Watercolor Crafternoon

Despite of the Typhoon Mario and low pressure area which have flooded our house, I still attended Alessa Lanot’s (Life After Breakfast) Sunday Basic Watercolor Workshop at Fully Booked, BGC. The workshop is my fiancé’s advance birthday gift for me and I was lucky to avail her limited slot. Unlike with the previous Calligraphy workshop, I already have basic know-hows for watercolor painting. 

The workshop fee is Php1,750 which includes watercolor materials: 4 brushes, 18 color Sakura Koi pan set, 4 sheets of small water color cards, Pencil and eraser.

The workshop started with Watercolor basics presented in power point presentation. I’ll try to share it on detail. First she discussed about different types of watercolor materials from the paint to the brush itself. 

Alessa discussing the color pallets of Sakura Koi Pan Set

Her explanation about how important is the color wheel is very helpful specially for picking the right color combination in harmonizing everything. She also discussed proper handling of paint brush when you want to be in control. 

She demonstrated to us the basics of watercolor mixtures: weak-tea, tea strength, milk strength and cream strength. The key is placing right amount of water to obtain the shade you want to achieve.

Alessa's actual painting of Orchid

This is Alessa's actual painting of Orchid. She's a natural. She showed us how she paints in detail. Just like the other girls I was so amazed. 

One of my favorite water color techniques is wet-on-wet. We did some flower blobs performing this technique. I'm proud that I did well in this activity. We were asked to choose the flower we wanted to paint for the final activity. I chose Orchids, assuming it will be a lot easier to paint but I failed.

The Hall of Artworks

 
I will say that Life After Breakfast watercolor workshop is a worthwhile experience, especially if you really want to know the basics of watercolor medium. It’s different when you actually see it in actual application compared to just watching youtube tutorials. Although in my case, I find the Php1,750 workshop fee a bit pricey for a four hours’ workshop which is quite short. I would love if we had more practice sets and some concise handouts to thinker on. 

If you don’t have budget there are quite number of watercolor tutorials in youtube and some you will find in pinterest.

Satisfying my Instiable Obession with Typography

My undying love for art plus the wedding preps gave me this insatiable obsession with Typography and Watercolor. My fixation with instagram and pinterest post landed me to TYPE KITA. It’s a group holding different kind of art activities such as calligraphy and all sorts of lettering workshops.

Unfortunately, most of their workshops are fully booked. So again, my obsession didn’t stop there. I discovered Alessa Lanot’s (Life After Breakfast) Workshops.

I got torn between watercolor lettering and calligraphy, but for a change and a more challenging craft I signed up in her August 10 calligraphy class held at Pino Restaurant in Teacher’s Village Quezon City.

We started of introducing ourselves. There were about 10 of us who attended the class. Good thing most were first timers.
Alessa introduced herself and how she got inclined with arts. She gave a brief introduction about calligraphy, described each calligraphy supplies, what they are for and shared her dos and don’ts.
She shared the three basic rules, which I pretty suck at:

1. The pressure is always in the downstroke
2. Break down your strokes
3. Space evenly

One of the do’s is proper handling of the pen holder and paper placement. It’s important to angle or slightly rotate the paper.

 

 Inside her goody envelope is Steel Quill Nib Set (5 pcs of nibs), 2 nib holder (straight and oblique), calligraphy hand outs and 1 Dr. PH Martin’s Bombay India ink (color of your choice).

Aside from the free stuffs, we got a heavy vegan meal too!

We started with the basic strokes. My first try is pretty messed up :) Good thing Alessa is moving around, checking our progress. She demonstrated how speed and strokes affects our calligraphy.

At the end part of the workshop we were asked to write a saying using our new calligraphy skills.

Our calligraphy pasted on the wall

Apologies for my first phrasal calligraphy. I attempted to do some flourishing which looked awful.

If I were to rate the whole calligraphy experience, it was surely fun. The experience literally taught me of patience, control and focus. Just to set expectation low, calligraphy is not learned overnight or over 3 hours workshop not unless your a natural. However, the workshop is a nice baby step because you get to see the whole process in action.
Should you be interested with Life after Breakfast you can check her workshop schedules at:

http://lifeafterbreakfast.ph/ 

Search For the Make-Up Artist

Booking the right hair and makeup artist (HMUA) is the most crucial thing for a bride same goes with picking the right designer. It’s a make or break in your big day. 

There are lots of makeup artist, some of which are wannabes which you hopefully don’t end up with. The old saying goes “To see is to believe”, that’s why trial make-up is strictly recommended. You only get it for FREE on wedding trade shows. 

I got my first make-up trial at Theme’s and Motif’s grand wedding bazaar in SMX MOA. Makeup Artist, Ria de Guzman. She has a great wedding and debut portfolio. However, the makeup I got from her didn’t match the look I am expecting to achieve.  It was a little bit heavy especially on the eyebrows almost covering up my natural look.

Btw, my sister got her make up too. She loved the curls by Ria’s hairdo artist. However, she also found her makeup heavy.

I also tried attending Bridal Book’s Blush event held in Robinsons Magnolia last 12^th of July 2014. It was attended by 13 makeup artists and some suppliers like Skinny Juicery and Triumph. 

My ultimate objective is to book an HMUA who has sense of chemistry with me and can make me beautiful on my W-day. I tried arranging free trial makeup with the makeup artist but as early as 11am they already got a long queue. 

My sister got her trial makeup by Bianca Uy while I got Makeup by Gold (Ms. Gold Sergio-Magtoto). Ms. Gold was so bubbly and animated while she performs her makeup artistry. When it was my turn, the first thing she asked me is what part of my face I wanted to emphasize. I just told her, I wanted it to be light and simple, I don’t want heavy eyebrows. 

My sister - Makeup by Bianca Uy

I love the way she explains the makeup she's applying on my face as she tells about herself on the side. I got to know her during the process. She used to be in the corporate world as Marketing Head of local whitening brand and her husband on the other hand holds a big position in one of the top insurance company, pretty amazing huh? I guess the love for art brought her to being a professional makeup artist which is cool. 

I felt the chemistry so I booked her on the spot plus she’s so accommodating and nice. My “future” in-laws and mom would surely like her.

I managed to take a few pictures of myself while still wearing Gold’s makeup. Photos were taken by my sister. 

I booked for Gold. I got my wedding make-up package at Php15,000 it includes air brush makeup for the bride, groom and 2 Ladies. Php2,000 for the additional heads. 

Pawtastic Birthday for Twinkle

I always dream of pampering my fur baby (twinkle) to restaurant where she can also enjoy dining-in. Any avid pet owner sort of hope for the best for their fur babies specially in picking the right food which means having the right ingredients in it. 

It’s Twinkle’s 3^rd Birthday and I wanted to make it extra special for her. I googled for pet friendly cakes and it landed me to this Pet-Deli restaurant called Whole Pet Kitchen. It’s the first pet bakery and dog café in Manila located in San Juan (it’s just located near Café Ysabel).

Their products are made out of high quality ingredients and no preservatives. They assured me that their ingredients went through a thorough research and approved by vets. So, I count their word on that. 

My Sister showing Twinkle her Birthday cake

I pre-ordered the Small Paw Cake (4x4 inches) since Twinkle is just a toy dog. The main ingredient is Liver and Cream Cheese pink frosting. We also ordered their bestselling Jack’s Lasagna and Beef N’ Veggie Balls. It’s a mixture of beef, liver and veggies I suppose served in a ceramic bowl on top of wooden plate.

At first Twinkle hesitated to eat and she sure did a lot of sniffing. But when she tasted it she started savoring the meal. It was a bit messy though, because the beef and pasta keeps on tangling in her fur. 

We are lucky at first, because we’re the only customer inside the restaurant at that time, but when a dog and his pet owner came-in Twinkle suddenly lost her appetite especially when the Maltese started barking at her. 

I'm helping her blow the cake

Orders are made online using their website. They have 5 days prior your requested delivery/ pick-up date specially for those big and customize cakes because they bake it fresh. 

Delivery cost is Php 60.00 for Metro Manila area and Php 100.00 for Provincial. There are some cakes that are suggested for pick-up only.  Delivery schedule as follows:

Just to share here's the address and contact information of Whole Pet Kitchen

Whole Pet Kitchen (Pet Deli & Bark-ery)

349-D CM Recto Street near P. Gueverra Street, San Juan City
E-mail: bark@wholepetkitchen
http://www.wholepetkitchen.com
Open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. (Tuesdays to Sundays)