Blue Christmas at Bistronomy

Happy February 25th! Lol. You must be wondering if there is anything significant on this date? Um, honestly, nope. haha. But it's two months after Christmas and it falls on Thursday, so it is quite appropriate to post a #ThrowbackThursday post I guess? haha. Lame excuse is still an excuse so yeah. Haha.

Since I was a kid, I have always always loved Christmas! It is always, always the most wonderful time of the year! Same goes for year 2015 too of course. I love how everything is merrier and brighter and warmer. Merry as everyone is significantly more happy and more generous. Brighter as everyone is obviously smiling for little things around them. And warmer as friends get together and family gather to celebrate.

This year I got to celebrate with a few of my closest friends at a beautiful restaurant called Bistronomy. The ambiance is really beautiful and cozy. It has a vintage style which sometimes can be a bit too much. But everything is just nice here, so I felt comfortable spending my Christmas time there. Technically, none of us celebrate Christmas. That also kind of explain why we can come and celebrate with friends because usually people will go to church and celebrate with family. But anyhow, we joyfully gather in this occasion to celebrate the Christmas spirit and start the tradition of gift-giving. We saw that everyone is doing this ((I did one too with my colleagues at my internship place)), so we thought it will be a fun idea for us as well. Unfortunately, Yelny could not join us because she has already flew back to her hometown by that time.

We began the celebration by having a lovely lunch here. I chose the ladies' lunch set which come with soup and tomato salad for appetizer, fettuccine and various bite-size dish for main course, dessert and drink. My other two friends, Joan and Sandi ordered another lunch set which name I forgot but has more dishes in it including steak and pasta too. Alvian who we joined us last minute ordered salad because he was on a diet program. Was. haha. Lovy ordered a separate prawn ceviche for appetizer, lamb chop for main course and lime sorbet dessert which is tad too sour.

I honestly can not really judge the taste of the food here. Everything is nice and the plating is pretty. It is just that I think the food did not really suit our palate so we did not really enjoy the food that much. But it is fun to try on new flavor and eat fancy lunch on special occasion like this. Oh wait, there is one that I really liked but sadly did not get pictured which is the chocolate mousse! It was really nice and I am craving for it right now. Aargh!

Anyhow, after we finished our lunch, we began the Secret Santa game. We have drawn the lot to determine who will give the gift to who on our previous meeting. The rule is that it has to be approximately one hundred thousand rupiah and includes a handwritten card! I am a sucker for handwritten card. It always feel special, don't you think so?

So, here's what I got! Look at my major happy face! haha. It was a coloring book plus a cutely drawn Christmas card from Joan. Coloring book has been really trending lately but I have not got a chance to buy it yet because I did not think it was necessary yet. But now that I have got this as a Christmas gift, I think it is a perfect gift and I can't wait to make some time to color it ((gloomily stare at my thesis project)).

And here is my gift for Lovy which is a small pouch with a girl illustration. I gave it to her because of a "small incident" when we traveled to Bandung. Her makeup stuffs kept on falling on the street back then because her clutch has quite a wide space for small makeup to slip off. So I gave this pouch to her hoping that she can store her makeup or other stuffs and it can become handy for her daily needs.

If you are curious what the others get, Joan ((the one on the back)) got a tumbler from Sandi and Sandi ((the one on the front left)) got a pair of shoes from Lovy. Sandi's gift was a bit unfair though because it exceeded our agreed number to spend on the gift. Lovy's excuse would be that the gift is combined with birthday gift. Again, lame excuse is still an excuse so, yeah. haha. Alvian, as said before joined us last minute, so he did not join us on this gift-giving process.

Well, that was our fun and intimate Christmas lunch! This was the dessert from the other set which is chocolate cake with ice cream that is good. But my chocolate mousse is still better! So sad I did not take any picture :( Also, one funny thing, none of us planned to wear blue outfit that day. But we somehow did. Before we all met, I did send a message to Sandi worrying that if I wore blue it would make me salah kostum ((wrong dresscode)) and became odd. Sandi said that he is also wearing blue. And it turned out that everyone was wearing blue! So it somehow turned into a Blue Christmas. In contrary, none of us was feeling blue ^^

All pictures are taken by Alvian who blogged about the day here. Thus explaining the square crop and dramatic tone. The last photo is taken from his blog, it features a DIY Christmas card I made that I love myself since it looks like a wrapped gift with the red ribbon hehe. Last but not least, cheers to the Blue Christmas this year and hopefully the years ahead ❄

Cheers,
filicia

Wrap It Off!

Please excuse the pun for the title ^^ Now, we believe that a birthday will not be complete without a gift. Being DIY girls, we think that a thoughtful handmade gift is much more sweet and touching rather than a lavish one. In here we would like to show you how we wrap gifts in two ways.

Tools and Materials:

Scrap paper, Your choice of gift, Double tape, Scissor, Ribbon, Doily paper

Steps (for gift in box shape)

1. Take one piece of scrap paper and wrap it around your gift.

2. Fold the bottom and the top part of the paper inwardly, one side at a time so it will look like one in the picture.

3. Secure all side with double tape.

4. Wrap the front side with a doily paper.

5. Finish it with a tie of ribbon and a handwritten birthday wish.

For the gifts in cylinder shape, you can simply follow step 1 and 2. The difference is that on step 2, you just have to fold the bottom part. For the top part, you just gather the paper into one and tie it with a ribbon. Voila!

Now, makers gonna wrap wrap wrap~

Yeey, cheers!

Twenty!

Both of us turned twenty years old this year. It is a huge deal for us as our age start no longer with '1' but with '2' (ciyeee...kepala dua sekarang). It is obviously a milestone for us and a real blessing to be able to spend twenty years and counting on this planet.

Yelny turned twenty last May and being a fan of handwritten letter, that's what I gave to her firstly. I simply wrote my thoughts on pieces of paper that I scrap from my notebook. As for the envelope, I made it out of a piece of magazine paper ((the fashion spread)). And also I paste a cupcake illustration I got from a brochure back then.

Also, some doodles and quote to complete the letter ^^

The next is a postcard. Actually, per her request, I sent her a postcard when we were on semester break. Sadly, it never made it to her home in Pontianak. That's why I am sending her a new one this time around. I tucked it inside the magazine that I borrowed from her. Though it took days for her to finally discover it.

Including the hashtag #yelnysudah20 meaning Yelny is already 20 (years old). She is not a fan of Winnie-the-Pooh though, I just happened to have a Pooh sticker with birthday theme.

And lastly, my 'gift'. Lol. Not an actual gift though because on the midnight of her birthday, I took her phone and flooded her own instagram and twitter with silly pictures, words and stuff (sorry Yelny ><). On the morning, I gave it back to her, beautifully placed in a box and wrapped hehe. I use two pieces of magazine paper as the base, cover it with a doily paper and finish it with yellow ribbon. 

The birthday girl preparing to go out for lunch. ^^

Anyway, we still have lots of things related to both of us being twenty, so you might want to check the label 'TWENTY' and see how we celebrate the special day.

Cheers, filicia.