Happy First Birthday!

Oh, how time flies when you had lots of fun, right? Last month on August 1st, 2015, we celebrated the first anniversary of Candy After Dinner! Whoop! Even though we have been blogging on and off due to our lack of discipline ((which we should totally fix)), but it has been an amazing journey so far and we have learned a lot.

Though we are nowhere near responsible in following our schedule, but we are so glad that there are you guys ((yes, each one of you)) who keep on supporting on what we do, encouraging us to continue writing and even just paying a visit to this little blog every now and then. We are very humbled to have you guys spare your precious time reading about our daily musings, inspirations and life in general.

Of course, one is still a very small number for an online site like ours. That's why, we are looking forward to what the future holds. There are so many things we had in mind that we wanted to share for our future posts. But we also want to hear about your feedback. Is there anything you would like us to cover, share or make? We are more than happy to hear your comments and suggestions.

Anyway, moving forward to the D-day, we celebrated our blog's first birthday with Japanese food. Yay! We also continued the Crafty After Dinner session and this time we did brush-lettering. It is something that we have been attracted to lately and I ((fili)) got to learn during a workshop with Living Loving previously.

The thing about brush-lettering is, you really just need brush, ink and paper. So, even if it looks like lots of stuff, we really did not bring too much stuffs for this crafting session. But the downside is, it can get a little messy especially with the black ink since it would totally stain your hands.

Thanks to internet, we can have access to online learning for free! And thanks to nice people on internet who are generous enough to share their knowledge with us ((again, for free))!

And, not just brush-lettering, we definitely have to take commemorative pictures of the first anniversary. The restaurant we went to happened to have a decent wall for taking pictures ;D

Well, once again, we would like to thank you all for visiting this little blog of ours all this time. Please keep on visiting in the future! We would also be very happy to hear your feedback about anything! Also, don't forget to share it with your friends haha. After all, sharing means caring right? ;) 

Yeey,

cheers!

INACRAFT: A Craft Exhibition in Jakarta

If you are not familiar yet with INACRAFT, this is an annual event hosted to accommodate Indonesian as well as international crafter for the biggest and the most complete exhibition of gift and housewares. INACRAFT tagline also explain itself as Jakarta International Handicraft Trade Fair. This is the 17th year of its running and for the theme this year is Through Enchanting Bali Towards Global Market.

For this year's event, Yelny got the chance to become the visual merchandiser, so she got to tour the place before the exhibition even began. I could not join here on that day because I had to work. But then, Yelny also could not take any pictures because she was pretty busy there. So, I ended up going there with a friend of mine on the last day. 

The event itself took place in Jakarta Convention Center (JCC). JCC is a very common place for people to hold a big exhibition like this. Considering that I went there on the last day of the event, it was still very crowded even though the place is very big.

The thing about INACRAFT is that most of the products showcased there were more into the traditional side. If you love batik, you would definitely find a lot of creation here. 

Do not worry if you were not really keen of traditional thing, you can also find modern and fancy things if you browse each aisle diligently.

What I loved about this kind of event is how the things there inspired me to become more diligent to create handmade things. There are always something special about making and using your own stuffs. Even better if you can sell it like the people here in INACRAFT.

Even though it was a bit crowded during my visit, it was indeed a pleasant visit for both my friends and I. I love how this event supported local crafter to become more known to national and even international audience. Maybe one day I can also join not only as the guests but also the participant hehe. I hope that INACRAFT could run for a long time and become the pioneer of local crafting community.

Cheers,

filicia

#LLHappyNest : Say It with Chocolate

Back on June 2015, Living Loving -one of my favorite local digital media-, hosted a series of workshop called Happy Nest. This was not the first time Living Loving made a workshop, but this was indeed the first time they made a series of workshop for two weekends back to back. Whoop! I was super attracted with the workshops of course, but then I decided to just try my luck by joining the giveaway.

Here's what I wrote on my entry:

Living Loving, just like what its name suggest is a lovely media that I have been following closely since I found out about them. I love how @livinglovingnet is always creative and innovative in terms of engaging more with the readers.

I have to say honestly that I was so curious when they first released the teaser of Happy Nest ((and can I add how perfect this name of workshop is?)) Finding out about what it was indeed made me happy, especially this class.

Simply put, this class is like coming to a wedding of my two loves. One being food and another being design ❤ ❤ ❤ oh my, when these two get married, I can't imagine how amazing will their marriage be. And I hope I can be involved in this sweet occasion as well ❤  #LLHappyNestquiz 

And guess what? I WON!!! Woohoo! Thank you so much Living Loving for somehow picking my name from the raffle. So, let's move on to the report of the D-day!

The workshop took place in Pipiltin Cocoa, Barito. I was a bit late since the venue is a bit far from my home. When I arrived, I met the other participants. There are around 8 or 9 people in total if I'm not mistaken. The workshop started by an introduction from Miranti, one of the co-founder of Living Loving and also our mentor of the day. It began with a little introduction about Living Loving before moving on to the subject which was brush lettering. Mamir shared with us her favorite tools as well as the artists that have inspired her works.

After that, we started practicing. Each participant was given a lettering kit. Inside the kit were lots of paper for practicing, brush, palette, ink, and pencil. They also provided poster color to be shared among participants. We started with basic practice by drawing lines, curls, swirls and shapes before moving on to alphabets. While we were practicing, Mamir suggested us to start thinking the design for the chocolate wrapping. 

When we have felt confident with our choice of phrase, we started painting the wrapping paper. Since we would make two bars of chocolate, we also designed two papers for wrapping. The first one that I made is inspired by this blog, so I just simply wrote 'Candy After Dinner'. For the second one, I used my favorite color, red! After that I wrote a motivational phrase as a reminder and a doodle of cough myself cough.

While we were waiting for our creation to dry, we went to the small chocolate factory right inside Pipiltin Cocoa itself. This is my first time going to a chocolate factory so I was really excited. Though this one was not as big and quirky as the one in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, but this one is more than enough to satisfy my curiosity. The founder of Pipiltin Cocoa itself explained the process of making the chocolate from scratch. Seeing how all the chocolate is made from high quality product and detailed process, I came to appreciate it more than before. 

The good news is, we also got to make our own creation of the chocolate bar! After the chocolate is processed, we could use it based on our creation. For this workshop, we could make two chocolate bars. But to make it prettier, we can use colored white chocolate and splashed it into the base of the mold.

After that, we just poured the chocolate into the mold and put the extra beans or cocoa nibs on top of it. In order to make it last longer, we should shove the beans and cocoa into the inside of the chocolate. Next, we could put it into the freezer for about 5-15 minutes then our chocolate is ready!

While waiting for the chocolate to set, we got to taste this chocolate shot which is incredibly good!!! I have never had authentic chocolate drink before so I did not have much expectation. But it turned out to be so good. It is the right amount of sweet and bitterness. The creaminess texture is also fine because it did not feel too thick. Oh, we also got to enjoy the short movie about chocolate making process.

The chocolate was finally ready. So, it's time to wrap!

By the time we finished wrapping, it was also the end of the workshop Say It with Chocolate with Living Loving. I really did not realize how the hours have passed while I was having fun crafting and creating things. All in all, it was a lovely and enjoyable workshop. I would like to thank Mamir and Nike once again for hosting this wonderful workshop and having that giveaway so I could join. It was a really valuable experience that inspires me to do more, make more and practice more. Also, thank you to Pipiltin Cocoa for sharing your knowledge with us and having us in your factory to create our own chocolate.

 ((the other entry about this event can be found here and here))

Cheers,

filicia