beach fourth

galveston is not the prettiest of beaches ... but it is all we have. and it can have it's moments, especially when you can capture them. hope you had a happy and sun-filled fourth!

revisited

so back to the country again this weekend ... what a blast. a little work, a little play, dance hall perusing and of course, some livestock ... what's not to like?

it's my birthday...

and I feel like I'm at the age where I *almost* have to act like I'm a grown up....but not for another year!

spoonflower

spoonflower is an amazing website a friend of mine told me about a couple of years ago where you can design your own custom fabric and have it printed ... awesome, right? well, textiles turned into paper, and long story short, some fabric that I had printed from spoonflower just lay in a drawer. it wasn't perfect, the design needed to be tweaked, but I got a hankering for sewing a couple of days ago and made some cute drawstring lunch/snack bags out of it ... you can never have enough snacks and ziplocs just don't do it for me.

I see gift making in my future ...

by the way, HAPPY EARTH DAY!

before and afters | part II

so, long story short, I've always really, REALLY wanted a garden of my own. a true, blue, going-out-to-the-yard-to-get-a-jalepeno garden. I had one with my parents, but that was years ago, and now that I live in a house that actually has a yard ... well let's just say the time had come. 

after spring started to show up around here, I decided that I'd take a gander back into said yard (to my credit, this garden area is separted from the house by an enclosed deck and therefore we never venture back there). 

WOW. 

let's just say the weeds were the size of small-medium sized trees and let the pics do the talking.

the first photo is showing the weeds ... and the small chunk of area to the foreground is the dent I made in the weeding the first day (two hours):

this is the second day (the newspapers are to help the killing of the weeds)

third day ... some progress is being made if I say so myself

this is after six days and copious amounts of help ... yay!

this photo doesn't show the enormity of the final pile, but you can see a pile of about a quarter of the weeds

so the seeds have been planted and we're so excited around here ... there'll hopefully be some photos of seedlings soon ...

a new favorite

before and afters | part I

It's spring time and what is more fitting that before and afters? I have a doozy coming up in terms of our back yard/garden...at the expense of a disc in my back nonetheless.

But here is the first one. Maybe you can tell and maybe you can't, but this photo shows these beautiful old folding chairs we acquired via trade (the best!) with years of dust and grime. 

And here they are after a simple wood cleaner. Awesome!

The garden is coming soon ... and be on the lookout for a special offer from The Local Paper in honor of Earth Day ... !!

01 collage _ mixed media

okay, so who didn't love making collages as a kid? the sticky glue fingers, the scraps of colored paper all over the place...the holey magazines that would make everyone angry...!

anyway, I thought I'd revive that zest by doing some collages of my own, say a collage per day? starting next week? (let's see if I can stick with it...)

here's to collage week next week with a collage I made just for Friday (click on image to enlarge)

...have a good weekend!  *by the way if you haven't already, you should leave a comment/rating for me here

london love

millenium eye | tower of london | tower bridge | st. paul's cathedral | big ben

more love: one of the most exciting illustrators I've seen in a long time, jon klassen

project

started work on a new project and the prototype is underway as we speak ... sometimes the residue is just as interesting or even more so than the final product.

uppercase

nostalgia

Lamhe, one of my favorite films growing up, came out when I was 10 years old. I've been thinking alot lately about my cultural past ... thank goodness for Netflix. Even though I'm not Indian, we sure danced the heck out of all these awesome songs at my sister's wedding.

Sridevi, one of the most beautiful (to me) Indian actresses of all time and Anil Kapoor starred in it ... weird storyline, but then again, it is Bollywood.

more to come on this front ... a wonderful Indian blogger