We were dead tired by the time we left Annexe Central Market at approximately 8.30pm on Sunday night…. but it was the best event we’d ever taken part in so far…..

Our journey at Arts for Grabs - Raya Special began on Saturday, 26 September 2009. Located on the 2nd floor of Central Market Annexe, this place was tucked away in the upper reaches of the Annexe and felt every bit artsy and fartsy as one would expect..

What made the place feel alive was how the vendors took the time to decorate their respective booths…. the vendors were given total freedom to actually decorate their booths and create their own atmosphere….

We were keen to also make our booth look good, but this being our first time participating, we didn’t actually know that such liberties like conteng-ing (drawing on the wall for those who don’t understand) the wall was allowed, but we felt our decoration still felt kinda at home.. =)

But back to the event, there were 2 adjoining main galleries which housed the 50 vendors while there was another gallery was specially used for events that coincided with Arts for Grabs event. The great part about the location of our booth was that we could see the event gallery right across from where we were… here’s a view from the outside

and another from the inside…

There were loads of things to see and the things that were on display and for sale were truly one of a kind.. for example… check out the stuff on display by the Dollhouse and Miniature Association of Malaysia… they were without a doubt the star of the event…. people were offering to buy their entire set on display!!! =)

Check out the amount of detail that goes into their miniature displays!!! =)

By late afternoon, the crowd was beginning to swell and the place was alive and rocking!

The more people, the more opportunity for blatant©! =)

We had bFFs (blatant© Friends and Fans) who came and supported the cause as as well, which we truly appreciate and enjoy… =)

And guess who we managed to take photos with?…

It was a very memorable event for us, and the sales were pretty decent too…. We’re hoping to go back there again for the next Arts for Grabs, and we’ll hope to see more of you there…. trust us, it’s worth it!

I still remember learning history in my secondary school days… we would learn about August 31 1957 and the events that led up to that history day where Tunku Abdul Rahman led the legendary cry of freedom “Merdeka! Merdeka! Merdeka!” for the liberated Malaya.

However, the part that always perplexed me was how come there was much less fanfare when it came to the formation of Malaysia, or Gagasan Malaysia as it was known then. The history books always tell us about how the birth of this country called Malaysia would help quell the threat of the communists and how it would make Malaya, Singapore, Sabah and Sarawak more stable and noticed in the South East Asia region. But they don’t celebrate the birth of this new nation called Malaysia on 16th September 1963.

So here’s the question I’ve been asking myself since I read about these two events in the history books. If 31 August is declared a public holiday because Malaya achieved independence, how is it that the birth of a new country called Malaysia isn’t a public holiday for all its citizens? This is the reason why our friends in Sabah and Sarawak do not share in our zeal for 31 August. The independence of Malaya had nothing to do with Sabah and Sarawak!! It is Malaysia Day that we can all celebrate together.

Here’s the blatant© question of the day: So, how come today isn’t a public holiday? Go figure.

To all my fellow Malaysians, whether you stay in West or East Malaysia, please accept our sincere wishes:

Happy Malaysia Day!

Regards,
Colin blatant©

Remember the bazaar that we participated in Lot10 not too long ago? Yeah, it was something that didn’t go according to plan and because of that, the Sunday bazaar was cancelled. However, it was Saturday evening by the time we left and although we posted it up in our website and our facebook, we still didn’t manage to get the updates to everyone.

And so, we decided that we needed a way to get information out to our bFFs (blatant© Friends and Fans) in real-time. So after some fiddling, testing and meddling around, we’ve decided that this is probably the best way to relate important information to our bFFs.

So, ladies and gentlemen, we would like to invite all of you to follow blatant© on our twitter!

http://twitter.com/simplyblatant

This would be a good way for us to disseminate information to all of you in real time. We’ll be taking part in yet another bazaar at the end of this month and we’ll be hoping to bring you guys information about it in real time using twitter… so yeah, we do hope that all of you will follow us on twitter.

If twitter isn’t your weapon of choice, you can still follow us via RSS feed or facebook:

C’mon now, it’s time to get your updates… real-time!

PS - More information about the bazaar will be posted in the coming days… =)

Hi Everyone,

The fasting month of Ramadhan for our muslim bFFs (blatant© Friends and Fans) have begun and we would just like to wish all of them “Selamat Berpuasa” or “Happy Fasting” (I hope the translation is correct cause it doesn’t really seem correct… )

Just in case some of you don’t know what Ramadhan is all about, it’s the time when muslims forsake wordly pleasures and learn virtues that will bring them closer to Allah. They will fast for 30 days approximately until Syawal, where they will celebrate the end of the fasting month, hence the reason why it’s called “Hari Raya” (i.e. Celebration Day).

Just for the record, I’m not a muslim, but I feel that as Malaysians, it is important that we understand and respect the cultures and religions of our fellow Malaysians. So, if you never knew why we celebrate Hari Raya, Deepavali, Thaipusam, Chinese New Year, Thaiponggal, Easter, Christmas… it’s high time you started doing your homework… for the non-Malaysians, never mind-lah… we’ll forgive you this time… hahahah…

So, Selamat Berpuasa to all our muslim bFFs!

Regards,
Colin blatant©

The day started off well… ok, maybe it was a little hazy, but at least it wasn’t raining. Nothing sucks worse than having to transport and transfer goods in the rain. It’s a logistical nightmare that we wouldn’t wish on even our enemies…. =)

So anyway, we reached and the weather was still nice and in fact, not very sunny. Check out the photo below that we took when we reached MIST.

We got our booth spot and promptly proceeded to set it up. Usually, we would bring along a clothes rack to display our items. But this time, we decided, why not try it out WITHOUT the clothes rack? People are always so used to seeing things hanging from a rack, it would be something to be able to display our stuff without it… so yes, we decided to display our stuff in a different manner.

We had 2 tables… The first table was 3 feet x 3 feet, which we dedicated to our t-shirts, our main product. The second taller table, was a round bar table which we used to display our car hang tags, the promotion for our keychains, and also a little area where we could show off our customised wedding cards. If you notice, we had a little black board which read blatant© wall. Basically, the blatant© wall is the physical version of the wall that everyone is familiar with in facebook. We just wanted to let friends, fans, passer-bys and anyone for that matter who wanted to say hello, or just sign the board. We must thank our friend Jaime who actually suggested that idea in jest over an online conversation, which we took to heart and ta da! the blatant© wall!… heheh…

Anyway, the crowd started trickling in from 11am, although there was one particular lady who was already scouring the area as early as 10.30am! But by 2pm, the crowd was definitely swelling and everyone was just looking for a good deal.

We had lots of visitors to our booth, hopefully because our designs were nice =), but it probably also had to do with the fact that 90% of the other vendors there catered to the female species only, whilst blatant© was one of the few vendors which actually catered for both. So it was good to see both guys and girls coming over to our booth and giving us a chance to explain our designs, and what we’re all about.

We were getting a healthy mix of sales from people who already knew about blatant© and also people who just met us for the first time at the bazaar. So all in all, we’re happy cause our existing customers liked our new stuff, while we managed to reach out to a whole new market segment as well.

For those of you who weren’t aware, we actually used this event to launch FOUR brand new t-shirt designs for the blatant© label. You can see the designs in our photo page, and also in our online order page where the pictures are much clearer as they focus on each design specifically.

Unfortunately, we had to leave the bazaar earlier than we wanted to because we had another prior appointment which we could not miss, and this is where we had good friends who came to our rescue and take over from us. They were pretty impressive because they still managed to sell our merchandise even when we weren’t there.. kudos and a big thank you to Thomas and Daniel for sacrificing their Saturday to help us out. Also, thanks to Daren, Yuk Meng, Alvin and William who also came to help out after that…

All in all, we’re very satisfied with the bazaar event and we’re definitely looking forward to the next one. Do let us know your views, thoughts and comments if you have any.

For those of you who want to see more photos of the event, do visit our PHOTOS PAGE.