New Friends!

"Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver, and the other gold." -Oldest quote ever

At Church last Sunday, I was introduced to three single ladies who work here in KL. One has been here 2 years, one has been here 4 months, and the third has been here 1 month. It was great talking to them, and as we were leaving, one of them invited me (and told me to invite my co-workers) to her birthday party on Wednesday. I thought this was a huge move because I'm pretty particular about my birthdays and don't know that I'd consider meeting someone I'd just met to one of my birthday parties! Haha.

So, Wednesday rolled around and she came to pick us up. She then drove us to a Craft Village in KL where we got to paint Batik. It was AWESOME! I don't know how I lived in Indonesia for 8 years and never did such a thing! When you show up at the place, they have some pieces of cloth already 'waxed' with patterns and such, or you can flip through pages and pages of notebooks to find one you like. Naturally, wanting the full experience, we each flipped through the books until we found a design that popped out at us. I got overwhelmed by all of the choices and so just quickly chose a flower design that I thought looked cool!

The ladies then take the design from you and set up your cloth so that it's easily traceable. Then, you trace the design onto the cloth with pencil.

The birthday girl is the one in the red (Kelli) and the girl in the pink on the end has only been here a month!

Once you've drawn the design how you want it, you give it back to the ladies, and they trace over it again, using wax this time. I thought it would've been awesome (and probably turned out terribly) if we'd gotten to do the wax, but maybe next time...! :)

It took me about 15 minutes to trace it in pencil. She had it waxed and back to me in like 4 minutes

Then, they give you a palette of different colored dyes (green, blue, magenta, purple, orange, yellow), some paint brushes, and some cups of water. You have the freedom to paint it as you wish! It was super stressful at first deciding how I wanted mine to look, but once I made up my mind, it was so fun! The dye absorbs into the fabric and goes on very easily, like watercolor, but doesn't cross the wax. It's pretty much fool-proof and even the least artistic of us made some pretty great looking pieces!

You can make the ink darker by layering it up, you can make it lighter by adding water, or you can make your own colors with the empty palette. I feel an Art lesson coming on for my little 1st graders! :)

 It's so addicting and when I finished mine I just wanted to grab another one and keep going! The cloth/wax/painting costs 15 Ringgit (US $5) and then you can get it "framed" with cardboard and covered with plastic for an extra 5 Ringgit (US $1.50). So, a 2-hour social event, with take-away product for less than $7 each? I'll take it!

It was pretty much just as intense as it looks.

My finished Batik!

While the cloths were drying, we went inside to look around the Craft Village. They have all kinds of crafts from all over Malaysia, and t-shirts, postcards, etc. They were also having a bonus Ramadan special bazaar with cookies, jewelry, scarves, and more. So, that kept us occupied for the 20 minutes they needed to finish our pictures! We went back, paid, picked them up, and now I have my first piece of artwork for my new apartment.... whenever we get that! :)

L to R: Susy (my roommate), Jalah (teacher at my school), Me!, Kelli (birthday girl), Jennifer (been here a month), Londie (been here since May)

After the Craft Village, Kelli drove us to the pastor's house for her birthday dinner. She's from New Mexico, so the cuisine was Mexican. Oh how I've missed my chips and salsa! :) Yum!

Yummy chicken tacos, followed by a Rice Krispy Treat birthday cake!