Handmade Ideas Book

I always carry with me a small pocket notebook for ideas. If you think that you'll remember that bright flick without writing it down - you are most definitely wrong. The other wrong thing to do is to write it down on some scraps of paper. They will be lost almost immediately. The small book in sturdy cover is the best friend of ideas! I write in it when see good idea in a book or during the show or something coming to me just among everyday chores. They are a great pleasure to flip through while waiting for something. You will be surprised how many of the ideas have already escaped your memory.
This is one of my ideas book that I made myself. It based on the notebook that I bought in the art shop in Israel long ago.


It's 1/4 of letter size paper (A4 for the other world). The covers are made of book cardboard covered with silver decorative paper. I drew pictures on heavy textured paper and glued them on the front cover - my favorite cat, words "ideas" and just tiny decorated strip.


Paper inside is rather heavy extra white printer paper.


The binding is a variation of Japanese stab binding done with a narrow satin ribbon.

I still have my previous ideas book not filled so this book is waiting its turn.
May be some day I'll make a little bunch of them for selling on Etsy.

I love little things

One more of my flower fairies.

What I've brought from the book store

Bag full of treasures. I'm so afraid that due to crisis some great magazines may be terminated! Hope we don't stop buying them and all of them survive.

Some cute bunnies

A couple of weeks ago we spotted a pair of fat cute bunnies on our backyard. Our first impression was that was some kind of garden sculpture. But no - they were real bunnies. I decided to take them inside and send my daughter to ask neighbors, maybe someone cried already missing them. Bunnies were quite friendly, the smaller one - I guessed it was a girl - came to me to make introduction. The boy ran a little around then also was caught and brought inside.



Our guinea pig Cyrano was very agitated - he squeaked, he stood high in his pen and I took him out to make acquaintance with the bunnies.

Meanwhile our daughter found the owners. They asked her when she had found them - which day - they didn't even know that their bunnies had escaped!


One last glance - they are so, so, so cute! Yellow, big and round - like from kids book.



And off they go!

Next time they are in our backyard I'll keep them!!

Flower Faires

I decided to change my buddy icon on flickr and tried different photos of my works. It's not easy to cut a picture 48x48 px and make it look good. Now I have an icon from this picture. I love making tiny flower fairies from the silk flowers! You see they are really small - they are sitting on some kind of a computer manual and have a pack of compacts behind them.

New member

Our daughter was devastated by her pig's death. So we decided to go to the pet store and have a look. Just have a look.
And we returned with a new family member. He is quite an opposite of Afanasy - smooth, silky, quick and adventurous. When I saw his prominent curved nose in the profile I immediately said - Cyrano! And at hearing this everybody decided suddenly that we should take him.
For all of us it was a certainly comforting not to see the pig's den empty.

Our piggy

I haven't been writing here for a while. Our guinea pig Afanasy has passed away. Those who don't have pets can't understand how much grief brings the death of such a small creature. He didn't make it just a little to be 7 years old. It's a lot for a guinea pig! He traveled with us from country to country, sometimes by a separate plane, lived with us in the hotels, apartments, houses, always cheerful, always purring...

Stones home

Now all my stones ( OK, most of them:)) are living on one shelf in the bookcase. I lowered the upper shelf and now they have a cozy little place among my children's illustrated books.
Click to see the whole picture.

Mouse with a basket

I'm a very methodical person. As I'm working on children's book illustrations now and still has not decided on technique for it I have bought samples of several different papers and am playing with them.

This was 2-ply Vellum paper. Pencils go on it very smoothly but texture of paper still can be seen. It is something silicon-ish for me in this paper.

The costume was inspired by lovely children from Kate Greenaway's books.

Hand painted rock. Orange guinea pig

This little guy is also a prize for a guinea pigs show. He has the cutest red eyes I ever painted.

One more with the close-up of his face: