Flower today: Wijaya Kusuma

One day while cleaning the weeds in the yard beside the house, I saw something not usual. Apparently shoots emerge from my Wijaya Kusuma plant , I thought they were ordinary leaf bud but this one rather different. So after a long waited year, it finally got flowers. Horayyy!!

Day 1: Though planted in small pots, flower buds finally appeared even not one but two buds at once!!

Still day 1: Pictures taken at dawn after a night of rain.

Day 2: The flower bud atracted the ants to come

Day 3: The stalk of flower buds looked longer than 2 days ago. (left) The close up picture. (right)

Day 4: It's still growing long.

Day 8: The flower stalk had already reached 15 cm long.

Day 9: In the evening .... almost blooming!

Day 9: approximately 9.30 p.m. ......It's blooming!!!

Still day 9: Look gorgeous, wasn't it?

Day 10: After a few hours showing their beauty, slowly but sure the flowers were withering and at dawn the next morning they're perfectly withered.

Unexpected Events during this year's Christmas Eve

On the 24th at Christmas Eve mass, as predicted most of the sweet stuff except a few rambutans have been taken. Our coordinator, Mrs. Sri explained that just few minutes after the 06.00 PM mass ended, hordes of people started taking them, she only prevented them from taking the flowers, since we still had some sweet stuff as spare. Surprisingly most of them were adult , it was beyond our first prediction that it would probably be done by children. The sad thing was, when she tried to replace the sweet stuff, the spare sweets were missing from its place. This made her feel sad. So, this was the reason for the bare garland on the morning of the 25th like pictured below...

Sweets stuff aside, quite a lot of broken pots too, caused by people stepped on them....

By the way, all the rose had wilted, so we simply replaced them with the remaining potted plants...not as cute as before, but we gotta do with what we had..

So this is it guys, enough post about Christmas decor, next Christmas decor post will be next year!!!!

X'mas Wall Decor Step by Step: Rhombus Wall Decor inside St. Peter Cathedral

Hello again, this time we're going to talk about the wall decorations inside the church. This year we used a basic form made of dry twigs that formed a rhombus. This was going to be our task and Mrs. Diana as the coordinator. We also got help from Mrs. Lioe and Mrs. Trees. Thanks guys!!. And as usual, we had to make 5 floral arrangements just like this and 5 the reverse ones, so the total was 10 pieces. Two pieces will be hung on the column on the back (facing the altar), and 8 hung on the wall at the right and left side of the building. (4pieces for each side)

For this floral decor we'll need :

- 1 equilateral rhombus shape made of natural dry twigs as a base

- one third of oasis for dried floral

- some foliage such as evergreen or pines, ruscus and leather leaf (you can spray ruscus with gold paint)

- 5 artificial poinsettia flowers (1 big, 1 medium and 4 small size)

- 2 artificial pine cones (bigger and more shiny)

- 8 natural pine cones (dotted with white paint)

- some artificial red berries

- 3 shiny green decorative balls (2 tone color, dia. 5cm)

- a 10 cm golden wired ribbon

- some green floral wire

1: Put the basic rhombus shape twigs on an iron stand or something where you can work freely and easily.

2: Attach oasis on far left side by using wire

3: Arrange evergreen leaf by following left curves of the rhombus

4 : attach the largest poinsettia like shown (as a center point of view or as focus)

5 : attach 3 gold painted ruscus following the diamond curve

6 : attach 2 artificial pine cone between the ruscus in number 5

7 : attach medium sized poinsettia on top of poinsettia number 1

8-9-10 : attach 3 small size poinsettia following the bottom curve of the rhombus

11 : attach 2 gold painted ruscus following the bottom curve. Point of the farthest ruscus must exceed the poinsettia number 8

we're almost done now,

12 : Prepare 3 green christmas balls. Attach the end where there's hole with bamboo skewers, tied up with wire. Then attach the balls below poinsettia number 1

13 : make a big bow with gold net wired ribbon, attach it at the back left side of poinsettia number 1

14 : attach faux berries and a few pine-cones like shown, fill the remaining gaps with pine leaf.

Finished !!!!

This is how they look when attached to the church column, with one arrangement on the reverse side.

And this is the close up of the reverse arrangements. As you can see, everyone has their own touch, so no arrangement will look exactly alike....

Nativity Scene 2011 Tutorial part 3: Floral Decoration and Finishing Touch

The hut had been assembled, sweets garland hanging nicely, and now we came to the floral part.. yeaah!!!

For any Christmas decor, poinsettia is almost mandatory. Right here we used both red and white poinsettia plants in pots. Since we're using a lot of these, the local variation was used, which only cost IDR 10.000 per pot. These will be put in front and sides of the stage.

For the back sides, we used these silver grass pots...

These pots just need to be arranged, like you see above, below the sweets garland we put the red poinsettia first, then the white ones at the bottom ...

While arranging the pots, white sand was poured on the sides of the hut, filling out the empty gap. Between the pots, we poured medium sized white stones to fill the gaps. In the end most of these stones falling.

At first design, the floral decor consist only of life potted plant, which don't require much maintenance compared to flower arrangements. Alas, due to Christmas rush, there weren't enough poinsettia potted plants available, so we finally decided to use flower arrangements. For this arrangement, we just used flowers that had been purchased by our coordinator, of white roses and gerberas.

The foliage consists of ruscus, leather leaf, star asparagus leaf.

It's almost 07.00 PM when we finally finished everything... so tireeddd......

Nativity Scene 2011 Tutorial part 2: Making The Sweets Garland

On one sunny thursday morning, few of us from St. Elizabeth region gathered at church hall, cutting and tying the ribbons while the tantalizing smell of speculaas cookies wafted in the air. Yup! It's the making of sweets garland!! The idea came from our coordinator Mrs. Sri, during her trips around Australia and Europe she saw christmas trees on the streets with red apples and gingerbread cookies hanging on them. Folks could pick the apples/cookies then donate some money into nearby basket. When I was in Europe it was not christmas time so I had never seen it myself, so can any of you tell me if it's really true?

I personally think this was quite interesting, because the previous nativity scene never had sweet stuffs on them. We hope the kids will like it and after christmas day, the sweet stuff can be picked by the kids. To implement the idea, we needed pine tree branches which was readily available, sweet stuff (candies, cookies etc.) and red coloured fruit (we chose apples and rambutans) and lots of small plastic bags with red wire and red ribbons, these can be bought at party supply stores in Jalan Cibadak. Overall they didn't cost too much, but the laborious part was packaging the sweet stuff into individual bags. However there's just one teeny weeny problem to the idea : vandalism.

You must be thinking VANDALISM?! Are you kidding me? Nope. I'm seriously talking about vandalism. On the previous years, lots of people took tiny bits of flowers, ribbons or the hanging decoration that attached around the nativity scene area, just for souvenir (this is one bad habit of most Indonesians : taking souvenir everywhere). Even last year during chinese new year season, some of the pine trees inside inner yard at St.Peter's Cathedral were decorated with tiny red angpao envelopes , no money put inside, just for decor only. And guess what, people took them anyway, and some none to gently, resulting in lots of broken tree branches *sigh*.

So with this sweets garland, our concern was that people would start picking the sweet stuff on Christmas eve (the 24th) so on christmas day (the 25th) the garland will look empty (empty garland looks depressing). To prevent this, there's no other solution : our coordinator simply had to guard around the nativity scene during the christmas eve mass..

Okay, lets move on to our tutorial. For candies, cookies or chocolates, first put them into individual plastic bags (detail 1) then secured the bags with red wire, overhang 4 cm of the wire (detail 2) this wire will be attached to the branch later. On top of the wire, put the red ribbon (detail 3). As for the apples, the wire must be tied all around the apples. For the rambutans, simply tied two rambutans at the stems. You can look at the very first picture above for the fruit detail.

Meanwhile outside, the workers nailed the pine tree branches around the stage. We then simply attached the sweet stuff here and there on the branches, and we're done!!! It looks cute right... We will continue on part 3 soon!!!

PS : I and my family arrived for the mass at midnight, Dec 24th and sweets have all gone .......

Note:
speculaas cookies by :

Toko Bagelen Abadi

Jl. Purnawarman no:49

Bandung

www.bagelenabadi.com

Nativity Scene 2011 Tutorial part 1: Assembling The Hut

First of all, let us explain a little bit on how we got involved in decorating the nativity cave. As you all know (or don't know) St.Peter's Cathedral Church is not only a big parish in West Java but also called a city church. It has vast area where people attending the church live spread around it. To strengthen the bond between so many peoples, the church forms lots of small religious community by the region where the peoples lives. Right now there are 14 regions under the parish of St. Peter's Cathedral in Bandung, and it will be more in the future due to the area still continue developing. Each year for each region in turn asked to make and decorate the nativity hut.

I've known for quite some time that this year the decorating task went to my region, St.Elizabeth. However I didn't think much of it until in one rosary meeting the region leader and the coordinator of the nativity hut held my hand tightly and said "you and your mom will help decorating the hut, right?" Oops.

me : eerr....

they : both of your talent must not be wasted y'know..

me : *sheepish smile*

they : surely you can set aside just a little bit of time to supervise and give ideas, the rest of us will help to...

me : well...we'll see.

For the sake of St. Elizabeth community, we finally agreed to help. At the end, turns out making the hut needed a lot of time and labour *sigh*. However It's been a fun and enlightening experience, and through this post we invite you all to learn with us! and more relieving, we got lot of help from people who accustomed to doing this kind of work. Thanks alot, guys!

Basically for this year's setting the hut consist of 4 parts : the stage, the hut, the nativity statues (can't do without them) and the floral decor. The process started with the hut and decor design. Mrs.Sri, the coordinator, worked together with the people who had helped the church in building and assembling the hut last year. It's been decided to use a simple stage just like 'stairs', with the hut made from bamboo making it look like a traditional Sundanese hut. Sneaking peeking the hut below...

Both the hut and stage were pre-made into several parts and assembled at the inner yard of the church. First of all, the stage. Constructed from wood beams and

covered with plywood, it consist of few parts. Part C was the largest one, 1,4 meter in height, it supported the cave and the statues. In front of part C was part F (height 1,4 m) and E (height 70 cm), which supported animal statues, garland and potted plants. Part D was right in the middle will support the angel piggy bank and flower arrangements

The hut also consists of parts. Part A made from plywood and covered with ilalang grass was the base where the statues will be put and bolted. While part B consists of the structure and roof of the hut which will be put last after all the statues were set. The hut itself just made from natural bamboo without any finishing, and the plywood for the stage was covered with styrofoam with stone texture on it.

After the stage was set, next was putting the statues on the base of hut (part A). The ones inside the hut are the Holy Family and The Three Kings, while the shepherds, sheep and other animal were put on the stage (part F). After being adjusted, all the statues were bolted onto the base. By this way, the statues were secured, next was putting the structure and roof (part B) on top of the base (part A)....

Up..up..be careful! don't scratch the statues...

Pheww...the hut secured in place....

Now just a bit of paint to fix places that being scratched during the assembling process. 

Now we're halfway through, next on part 2: Making and Assembling the Sweets Garland!

Nativity Scene at Karmel Church at Christmas Last Year

A bit of a break, since we've been posting about christmas decoration at St. Peter's cathedral for several days... wow it's has been several days already since I start blogging (so exited!).. Right now I will share a few christmas pics from Karmel Church, Lembang. Nothing new actually, since I took these pics last year ( don't have time to visit Karmel church this year *cry* ) but still I think their Nativity scene really beautiful and can be source of inspiration for all of you out there...

As seen above, the nativity scene was situated above a man-made pond with water features on both sides. Both the base and structure of the hut were made from bamboo, a nice touch considering bamboo is local Sundanese material, cheap and have low embodied energy.. The roof of the hut was covered with ilalang or grass, another local material, these are very good to give a local touch to the hut. Overall the design was great, except for 2 annoying doric column made from styrofoam in front and behind the scene which totally looked out of place in this vernacular style hut.

Now this is a mini watermill on the right side of the pond. I think it's very cute and attractive, especially for kids..Other than that, the splashing water sounds gives soothing effects too..

On the left side also stood a bamboo fountain, but personally I think it's too complicated, the water mill looks more cute than this one...

One thing that MUST NOT BE FORGOTTEN in all decor : FLOWEERRS !!! This time the flowers were simple pink and purple lotus floating elegantly on the pond.. beautiful...

On close up, the decorator put a white satin sheets as base under the manger ( brilliant!) which bring our focus to Baby Jesus opening his hands. The statues are carved realistically and painted with gold tone that shines brightly under the tropical sun, make them look glamorous... kyaaa I want to touch them !!

X'mas Hall Decoration part 3: Big n Bold Christmas Wreath

Finally, we reach the final tutorial for the indoor decoration. This time it's the classic wreath put at the backside of the St. Peter's Cathedral multi function hall. Specifically, it hung on the balustrade of the mezannine. As usual, since it's hanging 5 meters above the ground, the wreath size must be large enough to be seen from below, and lots of shiny christmas balls were used, too... Big and Bold !!

Before we proceed to the step by step tutorial, let us firstly thank to the team of Mrs. Mie Man, Ling Ling, Fang Chen etc. for making this gorgeous wreath...and now as usual the stuff we need are :

- artificial evergreen garland dia. 15 centimeter

- 1 gold color christmas ball dia. 15 centimeter

- lots of shiny gold and red color christmas balls, in different sizes

- some pine cones

- some gold colour artificial poinsettia flowers (medium size)

- some gold star decoration

- a 10 cm wide red wired ribbon

- green floral wire

To start to, we must form the basic wreath first. Fold and twist the artificial garland to form round shape, approx 80 centimeter in diameter. Next attach the red wired ribbon on the very top of the wreath by using wire, then attach the large gold ball on top of the ribbon. After that attach the remaining smaller balls, pine cones and star decoration around the wreath. Make it look like they're scattered all around. And that's it!!! Hang it on the wall or door that you've set...

This two tone red and gold coloured wreath is the classic one that will never be out of date. The shining balls scattered all around the wreath gives an elegant and expensive look... Do try it !

By the way do not hesitate to email us if you have some questions about the tutorial !!!

X'mas Hall Decoration part 2: Christmas Flower Centerpiece (indoor)

Continuing from part one, we will discuss the flower centerpiece for this hall. It was taken from the previous wedding on Saturday, 24th Dec. After the wedding over, the flower decoration was taken out from the altar to be replaced with the decoration that show christmas spirit for the Christmas Eve tonight. It took half a day to make it but was only used about an hour for the wedding. So, rather than being got rid of it would be better if being used to decor inside the hall and at the corridor, right?. The creator for this lovely centerpiece is Mrs. Melani and her team from Margriet, well done ladies !!

Seeing the picture, the centerpiece consists of flowers such as casablancas (white & fuhcia), roses (white, pink, dark red), hortentias and the foliage needed is ivy, ruscus and monstera (medium size)

X'mas Hall Decoration part 1 : Wooden Christmas Tree Decor

Now...after reading previous post about the outdoor christmas decor, you must be wandering about indoor decor. Well, wait no more cause we'll be posting a 3 part tutorial on it !! Yaaayyy!!

The setting is inside the multi-function hall of St.Peter's Cathedral. As you can see from the picture above, the hall had a mini stage at the corner, a wooden christmas tree decor, a floral centerpiece in the middle front taken from the previous day's wedding and which not seen in the picture here is a big wreath hanging on the back wall of the hall. That's the reason for the 3-part posts since we'll show you tutorials for all of them! And no, there's no 'fripperies' like paper garland hanging from wall to wall since it's just take too much time (and money) to make and clean them afterwards...

Okay, so back to the part 1 now, we'll be doing the wooden christmas tree decor first. The wooden tree here was lent by Mrs. Mie Man ( Thank you!!) so if you're making it from scratch it will be the hardest and most labourious part. From the picture, you can see that the tree itself actually consists of 3 parts. Each part was made from 2 pieces of plywood and shaped like half pine tree. They were painted light green. Each plywood piece is approx 2 meter tall and the radius around 80 centimeter. Then the two pieces were put together by using two butterfly hinges so the angle of the parts can be adjusted.

After that, prepare a simple square stage that measure around 2 x 2 meters and 40 centimeters in height. Cover the stage with green coloured satin fabric. Next part is assembling the 3 parts together to form a round tree. After that, the flower arrangements are put between the plywood pieces. The flower arrangements for this stage are using red gerberas and white lilies, asters and gladiol.

Well, I hope this will inspire you to do something different for your christmas party decoration, a bit labourious and of course more pricey but the end result is really stunning, right? We'll see you again on part 2 of the tutorial!!!!

X'mas Decor Step by Step: Christmas Garland for Hall (part 2)

After receiving a few emails from you asking for another christmas outdoor decor, I've decided to post a slight variation on my previous outdoor decor tutorial. Not much different, but still cute, and guess what we'll be using....?

Bellss!!! Margriet had bought a few of this golden coloured plastic bells, but without the sticks inside that will make them ring. In short, what you'll need :

- 1 gold colour plastic bell (bottom diameter 30 cm)

- artificial garland dia. 15 cm

- 1 gold colour ball ( dia.15 cm)

- glitter gold leaves decoration

- wire and nails

Same as before, put the nails on both sides and midlle of the door sill. Attach the garland first, than hang the bell in the middle. Next attach the glitter gold leaves and the gold ball slightly above the bell. Finish it with red colour ribbons on top.

Voila!! this is the side picture of the garland decor...Have Fun !!!