Lighthouse watercolor

We're back home. Finally. 

I love traveling... Well, no, let me rephrase that. I love visiting new and not-so-new places far from home. But I hate the actual getting there - all the airport waits, the endless plane trips, horrible airplane/airport food. When I was younger and traveling without a child it didn't bother me so much. In fact I sort of enjoyed the anonymity of airports, the hustle and bustle of travelers. But now, it's all just too much for a little three year old and her mommy.

In any case, we made it back and we're settling back in. I haven't finished unpacking yet, but one of the first things I did was to download the pictures from my camera to the computer. Among all the trip photos I also found this old one that I had forgotten on the camera. 

It's a watercolor/mixed media I made for someone who's like a second mother to me. She loves lighthouses, and this one especially holds a lot of memories for us. At that point it was still unfinished, I added some seagulls, enlarged the rock, and glued the lace at the bottom. But then, I didn't take a picture of it finished...

What projects have you been working on lately?

Oh the possibilities! (aka new fabric)

When I got home from a meeting today, there was a package waiting for me at the door... from Japan!

It was from my mother in law, and look what she sent me:

Lovely fabric (and a lot of it too) that I can't wait to turn into something cute. I really love Japanese fabric and had mentioned it and asked her to keep an eye out for pretty patterns. I had no idea she'd send me so much so soon.

Did I mention that I have the best mother in law ever?

A hint of spring colors and a book

I've been in the mood for bright colors. It must be my anticipation of spring, as far as that seems right now (yeah, temperatures were around -7 F, or -22 C today).

So I ordered some fun fabric from the lovely hip fabric shop and it arrived! 

Now I just have to decide what to do with it. I'm thinking possible a sun dress or romper for N. Or maybe some decorative item for the house. So many possibilities...

Speaking of possibilities, one that I hold dear to my heart is that N. will grow up speaking at least three languages. Maybe I should explain why...

Background: My PhD is in Second Language Acquisition (SLA), I was born and raised in Brazil, and my husband is Japanese. So, back to multilingualism.

Besides being a gift that I can give her and that I think could benefit her greatly in the future, it will also help her connect to her grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, and a huge extended family in both countries. 

But there's a problem - she's not exposed to either language outside of the house, and that's not enough exposure to make sure she becomes fluent. So we try to find ways to supplement her exposure through books and dvds. It's a lot easier in Japanese, since we can find materials fairly easily in the US compared to Portuguese. 

This long story is my, a-hem, justification for dabbling into making her a book. 

I've decided that to help her Portuguese, I'll just make my own books for her. I've started with a prototype of a character. Meet Ana Maria Abelha (transl. Anne Marie Bee)!

She'll be introducing N. the alphabet in Portuguese and her first adventure is written, just waiting to be illustrated. It'll take me a while with all the other things I'm working on, but this project is close to my heart. It will get done.

Have a lovely week, friends! And do leave me a hello telling me what I could do with that fabric.