TWO

Our little Bird is TWO today!!!

The second year has definitely gone faster than the first - whoosh! And here is this awesome little girl who takes great fun in copying all of our mannerisms, tickling & carrying her babies in backpacks turned Ergo's (baby carrier), whose favorite color seems to be red based on how everything is "red" when I ask her "what color?", who picks roses from our backyard to carry around and smell, is sensitive & sweet to people and animals, who eats strawberries like they're a food group, adores Elmo, rocks, shoes, and being chased ("chase you? chase you?!").

Two isn't terrible...in fact, it's funny & sweet & there's always something new. Of course, there are still the tantrums (see below, and note Phylo's stance, indifferent, used to having a little girl throw herself on the floor in front of him).

Much LOVE to our Bird!

Love love love love love you :o)

xoxoxo,

Seeing (with New Eyes)

When I was little I always said I had 3 wishes:

To be able to sing.

To be able to breathe underwater.

To have perfect vision.

At 13 I got my scuba certification after I came to grips that I would never become a mermaid.

I've been a part of many musicals but never for my singing ability (I can dance & therefore get hidden in with the chorus). I'm OK with that.

And yesterday I got my perfect vision wish. I'm awestruck, amazed, in disbelief - I can really see!! Words can't express how grateful I am.

And giddy :o)

Check out what I've been working on over here at Spoonflower.

More to come! Full speed ahead!

Giddy!

Have a beautiful weekend & thanks for stopping by, really.

xo,

Spring Travel, Part 2: Sarreguemines, France

After getting over the worst of the jet lag we headed over to France, just an hour+ from my parent's home in Germany. Now maybe it's all in my head (because I do have quite the soft spot for France) but I could tell a difference as soon as we had crossed the border. It's like when we would go visit family in Costa Rica for Christmas and as fun and exciting as it was I always knew when we were back in Panama (besides literally crossing the border) and I would stick my head out the window to breathe in the air of home :o) Anyway, maybe it's not too that extent but France did look & feel different from Germany. The houses had shutters, there were even more gardens, the people were a bit more stylish - even at the McDonalds we stopped in for Bird to run on the playground (we didn't know where any were at that point). By the way, it was the first time I'd been in a McDonalds in years - I bet they don't serve cafe au lait at the ones here in San Jose.

We went to Sarreguemines first (I have to look up that spelling every time - sheesh) and hit the first playground we saw. It was so peaceful. No one around but us & we sat on a bench and ate our packed lunch and Bird made us laugh. My mom ("Gigi" as she's known to Bird) got her inner child on and had fun on the rocking cars. Made me happy. So happy that I did it too (actually it doesn't take much to encourage me...).

We did some thrifting in both Germany & France. At the flea market we went to in my parent's area Jared said "Wow, their crap looks just like our crap" :o) It's true really.

We had much better luck at the French thrift stores outside Sarreguemines & Forbach. It was there that Jared joked that we were cleaning out all the copper in France. It felt like it. We picked up so many pots & watering cans & planters (the molds were a present from my parents) that we had to ship back two large boxes! I love having these "treasures" scattered throughout our house & garden now. It's even sweeter that they were thrifted, yes!

Even though the thrift stores were in more industrial areas one had a lovely field next to it and we had fun picking daisies, tossing Bird, and just goofing off before having to make the trip home.

More of those fields of brilliant yellow rapeseed! Wish we had stopped, haha. I realize all my field pictures are from the car, flying by.

Thanks for joining me on this part of our trip...next up will be a German castle and some fun in the trees :o)

More pics from this leg of the trip at my flickr.

Have a lovely weekend!!

Spring Travel, Part 1: Schwedelbach, Germany

It's our first week back from our European jaunt through Germany & France. I confess that I was terrified about the plane rides with Bird. It really wasn't so bad. It helped (quite a bit) to have my iphone along - full of photos & family videos and toddler game apps. Oh, and the jumbo sized charger as well. We scored an empty seat for Bird on BOTH flights. We were so grateful.

My parents live in Schwedelbach, Germany. It's sort of a country side village. My mom is a teacher and works on the local American military base. My dad is retired and able to pursue all the creative outlets he wants to (and there are a lot). The entire bottom floor of the house (and its a big house) is his studio and is full of paintings, clock projects, model ships and cars, various furniture projects, gardening tools and experiments, etc. - he is a tinkerer. It's been so long since I've been to their house...they usually come see us since they lived in Japan for the last 7 years (we visited just once). It was SO wonderful to see them in their own element again, surrounded by their well traveled and collective style. Every where you look there are treasures. And books - so many books.

I wish I had photographed their house more. The twelve foot long Japanese fish wind socks hanging in the stairwell. Their large eyes peering at you from the second floor, reminding me of something from a Hayao Miyazaki film. The Turkish rugs in rich reds and blues. The copper kettles, pots, pans in casually assembled collections throughout the house. What I admire is that as artfully as things are arranged, they really aren't just collections and vignettes, they're useful everyday items. My eyes had never been fresh enough before to see the artistry of my parents' home, and it was really inspiring. And it was another one of those moments where you look at your parents differently. Oh, growing up.

Bird had a great time exploring the house and getting to push her "yaya" (stroller) around their neighborhood. Just down the hill is the area's glass recycling receptacle where you drop off your glass by color. Brown, green, clear - all organized, so German. It's actually pretty fun I thought - sliding the bottles through the holes and hearing them smash at the bottom :o) Bird cringed at first then got really into it.

I got to see one of my favorite teachers from way back in junior high, as well as my former school nurse. They're at the same base my mom is now and they all love to hang out together - visiting new restaurants, taking tours, exploring. It's a really small world.

At one restaurant we walked to Bird made a new friend, Josephine, who captured Bird's interest (and taste buds) by reaching from her high chair over to Bird's with french fries (pommes frittes). One after another. It was giggly and cute. And I was just glad that Bird was eating something. Then they raced around the courtyard together and made us all laugh.

One of the most picturesque parts of this area of Europe in spring are the flowering fields of rapeseed. They're just everywhere! And the yellow! It's a true lemon yellow - acidic, bright, attention getting, soul lifting yellow. Driving from the airport in Frankfurt, down to Schwedelbach, and all over into France we were surrounded by the fields of yellow. Jared said they provided the sunshine since the real sun was too stubborn to come out for most of our time there.

More photos of Schwedelbach and beginning of our trip at my flickr.

Now it's back to work for me! Working on a new design for fabric - it's fun stuff, share soon!

Have a lovely Monday and come back soon for part 2 of our trip - forging into France & exploring the forests of Germany.

:o)

xo,

Drawing, Painting, & Granny Square Gluttony

We're getting ready for a trip to Germany (and France because we'll be so close & because we simply HAVE to!) to see my parents and get a little time off from the day to day. So things are busy busy as we prepare for traveling with our not quite yet 2yr old (which means she'll be in our laps for 10 hours :dread:) and getting things shipshape at home with house sitting, pet sitting, farm share picking up, etc, etc...makes me realize how many responsibilities we carry around on a daily basis.

I've been painting - yes! Joy! And working on a project specifically for my sister in law who makes custom purses. It's very exciting and I'll share more as it develops.

I've been so inspired by SPRING. Maybe because it's been dragging its feet 'round these parts. Maybe because I'm just a total sun worshipper and I can't help myself.

I've been so happy to sit at my work table with my pencil & watercolors and float colors across awesome heavy paper and make the images from my head pop into real illustrations.

It's like a big drink of water when you're thirsty.

Bird's long afternoon naps have been a huge blessing (we're still trading Peter for Paul though as she's been going to bed late & occasionally getting up at night, but 's okay).

It's especially sweet to see Bird taking an interest in painting too! Her favorite kind so far is coating the deck, adirondack chairs, garden beds, and our dog Phylo with a water soaked paintbrush. I give her a big fat one that holds a ton of water and she's thrilled. Too fun.

When my MIL was here a few weeks ago she renewed my love of the granny square, heh heh. They're SO addictive!! I figured it out that if I were to crochet one every night for the next 187 days I'd have a decent sized blanket. That thought made me feel like it was a deadline or something and I stopped crocheting for a few nights.

Happy Monday to you and hope your week is wonderful!

:o) :o)

Waving at you as I'm skipping by

It's been an incredibly busy month, though it's hard to sum up what all I've been doing - just lots of stuff...work/life/dreams. I've got cute pictures to share...Bird is 22mths and quite my little buddy these days :o) I'll be back soon with new illustrations to show you (oh yea, that's one thing I've been working on!).

Happy busy, exciting, Spring-popping-out-all-over-the-place April to you!

xo,

Big Floorcloth :: Tiny Papercut

After planning, researching, measuring, cutting, applying gesso, designing & painting, hunting down the right (zero VOC) polyurethane, applying said polyurethane, then applying more polyurethane, then still more...the floorcloth is finally finished!!

The process was really fun and it's very rewarding to now have a floor covering in our dining room that is beautiful & durable, and that I made myself. It's also pretty sweet that unlike a regular rug I can simply wipe off the gunk that Bird spills on it throughout the day.

I wish I had had a larger piece of canvas to start with. I used my largest remnant but it still only got me 7' diameter. Sounds big, but now that it's under the table it seems smallish. No biggie. Someday we plan to make a larger top for the table (and I'd love to paint the whole table white...yes, really, Jared would be quite unhappy with me...) but till then I think it works just fine. Maybe in the future I'll find another spot for it...it's always fun to move things around.

Thanks for coming along the floorcloth making journey with me! It feels so great to accomplish these kinds of projects. I have to remind myself that even if I don't have tons of time, if I just apply myself in short spurts and chip away eventually things will get finished. And that's a real boost for the next thing in mind.

On that note...

I made my first papercut! I love Elsa Mora's work and she is such an inspiration. She is amazing at whatever she touches it seems, and one of the things I appreciate is how many mediums she works in & types of artwork she creates with. It's always apparent that it's Elsita's work...whether drawing, painting, jewelry, collage, or papercutting! She even created a separate blog from her original blog devoted just to the art of papercutting. And we have a print of one of her papercuts in our office. They're gorgeous...you can find them in her shop.

My mom's birthday is today (happy birthday!!!) and I wanted to make her a special piece of art she could have on her desk at school (my mom is a teacher) or on the wall at home. I really wanted to try papercutting so I created this piece with a bird in a honeysuckle vine. The process was totally different than working on a floorcloth and it was refreshing to go from something very large to something small and precise. It was a little unnerving to make the tiniest of cuts and I did have one oops! but it's very difficult to find (please don't look too closely, haha).

After cutting it out with a curved x-acto blade, I used a tiny awl point to make the round holes in the flower blossom and the bird's eye. Then I applied adhesive to the back (I used a ballpoint-tip glue pen) and mounted it to a bright spring blue paper (an intense robin's egg blue almost) and put it into a thrifted frame (I'm always on the hunt for frames). The papercut is cut from a heavy & beautifully textured watercolor paper. It's yummy.

Now to send it off to my mom in Germany where Spring and the birds are starting to make their way out and saying goodbye to Winter. Hope she likes it :o)

Have a lovely day!

Floorcloth update: polyurethane found!!

I've been kind of stumped with my floorcloth...(not just because we currently have company staying in my studio this week) because I haven't wanted to toss on 5+ coats of regular old polyurethane or polycrylic after painting it with zero VOC paints. I mean how silly would that be?

So I started hunting down zero or low VOC polyurethanes and I tell ya, there aren't a lot of them. First I found this one by Safecoat whose paints I've used and really like, but at $88/gallon I couldn't pull the trigger.

Then I found a product by Ecoprocote called Poly-Soy...$45/gallon (still pricey, but with 400-500 sf of coverage we should be able to use it for many things around here). I like what I read about it - ultra-low VOC, self-leveling, protects and adheres to practically everything, and is virtually odorless. Oh, and it comes in a satin finish. Sold! It's on its way.

The back of the floorcloth is another story...traditional rug pads are gross (just sayin'). I had thought of piecing together bits of non-skid shelf liner but that's kind of cheesy (plus it would take a LOT of it to cover a 7' diameter area), and so that's leading me toward the idea of adhering a fabric to the back. Just gluing it on. I need to think more on that one, but at least I can visualize it, and I definitely have enough fabric for it. And non-skid isn't really an issue since it will be anchored by our heavy wood table.

And then I'll have to address the edges at some point. To be honest I keep trying to wave off the critique that a round canvas floor cloth isn't a good idea because it will fray so it's better to stick to an octagon. Phooey! I really want a true circle. I may end up either hand-applying glue to the edge (like fray-stop for quilting fabrics but more durable glue in this case...or maybe I really will use fray-stop, hmm). Or I'm going to adhere bias tape. Seriously. I just might do that. Why the heck not.

Allright...enough rambling with no photos to show for it :o) That just makes me feel weird.

Time to figure out the rest of this wet, soggy, and hail-filled (yes, hail!) day. My inner Panama girl is threatening to jump on a plane about now.

xo,