Magical Mexico - a colorful wedding in Mexico

My dear friend Lislie (whom I have met for 30+ year and who's also a talented shoe designer in NYC) just got married with her lovely man in early February at the beautiful seaside town, Puerto Vallarta in Mexico. I had the honour to be her bridesmaid! The three-days wedding was purely magical, joyful and a little mad!

On the first day, all the wedding guests were invited to take a ferry to the "secret beach / hidden island" (the very first time I saw 6 whales and 10 dolphins!) and we all spent a day meeting and bonding with each other. Everyone I met is creative, independent, real and genuine. This wedding trip did not just reunited old friendships but sparkled a lot of new ones too!

On the second day, it was the wedding B-I-G day! All the bridesmaid got up early to get pretty! We all wore a very special and untraditional bridesmaids' dress, in burgundy red hand-knitted dress, designed by the bride's friend - Vee at Svee (check out his awesome website here!)

The wedding day started off with lots of Chinese wedding games that were custom made to match the personality and backgrounds of the bride and the groom. The wedding ceremony took place on the beach right by the North Pacific Ocean! The reception was beautifully ... beautifully decorated - the outdoor venue was filled with lots of tropical flowers, colourful wedding stationery, lanterns... thoughtful details everywhere. 

I had a small contribution towards the wedding reception, I helped Lislie to design and calligraphy the Table Seating Plan and the Place Cards. I was so thrilled that many wedding guests complimented on them and they even took them home as keepsakes.

On the last day, all the wedding guests went to a beach nearby, chilling out, sipping margaritas, enjoying in the sun, trying to recover and wind down from the wedding's blast!

This Mexico trip to my dear friend's wedidng was FOR SURE the most MAGICAL wedding I had been to so far! Thank you so much! I wish you both a happy marriage! 

Always remember "choose what you love and love what you choose"!

The view from my hotel room's balcony!!!

The wedding reception 

Wedding Guest Signing Board - designed by Kelly Kam

Wedding Table Seating Plan - hand painted and calligraphy by Kalo Make Art

Gorgeous dinner table decorations

Handmade horsey and red chilli pinatas as wedding favours by the talented bride Lislie

Unique bridesmaid dress handmade by Vee at Svee

Calligraphy Place Cards by Kalo Make Art

Place card's original work was hand painted with watercolour

 Illustrated table runner by Lislie

Calligraphy Place Cards by Kalo Make Art

Place card's original work was hand painted with watercolour

  Table napkins with fun facts about the couple - everything is so true!

I tried to collect all the napkins from no.1- no.8 with the help of a very nice waiter!

Kalo | Lislie | Nelee

Unique bridesmaid dress handmade by Vee at Svee

Jayce | Kalo | Trung

Unique bridesmaid dress handmade by Vee at Svee

The Happy Couple!

A Calligraphy Journey of a Hong Kong and Singapore based calligrapher

As a self taught calligrapher, I constantly feel inadequate and that I still have plenty of rooms for improvement. Like any other skills, no one can really perfect it unless you work on it over and over and over again. If you have read the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, he says that it takes roughly ten thousand hours (that's 166 days without sleep!) of practice to achieve mastery in a field. 

I am sure 10,000 hours of calligraphy practice will help but if you are scared by this thought, I suggest you to remember "P P P " - which is my personal motto and the key to writing beautiful calligraphy (and achieving any goal in life really)! We'll all know that no one is born to write perfect penmanship naturally, the best calligraphy can only be done through "Practice, Passion & Patience"!

Some of you might realise I rarely blogged about my personal achievement but TODAY I gained an insight from an online video of Dr Wayne's lecture on "Your Thoughts Are Creating Your Reality" (it is a really meaningful lecture that everyone should watch it!). In this lecture, he mentioned a quote from Tao Te Ching - "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Every thing, any thing,  big or small, begins from one single step and we should never forget each and individual step we take. Similar to my calligraphy journey, it started off from a baby step of curiosity (I was stunned by the beautiful contrast of thin and thick brushstrokes) and gradually it has become a foot path, a core passion in my life. 

So learning from Tao Te Ching's teaching, I am now spending a moment to remind myself the every little footstep I took in my journey as a calligrapher. Spending a moment to appreciate and recognise my own achievements! 

One of my 2014's new year resolutions is to continue to improve my calligraphy, to practice whenever I can and to take more opportunities to utilise this precious yet vanishing skill. I am really pleased that I am gradually achieving this goal! 

Since I started in 2004, I have ...

• painted, printed, wrote calligraphy and handmade a set of baby taboo game cards for my dear friend's baby shower party! My friend loves them!

• the honour to design and calligraphy for a dear friend's wedding in Mexico and the honour to calligraphy all the wedding invitation envelopes for my sister's wedding!

• met a bunch of talented, like-minded and generous calligraphy friends like MaryEllen and Belinda Love Lee via Instagram, who are willing to share hints and tips with me even though we've never met personally in real life before!

• gained more clients' requests to calligraphy for their wedding stationery!

• been working on a new collection of calligraphy greeting card designs which will be letterpress printed in March and will be sold in bookstores and shops across Asia!

• the honour to be invited by Shop Wonderland & The New Romantics - a florist / cafe / studio in the heart of Haji Lane, an arty district in Singapore to teach a series of calligraphy workshops!!! *I will post more information on the workshop details soon!

All these outcomes result from the baby foot step I took, from the initial curiosity. They are such wonderful blessings, which I couldn't ask for more!

Baby Taboo Game Cards by Kalo Make Art for a friend's baby shower party

 

 

Calligraphy place cards by Kalo Make Art

for a friend's wedding in Mexico

Place cards were originally hand painted with watercolour

then edited with computer design program

Calligraphy wedding invitation envelopes by Kalo Make Art