Giveaway Winning: Illustrated Ink!!

It had been a while since I won a giveaway, so instead of the usual Friday Feature, I wanna share my booty from the last giveaway I won with you all!

You already know how much I like Leila from Illustrated Ink's art from previous blog entries, so when she organized a giveaway in her blog to win a print of her "Love & Hate" original watercolour, I jumped aboard instantly!

I was lucky enough to win the giveaway, so I was awaiting patiently the arrival of my parcel, and when it arrived not only I got the print, but also a postcard AND one of Leila's paper dolls, Nurse Nora! ;)

Her style is amazing, I love the old school tattoo and the colours are always stunning!

Miss Nora is now just waiting for me to cut and assemble her on of my next days off!! I don't know where I'll hang her though, so that's why she's still in one piece... any ideas?

Illustrated Ink!!

Christmas/Holidays is now officially over in Spain too, we've got our presents yesterday on the 6th, overindulged in Roscón de Reyes (if you have no idea what it is, here's what wikipedia says about it) and now it's time to take the decorations down, the lights off the streets, and start thinking about the plans for the New Year!


I have a few entries I should have done before, but between the holidays in India with G, the 5 days stuck in London, I have a bit of a backlog of posts, but I'll be catching up on the coming weeks!


Today, I'm gonna be giving the spotlight to the very awesome & talented Leila from Illustrated Ink! For my regular readers the name might sound familiar, cause I've already featured some brilliant custom work she did for me to give as gifts here.


Leila is a full time artist, that paints lovely originals, draw wonderful illustrations, and gives new lives to ugly old vintage pieces she finds, all in her unique mix of Day of the Dead and Old School tattoo style!


After loving the pieces she created for my friends, I knew I needed to get some her art for myself, so after much pondering and trying to choose (her Etsy shop is filled with loads of amazing pieces, from prints, to painted wall decorations, to some pull toys, to paper dolls... all sort of wonderful things!) I decided to go for two of her prints: the Day of the Dead Siempre cat print and the Day of the Dead Amigos dog print, not only cause they're perfect for any animal lover but also because she donates part of the profit from those prints to the Humane Society! And to complete my order, I went for one of her unique Vintage Style lockets, with her Day of the Dead Hello Kitty illustration! Truly a wonderful piece!





Both the prints have really vivid colours, and I'll be sure to frame & hang them once I get a place of my own!






I'm completely in love with the locket! As I'm sure many of you know I'm a huge Hello Kitty lover, and this necklace just combines that with my love for handmade, so it's a total win-win! And the size of the locket is perfect for my taste too! Not too big, but also not too small, and you can clearly see the image since it's enclosed in a dome that magnifies the image!















Leila also sent me a few postcards with some of her art, including one with the Day of the Dead Hello Kitty, and the colours are just fantastic! So alive and vibrant!




If you are looking for some art that is out of the ordinary, you must check Leila's! I'm sure you'll find something you'll love! She's even created a Pin Up Nurse Paper doll!

Immortal Longings: Shakespeare Art & Illustrations from London!

Friday is here! But for me, this week is just one more day in the quite long chain of days in a row I have to work, but it's all for the good of spending one full month in India with the bf, so I will not be complaining!


I want to share a shop that is a must for all book lovers, writers, aspiring writers and lovers of art in general! I discovered this shop while doing a search for journals on Etsy, and when I saw Immortal Longings' The Tempest leather journal, I just fell in love! I started checking out their entire shop, and wow, all filled with gorgeous illustrations by Elisabeth E. Schuch all inspired in the works of the Bard, in the shape of prints, calendars, postcards, journals, bookmarks, or even wrapping paper (Hamlet wrapping paper, ain't that amazing?).


It goes without saying that I've spent quite some time looking at this shop, wondering what to get, cause "everything" wouldn't really sit too well with my wallet nor my bank account, so I narrowed it down to choosing between all the available sets of leather journal & bookmark, and that was a hard job in itself. Midsummer's Night Dream? Maybe Romeo & Juliet? Twelfth Night? Macbeth? Much Ado About Nothing? Waaaay too many choices!


What to do? Well, I decided to go back to what drove me to the shop, and I settled on The Tempest set, not only is a play I like, but also it's blue, and that's my favourite colour! So, I went ahead, and ordered my Tempest bookmark & journal set!


When the package arrived, in less than a week, from London (apparently Royal Mail is back to normal again) the first thing I noticed was how well protected the journal arrived. There was this thick wrapping of giant bubble wrap around it!


Not only I got my amazing journal & bookmark, but I also got a Tempest postcard, and I absolutely love the illustration!






The journal is the perfect size to take with you in your handbag (unless you have a small one or a clutch) and I absolutely love the combined smell of the leather & inks... smells like a new book ready to be written or read! Sort of like the smell on old style bookstores... Forgive the crazy bookworm talk! ;)






What can I say, I'm in love with my journal, and I'm really hoping it'll help me get back into writing... it's been way too long since I've managed to write something other than my little ramblings here.







Hopefully, I'll be able to fill it up with short stories, ideas for shoots, all sort of things, so I can buy another sort of soon! ;) I'm still trying to decide which one would make the perfect Guest Book? Any ideas? Also, I'm thinking I really need that Hamlet wrapping paper...

A birthday recap, with handmade and recipes galore!

Hello everyone! Friday is once again here, and once again I work the weekend...


That's why I wanna share a lil recap of my birthday celebrations, with some photos and recipes, to face Friday and working weekend, with yummy food and fun times!


Last Tuesday was my birthday, so I chose the lunch menu, and went with cold curry rice with apple chunks & raisins, and sweet & sour chicken brochettes! As you can see, they were both super yummy and really easy to make! The key for the brochettes was the marinade, half honey & half soy sauce.






Then, we had my bro, sis-in-law and nephews over for dinner, and we had some nice grilled cutlets and other meats. I decided to make something different for dessert, so I made Kheer, an Indian rice pudding. I really like it, but my bro wasn't too keen on it. Joel, my older nephew loved it, till he chewed one of the cardamom seeds!




On Saturday, I was doing a joint b-day celebration with my friend Emilio, so we decided that I'd make the desserts and also try my hand at making some Indian dish, to add something different to the usual dinner food!


For dessert, I decided to go for Chocolate Mud Cake, you can find the recipe here, in the lovely Rose's blog. Lovely chocolate-y goodness, that I dunno why decided to not be fully baked in the centre and collapsed, which made me improvise and turn it into a donut cake, with an extra spiced chocolate frosting layer all over it... too bad I have no pics of the finished cake, cause I made it on Friday, but had to save the disaster on Saturday before leaving for the dinner, and I was too much in a hurry to take pics! It looked quite nice, and tasted delicious!





I also made some really yummy Mojito cupcakes with this recipe, from Heaven is a Cupcake! I had to improvise a bit, since I couldn't get any peppermint flavouring, but I decided to skip the issue by using a ready-mix Mojito cocktail, instead of just white rum! ;)






These I didn't frost cause I didn't have the right way to take them with me to my friend's house where the dinner was gonna take place without the frosting arriving all wonky! They were a real hit, very chocolate-y, with a hint of mojito and really moist and fluffy! I can't wait to make them again for my friend Pilu's b-day, with frosting this time!






For the Indian dish, I turned to one of my recently purchased Indian cooking books, where I found the recipe for Seekh Kebabs, G's favourite dish, Miss Masala: Real Indian Cooking for Busy Living! It's a great book, with loads of pointers on how to deal with all the unknown spices and ways of cooking, and with really yummy recipes! She also has a blog, with more yummy recipes!






Making seekh kebabs is not too laborious a process, cause I'm not the biggest fan of cooking, but I can't wait to make more! I made the seekhs a bit more mild than the recipe asked for, for two reasons: first, I was missing the chilli powder, couldn't find it anywhere here, and online it wouldn't have arrived in time (I got it now, ready for next time); and second, none of my friends are really used to trying spicy Indian food.







They were a real success, everyone loved their different taste, so I plan to make them more often!




I got many presents for my b-day, though only the ones I got for myself were handmade, so I'm gonna show off, what I gave Emilio for his b-day:


Two canvas print of a two shots, one taken by G, and one taken by yours truly!




I really love this shot, it's still one of my favourites. I took it last year in Wisconsin, and it's the shore of its namesake river.




I packaged them, and since I didn't have a manly & big enough wrapping paper, I decided to use a pair of my Skull And CrossBuns stamps to make it look more like a present! I also decorated the custom birthday card that Deb from On Cupcake Moon made for me!




Since Emilio loves cooking, I also got him a set of grilling spices from Purpose Design. As always, they come with super cute woody tags, and with recipes and suggestions on how to use them best!



And in case you're wondering, we (I) finished the open mojito bottle, after all, you don't turn 30 every day!

The Nebulous Kingdom!

This week is getting a bit work busy, but it'll mean getting a few days off when G comes here (if the Spanish Embassy sees it fit).


On Monday I got a nice package from Anne-Julie, the artist behind The Nebulous Kingdom! I had already bought a few prints, greeting cards and her 2010 calendar, but looking at my entries, I've realized that I didn't write a blog entry about these lovely pieces! So, after taking photos of the prints and calendar, and of the new postcards I got on Monday, I decided to show them off to you all!






When I got these prints, she had an offer to get two prints and get another one for free, so I even if I had hard time choosing only three, I managed! I'm absolutely in love with the three prints I got, and I love how vibrant the colours are!














Her calendar features a lot of her newer illustrations back then at the beginning of the year, and it makes for a such a lovely calendar! It hangs from a ball chain, so it's quite easy to turn the month pages!












And I also got myself a lovely set of greeting cards, with a lovely winter illustration, as with all of Anne-Julie's art, very much out of a fairy tale!






This time I got myself a bunch of postcards of some her more recent illustrations, including her two Burton inspired ones, Sally of The Nightmare Before Christmas and Edward Scissorhands! Postcards are a great way to get in a very affordable price some of her gorgeous illustrations, and even to collect them!
















I will be getting some more postcards for sure!