A Pictoral Birthday Report

Well, I am woefully behind on every form of communication these days. Starting your own business a pretty demanding task I tell ya! But, I did have time to have a birthday and it was quite a wonderful one. I felt positively run over by love and cheers and sweet cards and notes and gifts. It was kind of a birthday week as things trickled in, and I relished each day full of its own surprises. A BIG thank you for all my dear friends and family who loved on me. I feel very cared for and supported. Here are some pictures of the birthday festivities.

A gorgeous old book in its new home.

A new favorite piece of art work - A human heart with flowers drawn/painted on quilted fabric! Love!

3 Beautiful new icons. One for the dining room, one for the bedroom, one to live above my desk in the studio.

Some super fun gifts.

Some of my new books! So much to learn and read. I am so excited.

Other pieces of visual wonderfulness to inspire me.

The writing on this card is equal to about $1000 in the bank of phaedra's heart.

Cheery birthday cards!

These packages came wrapped in my favorite color combination.

This is a super creative Korean birthday tradition. I loved it!

This city of mushrooms captured my fancy on a walk with David.

Look at this crazy seed/berry/pod thing!

Assorted Fungi to delight my eye.

These birthday flowers from David lasted until yesterday! They smelled amazing. Looking at them from above was like looking onto some crazy-beautiful planetary landscape.

A fig tart with cardamon frangipane, pomegranates and a graham crust! So amazing!

A beautiful story with equally beautiful illustrations.

Wrapping to delight my eyes.

Dinner at Sitar: lamb korma, vegetable fritters, chicken saag, lentil dosai.

Coffee, mandelhornchen, cards and journaling at Gugelhupf.

Indian deserts at Sitar.

Wow, I ended up with quite a lot of pictures. I had so many lovely things happen I just could not decide which to include. I'm off to plan an art lesson, make some muffins, put a chicken in the oven, and try to ignore the gloomy rainy day . I hope your day is happy!

Dreamy Autumn Days

When I signed up for this blog I had every intention of posting something substantial within the first week. Only now almost 3 months later am I sitting down to write something!
After a helter skelter fall full of travels and birthdays and deadlines I am finally able to sit down with a cup of Cappuccino Rooibos tea (which can be found here among other treasures) and write. Hooray!

A ceramic piece made by our friend Rick Van Dyke given to us for a wedding gift.

I am working almost every day now in the studio, other wise known as our garage. I am currently finishing a piece that my friend Ben commissioned and can't wait to post pictures of it as soon as I am through. It has been a fun and challenging project for me. I feel like it's a great start to a whole new body of work. I spent most of last year making block prints and it's time for a bit of a change into something more risky. So, I am experimenting with drawing and collage again and finding that I love the immediacy of it after all the printing. It's just fantastic to be making marks on paper again.
It has been so fun to be puttering away out there in the cold weather with a warm hat cutting paper and drawing mustard greens and ships and nests all onto wonderful seagreen/grey fabriano paper.
I am losing hours while split pea soups simmers in the house on the stove and I am loving it.

Since it's been a long haul to get a space cleared in the garage I am posting a few pictures of my work space and some of things around the house that make me happy right now.

My inspiration board.

The wee art space.

Inks and things.

Paper Waiting to be made into something beautiful or pasted onto my drawings.

Organized colors.

Picking our first Mustard Greens on Thanksgiving day. It was unfortunately rather balmy at around 70 degrees, thus the t-shirt. Thankfully the next day it was back to chilly.

The Autumn is my favorite season for just about everything, food, clothing, weather, holidays and light. It's the perfect time to be cozy, the perfect time for dreamy music and mohair scarves and the perfect time to settle into a rhythm. We have been gone so much of the last few months that being home and quiet is a real treat for me. It's also really exciting that the cool weather seem to finally be here for good.
Now, I know it's December 1st and for many of you living in the northern states I am sure it seems silly to be talking of Autumn this late. But it takes a while for Autumn to reach Texas. I really appreciate it when it gets here no matter how late. I am content to be carving out my own little rhythm of working, learning, making, cooking and gardening. I hope it becomes steady and solid and at the end of the winter I discover that I have a treasure of creative projects to show for it.

Ornaments waiting for their tree.

Sunday was the beginning of Advent and we got out all the Christmas stuff... I guess that means I have to admit Autumn is almost over. :(