THOUGHT PATTERNS

Exciting news, beach and chocolate cake

I was contacted yesterday by a lovely person who bought one of my papercuts recently. He had the most exciting news to share with me, and the news is that their house was being photographed for the Better Homes & Gardens Magazine and my papercut is in one of the shots! How wonderful is that!!! This photo shoot will not be in the magazine until some time next year, but what a wonderful, wonderful thing to hear! I was so thrilled and honored. They will also mention the source of the papercut - Blue Flower Pot which is of course Tina Tarnoff's shop :). I have several other exciting things that are in the cooker, I will share them with you when the time will be right.

On another matter, I just uploaded a whole lot of pictures I took a couple of weeks ago at Stinson Beach. You can find them in my photo album on this blog. I think today is the perfect day to reminisce about the beach and 80 degrees we were fortunate to have that weekend. The reason we went to Stinson Beach (not that one needs a reason!) was this big reunion that my husband's long term friends organized. A 40 year reunion! They all knew each other in Madison and were a part of the student uprising in the late 60s, and later lived together on house-boats and did light-shows in Amsterdam in the 70's. My husband Terry wrote about them in the Amsterdam chapter of his book "The Bone Man of Benares", the funniest, most profound and most influential book I have ever read. Do check it out. So, a couple of weeks ago they rented a lovely house on the beach, brought a lot of home made movies from those times which were extremely interesting, exciting, and heartwarming to watch (there was a lot of passion, freedom, courage and new ideas back then) and we all had a smashing time.

One of the major theme of that reunion was eating:) and I was in charge of making a birthday chocolate cake for our lovely friend Adrianna. The cake turned out spectacularly, it was much talked about, and the next morning, while consuming the last crumbs of the cake, the consensus was that I should open up a cake shop. Hmm, not a bad idea, I like baking and I like cake. I think that might just work out. Or maybe not. Between Terry and I, major chocoholics, there would be no cake left over to sell. I had a little trouble decorating it though. I am not so skilled at using those icing writing tubes, but it turned out pretty well at the end. The fantastic curvy candles (picked out by Terry) helped a lot!

So here are a couple of pictures of the famous Death by chocolate cake:

And here is the unbelievably good recipe.

The "only" thing I added in the icing was several tablespoons of icing sugar, a couple of tablespoons of sour cream and cake crumbs that I was left with after trimming the cake.

Delicious!!

I'll leave you with some of my favourite Stinson beach shots:

our feet...

human and bird footprints

very experimental, no? :))

Major thanks to my husband whose spectacular feet were a major part of this post!

xoxoxo

A new addition to my shop

I've been thinking for a long time about having some cards made. I am very fond of personal notes, little thank yous, sending funny & cute little doodles to my friends and my customers. So I made a few, just for my personal use. They ended up looking so lovely, that I just had to include them in my shop!

The note cards are printed on beautiful parchment card stock paper and have matching envelopes. They are blank inside, and each folded card measures 4.25 x 5.5 inches. They come packaged together in a clear resealable cellophane sleeve.

Wonderful to give as gifts or for your own use!

The images on these cards are prints of my original papercuts.

There are five designs available for now....

Back Where You Belong

For the Love of Crows, #1

Girl on a Swing

Being Anna

Autumn Kiss

It's a wonderful thing to get a handwritten note, so let's write!

xoxoxox

Autumn Kiss - New Papercut

To continue in the heartwarming autumnal tone, I want to show you the new papercut that I just completed...

Autumn Kiss

The idea for this papercut was brewing inside me for quite some time, but I waited until I felt certain I was going to do it right.

Autumn Kiss... in the good company of Mr. Crow, all wrapped up nicely in a bow, ready to be shown off, and a bold red mirror in the background, painted and decorated by me (I'll tell you all about my little home decorating projects/attempts in one of the future posts).

Hope this Autumn Kiss brings you back some fond memories!

"Soul meets soul on lovers' lips." ~Percy Bysshe Shelley. Prometheus Unbound

"A kiss seals two souls for a moment in time." ~Levende Waters

Papercut is now available in my shop.

xoxoxo

Best dressed Halloween shop window

I had to stop and bow at the marvel that is the shop window of the well known Liguria bakery (they make focaccia and only focaccia) in North Beach, corner of Stockton and Filbert. Every year they bring out skeletons, witches, spiders, monsters and everything else possible and impossible, scary and horrible and create the most spectacular tribute to the Halloween tradition. I couldn't decide which photos to post so I'm going to post them all. Enjoy!

The skeleton behind bars is the most hilarious thing I've seen in ages.... pay attention.....

 

I was worried that the photos wouldn't look good because of the reflections in the window from the buildings across the street, but I think that they look especially good because of the reflections. It makes the creatures look even more scary and ghostly!

Happy Autumn everybody!

xoxoxo

New papercut designs

Stopping by to say a quick hello to the world and to show some of my new designs that I've been working on lately.

So, here they are...

Girl on a Swing (ah, remember those carefree days...)

Marie Antoinette (women would truly put anything on their head, although she does look spectacular!)

Elvira on a Tightrope (parasol is truly all she needs)

Back Where You Belong (for the wild at heart)

Ann of the Frozen Lakes (she skates with passion...)

All of the designs are now available in my shop.

xoxoxo

Birdwatching, part 2 (Birds Undercover)

I always wondered what happens with the birds after they leave my sight. Where do they go? What kind of lives do they lead?

Are they solely spending their lives flying from tree to tree, chirping, fluffing, sitting on a branch, occasionally grabbing a bite to eat, than fluffing again, chirping and flying off to another branch....

I don't buy it, not for a second, I never did. There's much more going on here, there must be....nobody so interesting to us leads such uninteresting lives, there's no logic to it.

And after I did some serious spinning and dizzying (some call it thinking), it dawned on me.

They must be leading secret double lives! These guys, they're working undercover!

Yes, birds must have secret jobs as government agents. Or, they're fashion & artists models. They pose for magazine spreads and famous Etsy artists....They have high payed corporate jobs, earn much more than Warren Buffet and give even more to charities, bird charities....

And after doing some extensive undercover research myself, I've got pictures to prove it....

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Here's what Mr. Robin, from my previous post, looks like when he's not pretending he's just a bird:

Etsy artist Berkley Illustration

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And these two, they look awfully suspicious to me, can a couple look "too married"? These two sure do, Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal:

 

Etsy artist Berkley Illustration

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How about these birds, they are so obviously undercover Zebra Finches:

Etsy artist yumi yumi

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Whoa, look at this guy, he doubles as a prince, and is called Le Prince!

Etsy artist Christiane Desbiens Carver

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My, my, a contemporary Mata Hara, sending off some important info...

Etsy artist Geninne

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And he, he must have access to some brand new spy technology, obviously... frog pig and firefly technology...

Bird And Moon Studio

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"Try To Sing Your Own Song", ah, the integrity of this guy... he's happy with being just a bird. But what a voice he's got! What? He's really an opera singer? At the royal Opera House in London? I should have known...

Etsy artist Natasha Newton

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Now that I've shared with you my suspicions, I hope you will follow up on my scoop and visit all the links above to explore the places these birds are really inhabiting. Have fun and don't look to suspicious!

xoxoxo

P.S.

All photo copyrights belong to each artist respectively.

 

Birdwatching

I worry that I have become a birdwatcher.

If birdwatching is "the observation and study of birds with the naked eye or through a visual enhancment device", then that is indeed what I am doing. Most mornings, before I have my coffee, solely for recreational and entertainment reasons.

But I don't find it a hobby. I find that it shortens the time it takes for the kettle to boil. It boils much faster, you know, if you're not watching it. So I watch the birds instead.

And take pictures. Care to see some, right here, right now?

I could really use some coffee....

Let me strech...I mean, ruffle, ahhhhhhhaaaa, nice...

I wonder if I should fly north or south today....

North...

Hmmm...I feel like somebody's watching me...

Hey! Bird voyeur!

..........

xoxoxo

P.S.

There will be more bird pictures soon in my photo album.

Everyday things

I've just added a photo album category on my blog, see below left, in which you will find my photographs. The first of the albums is entirely devoted to my affection for San Francisco. I'll be creating more different albums and adding photos frequently, so don't be shy to hop over and check on them.

More frequent is what I need for my writing part of the blog, too. I am still having trouble adjusting my blogorhythm. It seems like blogging is something that requires, no, demands considerable effort or skill. Yes, it is a skill, to be able to just blog, about everyday things.

Like what I had for breakfast. I like to be creative with my breakfasts (overly, impossibly, astonishingly creative, some would note), but today was somewhat of a lazy day so I just had a mix of 4 different cereals, some soy milk and half of a white nectarine thrown in for some color. Call it everyday? I call it so uninteresting as to cause mental weariness.

I should also blog about life on Mars and my absolutely firmly held belief that Martians have created a habitat (i.e., a structure that affords a controlled environment for living in extremely inhospitable locations) inside their planet. So we'll call it from now on Life in Mars.

One more theme that comes to mind is the invasion of North Beach by Bichon dogs. Cuddlesome, irresistible Bichon dogs. Beware, friends and foe, soon we will all have Bichon features, in no time, we will be offered a choice of looking like Bichon Maltese, Havanese or Bolognese, or even, Bichon Frise. We'll be adorable and likable. And we won't object a bit.

Anyway, it seems like what I just did, is blogged about everyday things....

xoxoxo

Ships Ahoy!

My papercut - Ships Ahoy was featured on solsisters blog today. Yay! Way to go!

Solsisters makes really cool handbags "Funky, flashy and downright wild, my purses are one-of-a-kind wearable artworks. Get ready to be complimented and turn heads wherever you may journey.", says this lovely gal, check out her shop.

Here's Solsisters Shades of Delirium Book Bag Tote (love the name:):

xoxoxo

Ode to Cheese

I was once a serious vegan, I would not touch meat, eggs & dairy, and would carry with me everywhere a little black notebook containing all the don'ts in regards to food additives and all the information about hidden non vegan products such as... hmm... jelly beans. I would walk the supermarket aisles, deeply worried and saddened. I would be looked at with annoyance in restaurants and made quiet by a large plate of boring garden vegetables.

And then I got married to a Wisconsin native (dairy state!) and rediscovered cheese. Oops, in all honesty, it's not my husband's fault, actually, he is allergic to dairy products (he will eat cheese blintzes though), and gives me the "what's with all the cheese" talk constantly. The problem is that those lumps of cheese must have had a pretty darn good makeover and a really good marketing campaign. They look better then ever before and they sure know how to seductively treat my palate.

So I'm a vegan drop out, but a vegetarian to the end. And a queen of cheese... at least in the Tarnoff residence.

"The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese."

~ Jon Hammond ~

P.S.

Check out my new Jazz Giants Series - Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus & Elvin Jones. They are all jazzing merrily in my shop and thinking about cheese.

xoxoxo