Happy Easter!

Shiro Plum Blossoms with Lichens

3/31/13

Trinkets and Toys

 Yesterday's blog had photos of real Sweets and Treats,

today here are polymer clay versions of these goodies.

 I collected the pieces over a few years, from a variety of artists.

A great place to start is inedible jewelry on etsy.

 Of course I have plenty of doughnuts: filled and frosted.

Bright frosting sprinkled with nonpareils.

Even a dish of stacked doughnuts from the lovely PetitPlat.

Sweets and Treats

Sweets and Treats...

Can anything be more enticing than this?

Chocolate frosting and cream filling, that's the stuff.

Even better, lemon filling!

Pink and red, beautiful here too.

Pink and Red

Pink and red, two perfect colors together,

inside and out.

Splash with warm oranges and yellows...

...and touches of cool blues, purples and greens.

Put the whole fruit salad up against white,

with outlines of black, and Taah-Daaa!

Sensational Skirts

Vladi is jazzed, his favorite things just arrived in the mail,

skirts from JaneElizabeths.  As soon as I put one on,

V curls up in my lap and falls asleep.

I adore the patterns...

And they launder so well, softer every time like good sheets.

And every skirt is under $20!

 Everyone looks good against these fabrics.

Uh-oh, that's enough focus on skirts for now...

Time to bundle up and take a walk.

There is another pretty skirt photo at the TUV blog.

Spring Flowers

Flowers are springing up everywhere around us.

From patches of fresh dirt...

...and from under heavy rocks and bricks.

Spring is buoyant, bubbly, beautiful, and all too brief.

Brown and Orange

Even though the browns in my watercolor pallete look like
chocolate candies, I usually shy away from painting browns.

Well, except for our beautiful Bengal cat boys.

Lighten brown up a bit to orange, that's what I'm talking about!

49 Cent Books

Goodwill in Eugene Oregon has all its books for 49 cents each.

You can basically fill a cart for well less than 50 dollars.

Art, writing, cooking, Christmas, and a huge children's collection.

I haven't filled a cart yet, but I'm working up to it :).

Picnic Bench

This photo reminds me of the old instant polaroids,

fading quickly and everything a bit askew.

Its our picnic bench, a favorite escape acres away,

no matter how tiring the day, you can always see

big sky, hear the wind in the trees and feel like

you're on vacation.  Its spring break 2013 :).

Holiday Dinner

On special occasions we break out the Quorn vegetarian turkey,

potatoes, gravy, stuffing, corn, sweet potatoes, and cranberry sauce.

 

Its hard to say which part tastes the best, its a sum of the parts.

We celebrate a lot :).

Brand Logo

Just for fun I've been learning about designing

the Merry Bright brand.

Apparently in my case I'm selling myself, my art and point

of view. Its scary and exciting at the same time. So Step #1

has been defining what my art is (and isn't).

Step #2: Designing a simple logo that captures

the spirit and identity of the brand.  Slight variations

of the logo can represent different ideas or products.

My favorite is Google and their frequent logo changes.

Yogi teas augments their logo with a cup of tea surrounded

by varying herbs.  My logo is a red ripe pear for Merry and a

sparkling white circle for Bright.

Its no coincidence I fell in love with this ring :).

Cleaning the Roaches

So a recent article on how to boost creativity listed nine steps, including

embracing the surreal.  So here we are, giving Madagascar Hissing

Cockroaches a flour bath to remove parasitic mites.

Cheap paintbrushes are perfect for picking off mites that didn't

get dislodged by the flour.

The roaches don't love this, but they do stay pretty still,

even during the water "shower" that washes off excess flour.

All clean, the mom checks out two of her offspring.

Coffee Cake

The perfect combination of fruit and cake.

Icing dripping into raspberry pools.

Usually this disappears before I can take any photos.

Just one more shot before...

...it all disappears.

More photos of Tanjiro treating himself at the TUV blog.

Southern Lady

The March/April 2013 issue of Southern Lady is gorgeous.

I don't usually buy magazines right from the newstand,

but I hunted through multiple stores to find this one.

The vibrant colors and patterns against white, wood, and glass

are right up my alley.

An eclectic mix of plates, vases, and linens...

...but all with a strong design hand directing the party.

Can't wait to add these ideas to my world.