Frida by Ayala

I was so excited to receive the Frida doll I won in the ADO OWOH giveaway.  This beautiful doll was made by Ayala of Ayala Art Cards~Dolls. Be sure to check out Ayala's dolls and paintings- they are quite inspiring.  I have such admiration for Frida, that it is wonderful to be able to hang her as inspiration in my creative space.  Thank you Ayala!!

IF- Propagate

Wow...propagate.  What a word.  Illustration Friday is getting all SAT on us.  As a crossword addict...I like it.  In this painting, I'm aiming for propagation through inspiration.  I am trying to reproduce the whimsy that I have created to the many other pages of this sketchbook.  It's all for a project that I am really excited about and keeping under wraps.  Until the next page, please propagate.

Dallas Love

I'm a firm believer that everyone needs a change of scenery to spark the creative spirit, so I try to take a trip every couple of months or so. (Yes, I am a Pisces rising=dreamer). Since I have two young children, it's often to visit friends and stay at their homes, because bunking in the same hotel room with the kids can be tough (and expensive). For President's Week we traveled down to Dallas to visit my best friend from college.  My husband's only wish while in Texas: gorge on some down home BBQ, which we found at Sammy's in Northern Dallas.  This is where I found all of these bottle openers.  They clearly believe in choice at this joint.

OWOH Giveaway Winners

What a wonderful OWOH world tour I've had!  I hope that others enjoyed theirs as well!  Because there were so many commenters, I decided to give away 4 calendars instead of 3.  I am so flattered that many travelers decided to follow my blog, that I also added a "follower" giveaway.

My four winners are:
1)Lenore of eat write create
2)RR of Ravenous Reader
3)Jenea of Dispatches from the me
4)Snap of  Tales From Twisty Lane
and my Follower winner is Hippie Dog

Congratulations to all the winners and thank you to everyone who visited!  It was so wonderful meeting all of you.  All the best for a wonderful year and HUGE thank you to Lisa Swifka for investing so much precious time creating this event.

If you still don't have a 2010 calendar you can find mine at my Etsy shop.  I will be adding more artwork to my shop in the next couple of months as well.  Please visit anytime!

Thing A Day #6- Crayola Tower

While shopping at Target yesterday, I bribed my two year old daughter with a Crayola Tower.  The deal was as long as she didn't whine and cry, the Tower stayed in the cart.  She's very willful and yes, we became the proud owners of a large quantity of crayons (which we already had at home, just in a much less orderly state).  In the last 24 hours the tower became an instant hit and the girls followed my single directive- take care of them and put them back where they belong.  So far, so good.
Now the only qualm I have with this tower is the way it is organized in the package.  Crayola sells it with all different colors next to each other.  There is no rhyme or reason to how the colors are placed and I feel that it does the user a disservice.  It is much easier and saves a lot of time when the colors are in order.  Therefore I reorganized the tower and am giving the shout out to Crayola that this is how their tower should be organized in the package.  I'm more than happy to consult with them on it.  This first one's free;)
The thing I LOVE about this tower is the sharpener that comes with it.  When I was young the Crayola sharpeners just made the end into a cone.  This Crayola sharpener makes the tip look EXACTLY like a new crayon.  It's fabulous.
Thing a Day# 6= Color Order=Zen State (My Virgo moon needs organizational activities in my life.)

Day 5 Sophia

After school today the girls wanted to create so I brought out the collage box. I joined in to create "Sophia", named by my daughter. Her best friend's name is Sophia, hence the first name she came up with. I let her do the character description, as I am getting annoyed with them. It was feeling a little too cutesy and I'm not in a cutesy mood.
Words from my 4 year old daughter's mouth...
This is Sophia. Her favorite color is pink.  She likes to play at the park and she is holding hands with her friend. She's happiest when constructing 7 feet sandcastles on the Pacific coast.(The last sentence was my add-on.)

One World One Heart 2010 Giveaway

Welcome to my blog! Thank you so much for visiting. I hope that you are having a wonderful magic carpet ride.

This is my first year participating in the One World One Heart giveaway, and I am so excited!

"The original idea behind this giveaway event was to bring bloggers together from around the world who may never ordinarily meet. It closes the gap of the blog community and enables us to interact, discover new and wonderful people..."- Lisa Swifka of A Whimsical Bohemian. I am so thankful to Lisa for creating such a momentous event and for helping everyone to make new friends!

I just became a ticketholder the day before it started, so I wasn't able to fine tune my giveaway, but I did take a picture of my giveaway on my magic carpet.
I am giving away 3 of my 2010 calendars. The top illustration is from my calendar. All of the artwork was created by me and if you have one on your wall it will make all your dreams for 2010 come true (with a little help from yourself of course)!

To participate in my giveaway you must complete 3 challenges...well just 3 super easy tasks.

1- You must have a blog to link back to.

2- In the comments section please tell me the following 3 things. (Voluntary)

1 What is your New Year's resolution?
2 What are the chances of getting it to come true?
3 If you could take a magic carpet ride anywhere in the world or beyond, where would it be?
4 Can you do your New Year's resolution on a magic carpet?
(This last one is a bonus question.)

3-Leave your comment on this post by midnight NYC eastern time February 14th.

May the best bloggers win! (That's all of you.)

I will be choosing by a random counter, because sometimes it's better to leave things to fate.

Thank you for stopping by my Diary and reading a little bit about me and my daily life. I hope you enjoyed your visit. Patricia

Thing-a-Day 4- Don

This is Don, but all his friends call him Derek.  In his life he has been to 736 Yankees games, has eaten 3518 hotdogs, has snacked on 1522 bags of cracker jacks, and has drank 5970 beers.  Right now he's drinking beer # 5971.

Posted via email from thing-a-day 2010

Day 3- Rosie

This is Rosie.
Yes, she took longer than 1/2 an hour to create.  I get caught up and can't stop until I'm satisfied that it's finished.

Posted via email from Delight Studio

Thing-A-Day 2

This is the Robbins family, known as such because they are notorious for robbing carrot patches around the globe.  You might have seen these rabbits before on the FBI most wanted lists.  They have also graced the windows of Bergdorf Goodman (in the background of course).  This is just a small representation of the clan...they are rabbits.

Posted via email from Delight Studio

Thing-A-Day #1

Since this is my first year participating in Thing-a-Day, I wanted to keep it simple.  I will be creating a character per day and telling a little bit about them.  If you have anything to add about a certain creation that I might not know, like their favorite beverage or day of the week, please tell me!
Let me introduce you to Clementine.  She loves to eat four leaf clovers.  It has made her so lucky that she won the lottery.  She bought herself a tract of land in Africa with a beautiful pond on it.  She now lives there with her best friend Myrtle (the Egret) with an endless supple of red nail polish.

Posted via email from Delight Studio

Spark #1- The Book Book

Before I moved to the suburbs of Long Island I taught art classes to 1-5 graders three times a week. I miss molding young minds and the inspiration it brings, therefore I have been playing with many different ideas and have decided to begin interactive inspirational posts (I'll call them Sparks) on the blog. You can participate or not- mostly it's just food for the soul.
My first prompt is taken from the Book Book by artist Sophie Benini Pietromarchi. I found this book in a round-about way via one of my favorite blog's, Julia Rothman's Book By It's Cover. I went to Tara Books where I found a diverse range of very artistic books from all over the world. While I'm on the topic of multicultural books, my friend Nathalie would like you to sign this.

The Book Book nurtures ideas and it's always a treat opening it up.

In chapter 2 Sophie states "There are No Rules!"
In chapter 2.1 Sophie show's a collection of things inside her pencil case...

In chapter 3.1 is the prompt for...
Massaging Your Imagination

Describe:
A Maze
A place to hide
Your favorite prince
Your favorite princess
Your house
Your castle
Your hero

Feel free to post your sparks in the comments...and if it's a visual spark, please link to the image!

Hope For Haiti Now

I can only imagine what it's like in Haiti right now. I experienced the 6.9 Loma Prieta earthquake and it's something you never forget. If you add all the fallout that you get in a 3rd world country where there are no building codes, the devastation is far worse. It makes me happy and sad that it takes a huge disaster for the world to come together. Above are drawings I created while watching last night's Hope For Haiti Now concert.

A Small Structure in Inverness

A fantastically interesting building. Another what were they thinking? And I'm sure there is a completely logical answer to creating a building with no windows in the shape of a tunnel. The murals are probably worth more than the actual structure, but then again, who knows?

Confined and Confounded

Here's another one for IF. My New Year's resolution is to pump out one painting a week (if not more) and here's a warmer-upper. I'm playing more with gouache and it was confounding me, if only because I was in a cranky mood. Probably because the sun was shining through my window and blinding me. Or possibly because my stomach was rumbling and I couldn't eat the cupcakes.

Power by Numbers

I love window shopping- not only is it free, but it can be quite inspiring. I wonder what some of the window stylists are thinking when they create the themes for their windows. Over New Years I walked passed these windows at Shotwell in San Francisco and couldn't pass up the photo-op. Any ideas? My only idea was power by numbers.

Pavlova Heaven and My Thoughts on Hosting

My theory on cooking is that if you are going to spend time doing it, it better be good aka phenomenal. I don't particularly like to cook, I prefer to bake, but since I hosted Christmas this past year (2009) I had my first dinner party of 11 at my new house, and it included all of the above. Appetizers, entrees and desserts. My mother-in-law said it was her favorite Christmas Day ever, and I said it was my WORST. I sat for maybe 5 minutes plus dinnertime. The rest of the evening I was in the kitchen while everyone else was in the living room drinking my favorite Pommery champagne. When the 2 bottles were kicked (nobody else thought to bring champagne) I was an unhappy camper. (I had had a total of one glass). Show's you how much people remember the cook.

At one point during the evening, I looked in the fridge and remembered I needed a salad. OH CRAP. Just then my sister-n-law walked in and saved my Christmas (and my sanity, I just couldn't make one more thing).

"Uhm, M, would you do something for me?"

"Yeah, sure, what do you need?"

"Do you mind whipping up a green salad?"

"No problem."

Twenty minutes later, VOILA, she had done the dirty work and a beautiful salad was made.

Thank God for sister-n-laws. And Ina Garten.

My menu was based solely on her cookbooks. I like recipes with a few fresh ingredients and that's how Ina rolls.

I decided to make a Pavlova for dessert after I found a scrumptious picture of it in her cookbook, barefoot contessa at home. She had me at the first sentence, "I'm always looking for easy fruit desserts". Done.

This dessert was heaven to eat. I had two servings during dessert time. Then everyone left and it became my favorite part of the day because I was alone and ate a 3rd piece in peace.

Holiday Garland

One of my favorite things around this time of year is receiving holiday cards and seeing how all of my friends and family are doing. Kids grow so fast. In years past I have put them in a pile to go through them maybe once or twice, but this year I decided to get crafty. I decided to hang them garland style around my living room so that I could sit and stare at all the cards when I wanted to veg out. I've meditated much on these cards throughout this December.

All I did was hang them on fishing wire with small binder clips to make them stay. I used my picture frame molding so that I wouldn't have to put holes in the walls and voila! Far off people who I rarely see have been with me on a daily basis this December.

Gingerbread Cookies

About four years ago I tore a Michael Mina gingerbread recipe out of a Food & Wine magazine and waited 2 years to make it. Yes, I have about 500 recipes in a box that look REALLY good, but I have yet to cook/bake the darn things. Well I dug the gingerbread recipe out last year and made it- 3 times! I am already baking my second double recipe of it this year! These cookies are DELICIOUS, fun and so easy to make. I usually bake the cookies and then ice and decorate them later with the kids. (I stress too much if I let the kids use the cookie cutters because rolling out the dough and getting it into the oven takes some finessing without the kids...with the kids it's a deathwish.)

Vita Collage

I've mentioned this store before, but I had no images, so I feel compelled to create a post with pictures. Vita Collage is "a thoughtful assemblage of extraordinary items" and very difficult to find online, therefore I thought I'd do the world a service by creating a little visual teaser. This place is like no other. It is full of magical inspiration that sucks me in every time. On my last visit I found a wreath for my door, and this time I found a house for my house (more on that later). There are very few places that make my heart hum and this is one of them. I'll let these photos speak for themselves. The only comparable place as divine is John Derian in New York City (where I just bought 2 Moroccan poufs over the weekend-more on that later too;)

I've considered opening a small studio space where I would paint and teach art classes. If this idea ever crystalizes, the space will be put together with this piece of heaven in mind.