Noor Arfa Craft Complex (NACC) was once known as just Noor Arfa in 1980 with just RM1000 as initial capital. From a sole proprietor to partnership in 1982 and private limited company in 1991 called Noor Arfa Batek Sdn Bhd. In 2010, they change their domain again to Noor Arfa Holdings Sdn Bhd. I just cut short their wonderful long history but in the nutshell, this is one of the incredible home grown company that Malaysia should be proud of.
Standing strong throughout these years delivering our best local product which is the batik. They even have school to teach enthusiast to master the skill in batik making and continue this traditional batik making process.
This is one of the process in making drawing batik. First, you have to stretch the cloth real tight before you can start drawing with the hot wax on the cloth. This needs a lot of patience and precision. A slight mistake will ruin the whole thing.
After that, this is the fun part which is coloring the batik. Once the color is dried up, the cloth will be soaked to permanently embedding the color and continue to boil the cloth until no more discoloration.Lastly, it will be put to dry up but not under direct sunlight.
This is the most complicated process in the whole batik process which is making the batik block. All the patterns are hand drawn first before starting to cut the bronze plate according to it. This process needs to take more than a month for a block. The more complicated patterns will requires even longer. There are blocks took up to 6 months especially the one at the bottom right.
Olaf from Frozen! This is the easiest which just required 2 weeks. The most tedious part is constructing all the small parts by soldering them together. The moment I saw the students doing it, I really put my hats off to their tremendous amount of patience.
This wax are really hot and it is used for the batik block to stamp on the cloth to make their desire pattern. Once the desired pattern is made, they will start to dye it with the color they want.
They need to wash the dyed cloth with clean water for two times. However in between, they need to soak the cloth in a chemical contains Sodium Hydroxide which is more known as Caustic Soda. Same like drawing batik, in the end you need to dry the cloth up but not under the direct sunlight which will damage the color.
This is the weaving batik. The process is very sophisticated and it require months to complete. First they need to dye the thread with the color based on the design which they need to plan earlier. Next is installing the thread on this weaving machine before she starts weaving.
This is also a weaving method which is not using any machine but bare hand. The material used is not thread but pine leaves which has soaked with respective colors on it. This old lady will use his years of creativity to start weaving to any desire design that comes through his brain. Truly a remarkable old lady she is.
This is one of the sample which is a fan that she did. She can weave a lot of other stuff such as mat, basket, handbags and many more.
Sand which has burn in high temperature to become amazing handmade glasses.
Look at the this complicated ship design which is 100% made from glass. It is really fragile but it looks really amazing. It is surely an item which is worth to be collected as decoration at home or office. The price does not comes cheap at all too but it is well deserved with the quality made.
You can choose to make an easier one like this to put on your office desk.
After watching other people creatively making the batik, songket and handmade glass, it is time for use to make one too. We chose to color the batik which is much more easier.
Look at this auntie who is giving his very best to start making her masterpiece. We are given with just 3 prime colors which are red, blue and yellow. Other colors will depend on our creativity to mix and match them. It is really a fun and intersting activity either for the old ones or the young ones.
This is my personal masterpiece. I am not sure what I am doing but it does look a little messy here and there due to time constraint. Anyway this activity just cost RM12 for 7" x 7" and additional RM7.00 if you want to buy their frame.
There is a mini funland inside NACC where kids will get zero distance with the friendly animals such as rabbits, birds and chicken.
This funland is not free. There is an entrance fee required which is RM10.00 (adult) and RM6.00 (kids). If you are holding myKad/myKid, you will get 50% discount off the published price.
You can experience to feed the rabbit by buying their carrot @RM2.00/pc. The other activity in this funland is tasting their genuine honey which is charged separately @RM5.00/person.
Overall, I really learned a lot from this wonderful place. I find this place is also very useful for kids to know about what our country really famous for and train their patience and creativity in designing their own batik.
Noor Arfa Craft Complex
Lot 4153, Kawasan Perindustrian Chendering,
21080 Kuala Terengganu,
Terengganu, Malaysia
Tel: 09-6179700
Business Hours: 8.00am - 6.00pm (daily)