Red-eyed guinea pig

My daughter called me yesterday. She saw a guinea pig in the pet shop and she was sad. The white boy was already 5 months old and nobody wanted him. Everybody is buying small ones and this one is stuck. It was twice discounted and now was only 10 bucks instead of 35. She wanted us to have it. But our pig is quite grown up so I don't know how he would like another male companion. I think it will be stress for both of them:( She sent me a photo of this guy...

Owls. Painted rocks (stones)

Owls. Painted rocks (stones), a photo by Alika-Rikki on Flickr.

Once I painted almost all of known owls on the small rocks. Before that an owl for me was an abstract big-eyed bird which is able to turn its head to its back. But a good big book of birds breeds changed it.

You know that in Russian it's not all owls? The smaller ones are called "sova" and the big one with feathered "ears" on its head is "filin".

Flowers on the windowsill

I so much love how Ivonne from moline.typepad.com decorates her windowsills with little figurines and vessels with flowers! I have been saving pictures of all her adorable window scenes to admire them. And finally I bought myself four small white vases at IKEA ( they discontinued these vases, I’m afraid). Now I always have fresh flowers on my windowsill near the dinner table.
Here are some of them:

Flowers on the windowsill, a photo by Alika-Rikki on Flickr.

Flowers, a photo by Alika-Rikki on Flickr.

Hamster and two bunnies. Painted stones.

Hamster and two bunnies. Painted stones., a photo by Alika-Rikki on Flickr.

I started painting this hamster rock long ago. For two or three years it was just orange under-painting and two black eyes - I was busy with illustration for my first children's book. Recently I had an order for a hamster rock portrait and found that old baby. Hamsters have the most funny pink noses! And tiny cute hands.

Two other rocks are adorable lop bunnies. Love to paint them though it takes unusually long for such small rocks.

Ancient girl-bloggers

Ancient girl-bloggers, a photo by Alika-Rikki on Flickr.

My sister was visiting me. I haven't seen her for seven years - we both were happy. I thought that she would abandon the internet and blogging and completely submerge into new surroundings. But, boy, was I wrong! She spent every spare second in posting pictures and reports of her staying. I didn't mind reading it - it's our family sport to tell each other in details what we both saw and experienced earlier during the day. But i couldn't help laughing at the Asian Art Museum when I saw the ancient Chinese vase - this is definitely two sisters bloggers portrait!

Painted rocks (stones) fish magnets

Painted rocks (stones) fish magnets, a photo by Alika-Rikki on Flickr.

I'm almost out of small stones with flat back for the fish magnets. And i love, love, love to paint them.

Bad film - beautiful picture

01, a photo by Alika-Rikki on Flickr.

There are some movies which I love visually and don't like as a story or an idea.
Antichrist by Trier was the perfect example. Don't like story, don't like characters, don't like actors, don't like depression clouded mind of its creator, don't like sadistic exercises, don't like crazy people.

But love some pictures.

More on Flickr

Once a month cooking

Meatballs for freezing, a photo by Alika-Rikki on Flickr.

One of my friends mentioned a book about organizing that she was reading. I love organizing! I'm not so good in maintaining order but I'm absolutely brilliant in organizing and inventing systems in general. So I checked up the book The Complete Idiot's Guide to Organizing Your Life in the library. It was pretty basic and is a nice companion in step by step initial organizing your home and office. There were just few new ideas for me but one of them was quite fascinating!

It turned out that there is a 'cooking once a month' movement. You buy a lot of ingredients, take out all your precious cooking devices and chop,mix, cut, whip, boil, and fry for a day or two in enormous quantities. Then you divide everything into portions and freeze. Now you ready to eat the whole month without mess of cooking. The idea seemed so clever to me!

This is my second time in this experiment. The first one proved itself a huge success. It's so relaxing to know that you have plenty of ready food at any time and a lot to choose from too!

I skipped some stuffed vegetables this time. Peppers became mushy, I didn't like the texture. But made double or triple of what I like - like turkey meatloaf with mushrooms.

Feeling good like a squirrel - but without her unfortunately short memory:)

Painted rock Airedale Terrier

Painted rock Airedale Terrier, a photo by Alika-Rikki on Flickr.

I painted custom portrait of an Airedale Terrier dog recently. Then changed and repaint it several times so it looks more like this breed should be. It was something about ears - they should be more alert and triangular.

This is the first photo session, before changing. I think the old book suits the dog beautifully.

Painted rock Airedale Terrier, a photo by Alika-Rikki on Flickr.

I received a gift!

I received a gift!, a photo by Alika-Rikki on Flickr.

I received a beautiful gift from one of my readers. Two books from my wish list, Japanese vintage set of fan-shaped plates, set of tiny forks and vintage English tea-cup with saucer.