[.a.little.monday.wish.]

I always love Monday because it’s the start of the week and I always love the start of everything :-) It’s a particular moment I can feel so excited in anticipation of new experiences and little nice suprises that would come along the way, like a mix of lovely colours in a painting or in a big bunch of bouquet. It’s perfect time for happy wishes. Here’s to y’all... [with the happy colours of the flowers in Rosendal, Stockholm] :-)



”Colour is my day-long obsession, joy and torment.”
Claude Monet (French painter, initiator and leader of the impressionist style, 1840-1926)

“Art is unquestionably one of the purest and highest elements in human happiness. It trains the mind through the eye, and the eye through the mind. As the sun colors flowers, so does art color life.”
John Lubbock (English Biologist and Politician, 1834-1913)

[.one.fine.friday.]

One fine Friday afternoon in Göteborg, Sweden [.30.3.2007.] this sight caught my attention, I took the picture from across the street, somewhere on Linnégatan.




Certainly time passes by, sometimes so nicely like this tram I spotted in front of the central station in Göteborg. I just don't have any idea why this image makes me think of that. Or probably I just love the design, so retro.




Well, each time is unique, can it be stylishly unique like this clock at the Göteborg central station? If there's a copy of it I'd love to have one...



[.more.to.dream.on.-.for.this.weekend.]

[.stockholm.sweden.25.3.2007.] If I could have this day back..:







I'd have café latte and carrot cake for my breakfast, at a café in Gamla Stan - Stockholm's old town.






And then at lunch time had another cup of coffee and a bowl of corn soup, in the garden café at Rosendal




...and the bread




...and the olive oil and marmalade








...and the flowers and the pots




...I'd grow my own lettuce




...no I won't forget this place. Even the sign is so nicely designed.






...and it's part of beautiful Stockholm.

Yes, I want this day back.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

[.in.love.with.paper.cutting.]

As far as I can remember, I had fallen in love with paper cutting since I was in the kindergarten, that very fateful day when my teacher taught us 4 or 5 year old kids to fold paper and cut the edges to make cute shapes, or we’d peep through the holes and had laughs.

And since then the love of paper cutting continued to grow; thanks to print+pattern I discovered the loveliest art of folk paper cutting from Poland, called "Wycinanki"

So, for sure there's no other answer to my Polish friend Joanna's question about what I wanted her to bring to Indonesia when she's visiting me, but: "wycinanki!" [.tack.joanna.!.] :)

Here it is...



Some links to Wycinanki sites:

Polish Paper Cuts
The Art of Polish Paper Cutting
Lowics cutouts

[.saved.from.the.flood.]

Yesterday after work I went to my house (at the moment I'm still staying at my aunt's) and I'm so glad the house is already repainted. Clean and fresh. But certainly needs a touch of redecoration. Plan for this coming weekend.

I went to my room and tried to rearrange some things I managed to save from the flood [two months ago] by putting and piling them on top of the tall cupboard when the water started to come into the house. Some ‘aaaawww’s and ‘youhuuuuu’s followed. I found some precious books I thought I had lost. And…my [until that flood in February] latest journal!

It’s the kind of journal I really like, actually. It’s not a ‘dear diary’ kind but I put ‘founds of the day’ which were mostly cuttings from magazines or the internet [articles, pictures, words] that caught my attention that day. Then I put some notes about what I experienced that particular moment I wrote, and my own drawings. Such a precious scrapbook from my bygone days.

[.flower.drawing.]

I love drawing flowers with colour pencils, it's my all time favorite.yay!. Yesterday evening I bought one set of water colour pencils to replace the one I lost in the flood in February. Now I can get back to my old habit: drawing flowers in my notebook :-) This one is from yesterday night [.why.did.i.draw.it.on.lined.paper.?.*sigh*.]

[.walking.with.flowers.]

If you live in Jakarta and walk every morning to work, you may spot on the street some guys selling potted plants and flowers. Like this morning. I just loved the sight. Country in the city.

[.weekend.crafting.]

When it’s Sunday afternoon and raining so hard outside, you can make sure I’d be sitting nicely in my desk working with papers :-) I love reading books but sometimes inspiration strikes and all I want to do is cutting nice pictures from old magazines and sticking them to papers, making small collages.

I like using A5 loose-leaf papers and put them in one folder, and the size makes it easy enough to carry. I call this folder 'idea notebook'. I also have big folders to accomodate bigger pictures (sometimes they are so nice I just can't cut them!) But more often the big ones only stay on my bookshelves, for comfy time at home, while the small ones travel alot!

This weekend I covered two folders with fabrics: one with purple vintage cotton that I 'inherited' from my grandma, and the other with Chinese fabrics. I run out of nice papers to cover the inner side of the folder covers, so I decided to cut-and-stick pretty small pictures from an ad in an old Ariadne at Home magazine. After several trial-and-errors, finally they turned out to be really nice :-)












The images for collages shown below are from
Country Living UK edition, October 2004

[.website.templates.with.summer.look.]

Shannon from GHB Enterprise emailed me asking about webtemplates with summer look.

Again thanks so much for inputs and reminders! :o) I should add my templates with spring and summer looks. Probably this weekend, I'm so inspired ;-)

For discussion:

What is your favorite layout? Single, double, or three-column page? With or without iframe?

As always, any idea would be appreciated ;-)

Thanks and have a nice !

.a.m.r.e.t.a.

[.sunflower.and.roses.]

Erin (collieluv_f@...) from Charlotte, NC, tagged me with an idea about combining my roses and sunflower graphics...

Oh, I really love feedbacks! Most of the time, when I draw graphics, it really depends what the inspiration says at that time :-) You know what I mean... and sometimes I just didn't realised what my readers would need for their websites. So please don't be tired to let me know about what's in and what's out, you are welcome to keep 'bugging' me ;o)

Now that Erin tagged me about sunflower graphics, I took a look at my sunflower set, and oh, I realised it was from 2001!!! Yes, I think I need to update the set. I noted that.

My question for discussion:

Do you think I still can keep this set with bears up? They look 'outdated' to me now and certainly I will change them with the newer version of my bears (see my rose bears, for example) - or do your prefer the set with girls and boys instead?

ps: there will be a change in the sunflower graphics, for sure ;-)

What do you think would be a nice theme for combining sunflower with roses?

Any idea will be appreciated! :-)

Lotsa love!

.a.m.r.e.t.a.

[.the.journal.is.moved.to.blogger!.]

Of course, I don't have enough space at amretasgraphics.com, so moving to Blogger is the best solution! Thank's Blogger!

[.birthday.thank.you!.]

Dear friends,

Thank you for the birthday wishes and gifts!! (((hugs))) I am sooo happy, though it's been a very busy day today, lots of works as usual, but it has been very exciting as well!

My mom, my sister and her boyfriend, and my cousin arrived in Jakarta this afternoon, and together with my aunt and my other cousins we'll cut the birthday cake(s) tonight :-)

Thanks also for your nice comments on the updated mother's day set. I'm so glad you like it! I probably won't be able to respond your emails / tags individually (yet) but in the meantime I'd like to thank you all through this post. You have to know that your mails and tags made my day! :-)

Cheers!

[.mix.and.match.]

Dianne from Dianne's Sanctuary tagged me about her site mix-and-matching my graphics with other artists' graphics.

Feel free to do that, as long as you don't forget to put link backs to each artist's site ;-) Many graphic artists have a lot of cute graphics in many themes, I also love creating pages with their graphics mix-and-matched with mine! Especially for graphics / themes that I still don't have. Just read through their terms of use first, and respect them. Creating graphics is not just drawing and putting colors, it's a work of love, from the heart :-)

Cheers! .a.m.r.e.t.a.

[.update:.mother's.day.set.]

Mother's Day set is updated with new graphics, background tiles, divider, email, guestbooks, also toppers and greeting cards / frames. You still can find the older graphics as well, I still like them and so they stay on page :o)

Hope you like it! :o)



.a.m.r.e.t.a.