wip rectangles

Inspired by this and wanting a little break from work I made this partial hurricane cover. I say partial, because my initial intent was to go all the way around, but time doesn't allow for that right now. In order to make the process quicker I eyeballed everything (no measurements) and made the sizes of the rectangles random. What did I use? Regular office printer paper from our recycle stash, an Xacto and a ruler.

Thank you for the warm anniversary wishes. :)

Now back to work!

eleven years

Today is one of our two anniversaries. Eleven years ago, we got married by a judge in a 10 minute ceremony. It took place during the spring break of my junior year in college. It was really odd to become a married woman in less time than it takes me to eat lunch. More than anything else it was a matter of getting visa paperwork started for my husband. We got married by the church in August of the same year and we consider that our real anniversary. In any case, we still wish each other a happy anniversary and we still have lovely memories of that day.

I don't have a decent photo of us on hand but I do have a cute one of the kids that I took the day we went to the boardwalk (see? there where a lot of people around). It's not the best looking photo, but holding hands is not something the kids do often, so I find it very sweet. I also think it's a nice image to commemorate the day with.

Happy Anniversary NN! :)

more work and play

Friday the garage got cleaned out. Saturday we painted the kitchen. We gave up after the primer and first coat of paint. We still have one more coat to do. The gorgeous weather outside didn't help much but I'm so happy that we finally got around to working on it. Little C was so excited to help while D was more interested in playing with his friends outside (who can blame him?).



I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter. After church we spent the day at my parents' house. We ate a lot, had a little back yard easter egg hunt, played Sorry (little D's idea) and chinese checkers (my mom's idea). The weather was absolutely perfect again. I've always said that March is my favorite month in Texas. There isn't a cloud in the sky for many days in a row and this year it hasn't been any different. Love it.

In my last post I mentioned that I was getting a lot of traffic from Iceland and that I didn't know why. Well, thanks to the kindness of a teacher who wrote from Iceland, now I know. It turns out that my spring boxes where featured in a local newspaper! How unexpected is that?



I owe email replies to many of you. I promise that I will get to all my messages in due time. I’m working on catching up today. I'm also getting some new work started for A Little Hut which got a little sidetracked this past week.

Have a great day!

back

I kind of fell off the blogging bandwagon didn't I? I wish I could say that I was doing something terribly exciting and new but no, that's not the case. Last week I was really busy with work and this week I've been mostly busy with the kids, who are on their spring break. That's pretty much it. I have to admit that letting the blog sit for a bit was difficult and refreshing at the same time. I don't know how to explain that exactly. In any case, I think I'll be back to my regular posting sometime next week.

For now, here are a few pictures from yesterday. We went to the boardwalk with what seemed like thousands of other families who had the same plan in mind.



These photos seem so peaceful and quiet. The crowds around us were the complete opposite. We took it all in stride and the perfect weather kept us in a great mood.



I loved the top of the carrousel against the blue sky. It's one of little C's favorite rides while D doesn't care for it at all. It's interesting that our kids have such opposite tastes with so many things. They keep us on our toes.



We watched the boats coming in and out of the marina. It would've been so nice to be on one.



As for today, the weather was still perfect but it was 'clean out the garage' day. Not as fun, but now everything is in its place. In the meantime little C tried out skating for the first time. She was very nervous at the beginning and she wouldn't let go of my hand. A half-hour later she wouldn't let me touch her. The feeling of independence always wins her over.



Even though I didn't blog for a couple of weeks, I've come back to such kindness from around the web and beyond. I certainly can't check out this week without sending out some enormous thank yous to:

• Apartment Therapy for featuring my work on their site
  
• Whip Up for mentioning my magnet project
  
• Real Simple for mentioning my gift boxes to be used as wedding favors
  
• Freshly Blended - for featuring my work again - thank you Nicole! :)
• Tulibri - for giving me an inspiration award. How sweet!
• I'd love to know who I need to thank in Iceland. I've been receiving A LOT of visitors and a few customers from there and I have no idea why. Does anyone know? Thank you to whoever it may be.
• Babygadget - for her kind words and recommending my work for a child's nursery.
• Wee Birdy - for featuring my spring boxes

I sure hope I didn't forget anyone...

Friday Tidbit
Bientot Demain - Only one site for today but very inspiring. This blog's link list is also full of other wonderful sites to visit.

See you next week and Happy Easter!

green

Today is the opening of Green Pop, an eco-friendly themed market that Poppyhandmade will run until April 11th. I'm happy to join other artists there so if you have a chance pop on over for a visit. As always there is some wonderful work there.



Speaking of green, I'm happy to report that all the white paper that I use for my wall art is now all eco-friendly (my cards have always been). The paper is manufactured by a company that uses green energy in the form of a water mill. I've introduced a few of new pieces to my wall art page that you can see here.

My efforts in being more 'green' have also extended to using what I have. The cork, that is making it's first appearance in my wall art, is actually part of scraps that I had on hand from old projects. The entire alphabet will be forthcoming. Slowly... but surely.

Now, after a relaxing weekend, it's time to get to work! :)

just because

I haven't had a 'for fun' project in a while. This one just came about because I had some scraps of paper and I wanted to use them for something - anything. I wasn't quite ready to go to bed yet either. The results are very abstract and geometric. Nature has a lot of geometric shapes, patterns and rhythms so I don't consider this such a stretch from my trees and branches. Right? Abstract work is so much fun. But I've never really explored it as much as I'd like.

Now that I think of it I've had this idea for a while. I have this fantasy of sorts that I'd build great big panels to surround our chimney and cover them with small rectangles like this. The idea probably looks better in my head though. Who knows.





By the way, my two trees sold super quick today (thank you!!) but I managed to make another green one tonight (#8). I'll keep them coming slowly but surely.

I don't think I'll be back tomorrow. Oh wait it already is tomorrow. It's close to 2 am. I am going to pay dearly for this late night tomorrow... I mean today.

Have a great weekend!

all in a day's work

I've either been cutting paper or carving out linoleum blocks for the past couple of days. Most of my work has been for custom orders but I did get a chance to add a couple of things to my shop. I'm off to pick up the kids from school so there's no time for any blogging chit-chat right now. I'll be back tomorrow! :)

practicing what I preach

On Saturday, we had a wonderful girls-only afternoon with Little C. The boys (dad and D) where tired from a morning soccer game we all went to and didn't feel like joining us. Walking around and doing some shopping isn't their thing (surprise!). We went to the Yale Street Market and took our time enjoying everything. I love how my little C was so impressed with all the art and had to make comments on so many paintings. At one point, she made herself quite comfortable in front of a band that was playing and rocked back and forth to the rhythm of the music while eating ice cream. It was cute.

I think our favorite place was a little Japanese gift shop that we'd never visited before. We were on the second floor of that shop when I took the photo above. Yes, it's awful... but it's the only one I have. If you look carefully you can make out Little C looking out of the window. She got really excited when she saw the paper dragon on the ceiling and all the origami everywhere. It was such a peaceful place and I wanted half the books and paper goods and all the furniture in the store! Japanese design has always had such a pull on me.

The Heights, one of the oldest neighborhoods in Houston, was the perfect place for what we did and the weather was perfect. We walked a lot, talked a lot, went into girly stores (that just would've sent our boys home running for cover - ha!) and just had a fun time. We need to do this more often. No schedules. No hurries. Just taking our time. It was wonderful.

The last couple of days I've been in production mode. Lots of work but I'm enjoying it. There's nothing like a relaxing weekend to start off Monday on a good foot. I hope that you've all taken care of yourselves too. :)

Have a great day!