterflies came late so we didn't put butterflies on the cake. Otherwise everything else look simply wonderful.

Here's the sample cake by Pasadena and I love it! I was very pleased with the outcome. It came with mica box and pink ribbons. Sweet!

Luxe Wedding Invitation

It was touted as Wedding of the Year and judging from the ultra luxe invitation, it mostly topped off other wedding invitation. I was too heavy in my pregnancy to attend the wedding so I could not be fair it was the most lavish wedding party or not.

Nonetheless, the humble cardbox envelope contained another box- debossed floral print velvet box, satin ribbons and the crystal brooch.

Within the box, contain heavy cotton textured invitation cards. Beautiful really.

Baby Shower

We threw ourselves baby showers- me for my sis and my sis for me. My sister-in-law offered but she was busy with her upcoming baby (we all are having babies at almost 1 month difference!). Our good friend also offered but having 1 toddler and 1 small baby in tow, she was also busy.

Nonetheless, we were more than happy to use our creative juices for our own baby shower. I took out my crafts stuff from my sister's wedding shower (which was early 2008 and she's preggers within same year!) and we started to whip out decorations and favors.

We both like Martha Stewart's pom2s, so we became this little elves (umm large elves with huge tummies) factory teamwork - I cut, my sis fold and tie up the pretty pom2s. We did large, medium and little pom2s in 2 days.

Then my brother-in-law enthusiastically strung and hung the pom2s from the stairs handle on 2nd floor so it dropped looking like hanging on the ceiling.




Then we packed the favors using leftover papers to wrap the favors, velvet bound photo album.

Boring Mommy

Hullo bloggers! Sorry for the lack of postings... After becoming a mommy, my life revolved on the little one and flashing cards to her.

Will try to update more often :)