nine cool things on a tuesday

October 17, 2017November 14, 2017 ~ jama ~ 19 Comments

1. Hungry for a little something? Why not feast on Samantha Lee’s food art? 🙂

This Malaysian mother of two first started playing with her food in 2008 while pregnant with her second daughter. She began posting her food art on Instagram in 2011, and soon became an internet sensation. What began as a hobby soon turned into a career. Her imaginative, whimsical creations are made with simple tools and are meant to promote healthy eating. Since 2013, she’s worked with the likes of Samsung, Barilla, Ben & Jerry’s, Holiday Inn, MasterCard, and ESPN, among many others.

*Around the World series (click to enlarge*)

Check out Samantha’s Official Website and Instagram for her latest plates. Yum!

2. Though his creator Michael Bond sadly passed away in June, good old Paddington Bear marches on. He recently partnered with UNICEF to become its Champion for Children! He will be helping UNICEF’s efforts to promote the rights of children all over the world. 🙂

Lily Caprani, Deputy Executive Director, UNICEF UK, said: “We are living in a time when millions of children around the world are being forced to leave their homes, and to put their trust in the kindness of strangers. As such, it seems especially appropriate and welcome to be working with a partner like Vivendi, and to have a champion like Paddington, whose own story of leaving Darkest Peru and finding a new family and home in a strange country, resonates as strongly and freshly today, as it did when it was first published. With the help of partners like Vivendi and Paddington, we will be able to make sure that millions more people hear about children’s rights, and with their support, build a world in which every child, wherever they are, knows that there will be people like Mr and Mrs Brown, to keep them happy, healthy and safe.”

Paddington exemplifies the values of love, tolerance, kindness, and persistence in the face of adversity. We agree he’s the perfect choice, definitely up to the job. The 70-something resident Paddingtons are eating extra marmalade sandwiches to celebrate. Hooray!

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nine cool things on a tuesday

April 11, 2017November 14, 2017 ~ jama ~ 22 Comments

1. Is it lunch yet? “Let’s taco bout how cute this lunch tote is.” Yep, cute cute cute. I wonder, do you have to be a kid to actually use this thing? 🙂

Well, let me just say that if I did take my lunch to work every day, I wouldn’t hesitate for one second. Of course, this makes an adorable gift for the munchkin(s) in your life. I’m sure it would make anything you pack extra yummy. The tote is insulated and hard-walled on the inside to keep edibles fresh and protected. Available now for pre-order from the Foodiggity shop, ships April 14.

2. Heads up, poets! Terrapin Books is now accepting submissions for a new Donut Anthology to be published this Fall! Yes, I said DONUTS.

Guidelines:

We will consider up to five published or unpublished poems about any kind of donut, e.g., jelly donut, sugar, powdered, glazed, Boston cream, donut holes, cruller, long john, fritter, pączki, oliebollen, ponchik, fánk.

Send us your poems about making donuts, eating donuts, donuts and family rituals or traditions, your love or fear of donuts, your first donut, a memory associated with donuts, cops and donuts, a fight over donuts, a dream or a nightmare about donuts.

We will consider previously published poems provided the author is able to grant permission for Terrapin Books to republish the poems.

I imagine if you plan to write about donuts, you’ll need to eat one, three, or fifty-five for optimum inspiration. 🙂 Deadline for submissions is May 31, 2017. Visit the TB site for all the lipsmacking details. What are you waiting for?

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nine cool things on a tuesday

March 21, 2017November 14, 2017 ~ jama ~ 20 Comments

1. It’s Spring and time to revel in bright colors, animal friends, and the beauty of the natural world. Why not treat yourself or a friend to a charming archival giclée print by author/illustrator Elisa Kleven?

You can choose from a lovely selection of illustrations from some of her wonderful picture books. Do you recognize the above image from the cover of Sun Bread? One of my fave foodie books! Wouldn’t it be a perfect print to hang in a nursery? I feel happy every time I look at it. 🙂

All prints are produced on 100% cotton acid free paper and Elisa will sign and inscribe them for you. These come in various sizes and are available via her website. Check out all the choices and add some gorgeousness to your life! In case you missed it, click here for my interview with Elisa about her newest picture book, The Horribly Hungry Gingerbread Boy.

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nine cool things on a tuesday

February 21, 2017November 14, 2017 ~ jama ~ 19 Comments

1. Love finding cute notecards, and when they have TEA written on them I can’t resist! Louise Neumann of LouPaper calls herself a professional doodler. It certainly looks like she’s having a lot of fun celebrating “things that make life lovely” (food, travel, gardens, and cocktails) with her bright cheery designs.

Her Etsy Shop contains a nice selection of notecards, notebooks, prints and calendars. She has a cool series that features various states and the things commonly associated with them. She hasn’t done Hawai’i yet, but the Virginia one includes Williamsburg, Jamestown, peanuts, and the red cardinal.

Naturally I’m partial to her food designs, which includes donuts, shellfish, beer, sushi, cheese and bread. And all done with marker pens! Check it out. 🙂

2. New Book Alert: Hooray, Barbara Crooker has just published another poetry collection! Les Fauves (C&R Press, 2017) was just released a couple of weeks ago:

LES FAUVES is, as the title suggests, a collection of ekphrastic poetry, meditations on paintings from the Fauve and Post-Impressionist movements. But it also contains poetry’s equivalent to Fauvism, poems that take a walk on the wild side. There are language experiment poems, poems of word play, poems in form both usual (end rhymes, sonnets, ghazals) and unusual (abecedaries, traditional, embedded, and double helix), palindromes, anagrams, and word scrambles. Crazy word salad poems. Crooker’s subjects range widely, from living and working in a small village in the South of France, love in a long-term relationship, food as more than sustenance, faith in a secular age, grammar and usage, the pains and pleasures of the aging body. But always, what engages her most is what it means to be human on this fragile planet, at this time in our troubled history, still believing that “Beauty will save the world” (Fyodor Dostoevsky).

I just got my copy and can’t wait to dig in!

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ruby silvious’s exquisite tea bag art

February 7, 2017February 7, 2017 ~ jama ~ 22 Comments

When is a tea bag more than just a tea bag?

In January 2015, New York-based artist and graphic designer Ruby Silvious began a tea-licious new project: she would record impressions of the moment every day on used tea bags. Sharing her visual journal, “363 Days of Tea,” on Instagram allowed her to push her creative practice and “spark a different kind of inspiration.”

While most of us discard our tea tags without a second thought, Ruby saw them as unique mini canvases. Once family and friends heard of her project, they started sending her a variety of tea bags, some with different shapes and interesting tags. Sometimes the tea bags were kept intact after being emptied of their leaves, while others were split open and laid flat. Stains and torn edges became part of the beauty.

I love the great range of subjects — whimsical everyday objects like mugs and umbrellas, shirts and pets, along with evocative glimpses of the natural world, interesting portraits and street scenes. Of course my heart quickened at the sight of soup cans, slices of pie, sushi, noodles, and teapots. 🙂

This past Fall, Ruby published 363 Days of Tea: A Visual Journal on Used Tea Bags as a beautiful coffee table book. It’s wonderful following her creative journey day by day, marveling at her pieces of drawn, painted, and collaged microart.