Flea Markets Books

If there is a flea market near your home, I highly recommend you to visit it. You can find so many unexpected things from clothing to art and to jewelry and better yet cheap books. If you see a book stand, as a book lover I never miss a chance to see what books I find, specially in children's book. There I admit it, I a grown woman likes children books, but there is a but, sometimes for the story but mostly I love to look at the illustrations!. I had noticed that old ones are hard to find but not impossible, I came across this one, which I treasure:

It didn't have a cover jacket, but instead is right on the front of the book.

The endpages

The beginning

Each chapter starts in this format

There are black and white illustrations

AS well as color illustrations

Book was written by L.Frank Baum and illustrated by one of my favorite illustrators John R. Neill. This book is part of the series "The Books of Wonder Series"( yes the wizard of oz is part of that series).


To learn more about Frank, click HERE 
To learn more about John R. Neill, click HERE 

For your Business Cards

You seen here, today's week of D.I.Y. Recycling project.
A business card holder, because is very important to keep your contacts organize and not swimming around in an envelope (my bad). Using my empty box of the tea sampler I tried and soda boxes I'm going to share with you how to make yours.
1. Get all your materials ready: Empty soda box, It can also be done with cereal boxes or milk cartons. Then the box where your cards will fit nice and snug (I'm using my tea sampler).

2. Cut all your 26 separators and add an extra half inch to the height, so you can make your tabs.

3. Mark your tabs on each card, I chose to make 8.

4. Cut your tabs I did  a total of 7 sets, of those sets , 5 have 4 separators and the last two has 3 separators.

5. Decorate your tabs.

6. Ta-da! you now have your business card filer done.

A Seeker of Magic

That's how this week's ecollustrator refers to herself. I'm talking about Karen Michel, who does beautiful mixed media ecollustrations, and book arts. She's also the amazing writer of Green Guide for Artists (A favorite of mine). Each work is a beautiful collaboration of everything nature, paper, found objects, everyday objects, her own paints and of course her magic. Here are some of my favorites works of hers:

I love the message she delivers with her artwork, I'll let her say it with her own words, she says it all:
"In general my work is about bringing something into the world that enhances and elevates the environment in which it lives (hopefully with a touch of grace thrown into the mix). Much like magical charms and spells of intention that give voice to our inner magicians and collective histories. I am endlessly inspired by nature, seeking the wild in urban environments, native folklore, moon lore, sustainability and sweet soul music..... i am most certainly a seeker of magic"- KarenMichel.com
It doesn't stop here, she also has a blog , a shop and along with her husband she runs a non-profit organization , where they help other kids to seek their magic.


Visit her website at WWW.KARENMICHEL.COM there's so much to see 

Experimental Packaging

Today's from my library to yours we have:

Compiled by Roger Fawcett-Tang and Daniel Manson. The reason I have this book is because of the wacky collections and ideas of packaging it contains. It proves you can really push a crazy idea. Some of the packaging actually looks a bit futuristic. It covers great points such as proportions, packaging, printing, interaction and materials. I love it more mostly because it comes with templates for your own packaging ideas. As to the reading its pretty short, each chapter has an introduction and there's the description about each packaging and the information of its designer. Here's a peek to some of my favorite pages:

You can also take a peek through google books. Enjoy!.

Sharing is caring

Well this blog will now be updated everyday because from the usual posts of "From my library to yours","Ecollustration of the Week", "Ecollustrator of the week" and "D.I.Y Recycling" comes a new category "Sharing is Caring". "Sharing is Caring" is me   sharing great news, inspirations and anything worth sharing.
Today's Sharing is:

WWW.TWOLEAVESANDABUD.COM: It's winter and Texas is a bit colder than what I'm used to from when I lived in Los Angeles. Then Also I wake up at 7:30 in the morning and something warm is appreciated. I asked a tea guru( a good friend of mine who's quite a tea-fanatic) what sort of tea is good and she recommended me Loose tea, not dusty Tea from the grocery store. I came across this tea sampler at Homegoods. It's packaging caught my attention (a company that shows good and creative packaging, will always beat the others not so beautiful packagings)I love how each bag, where the tea is stored, its clear so you can see the tea and it gives you the the recommended time to steep your tea to get the best of the flavor. I was a fan of the organic chamomile, the alpine berry, and the peppermint teas. When you are done with your sampler you end up with a lovely bamboo box you can reuse as a mini file cabinet or address file cabinet( I plan to use it to file the business cards I collect).



So tea lovers and tea-beginners I recommend to check out their website as well as their blog .


Have a good day everyone