Xxxxxmas cards : the pink choice

Last saturday, my very simpatica and only one customer for cards in Granada ( Spanish people do not usually send holiday cards) asked me : Entonces...cuando nos enseñas tus tarjetas de navidad? So when do you show us your Christmas cards. I told her, some were ready but where not really the Christmasy type. Better, she said...

I thought a little touch of pink would be nice to end the year and start the new one.


the cuddly cat for a little comfort...well i'm a cat lover and sometimes just caressing and holding a cat makes me feel so good
the key to happiness, to a new world of hope and promises...well at least we can still hope, can't we...gosh I realize i'm so pessimistic, sorry !

the high knee boot for the fashionistas.....the gloves and cap for those who dream of a white Christmas...

I will post another series of cards in a couple of days. What do you think of these ones ?


somewhat blurry photos by your devoted blogging hostess

Flowers in your hair.....

I’m not usually the moody type but today my job #1 (ie translation) is driving me crazy. If you want to be my friend, please never pronounce the word “hedge fund” in front of me....

and

Because some mornings are tougher than others

Because no matter what the bills keep pouring in

Because when it rains, all you can do is watch

Because the song you sing might not be heard

Because you're much too frail in this world

Don't try to be strong, to be the change at all costs

Be a humble you, play your little part

Play like a fool but do play with

Flowers in your hair and a smile on your lips


Pick up flowers and have a great week end !

portrait by Eve Morcrette pasted on AD page

Peruvian photographer Martín Chambi : exhibition in Granada

Cuzco, Arequipa….As an adolescent, my dreams took me to South America. Dreams unfulfilled yet but this new exhibition in Granada on Peruvian photographer Martín Chambi will sustain me for a bit. I will go and see it next saturday.

This is what Chambi wrote on the occasion of an exhibition in Santiago in 1936

“I have read that in Chile it is thought that Indians have no culture, that they are uncivilized, that they are intellectually and artistically inferior when compared to whites and Europeans. More eloquent than my opinion, however, are graphic testimonies. It is my hope that impartial and objective witnesses will examine this evidence. I feel that I am a representative of my race; my people speak through my photographs.”

“He leido que en Chile se cree que los indios no tienen cultura, que son bárbaros que tienen una inferioridad mental y expresiva notables al lado de blancos y europeos. Pero me parece más elocuente que mi opinión, los testimonios gráficos. Me gustaria que los testigos imparciales y objetivos vieran este acervo….me siento como un representante de la raza; ella habla en mis fotografías”

I took these pictures of Chambi's portraits outside the exhibition center. How can you not stop and be fascinated by the expressions on the faces, the greatness of the landscape...

Angelas's house in Frigiliana

I met Angela last week. She runs a casa rural (a B&B) in a beautiful white village called Frigiliana, down on the coast in the south of Granada. I told her casually "sure, we'll come and visit you" and when I got on her site, this time I told myself "you bet, we're coming to stay !!".....

this is definetely the place where I want to be around Christmas....enjoying the Andalusian sun

see the little stove in the dining room....cozy...cozy...perfect for chilly winter nights
one of the bedrooms......simple, monacal
a moorish styled bathroom

interesting stone piling

too cute !

All photos from Casa Angela's website

Casa Doña Angela
Callejon de las Animas, 10
29788 Frigiliana (province of Maalga)

tel. : +34 952 53 32 81

Saturday morning in Granada

I love my saturday mornings in Granada. Usually I go to my favorite stationary shop to buy paper for the cards. Looking up is always nice in the little streets

some sell fruit in the street

some pray and light candles
some rush to a weddingsome sell flowers called nardos which have a wonderful fragrance

I spotted the next book I want to read...but preferably in Frenchif I had a little girl how I 'd love to buy her these cute sequined slippers

Hope you're having a great relaxing sunday !

photos by your devoted blogging hostess

Miss Tangobaby, you're great !......

I can’t remember exactly when our paths crossed in blogland…Surely I was following a link and the name “Tangobaby” attracted me at once. I wanted to discover who was that girl blogging about tango – a dance I would love to learn – I was quite pleased to learn that she also took flamenco classes, thinking "ah...something we have in common!" (flamenco classes were my religion when I lived in Paris and guess what..I gave up the classes when I settled in Granada, go figure).

I started reading all her posts about flamenco, nodding and smiling as she would describe the complexity of the hands gestures and the zapateo (the tap dancing) and this beautiful feeling of strength and assurance.

Tangobaby has another passion : photography. From the moment, she created her photoblog, I got hooked. Also little by little, her blog became a daily read. She loves movies, she loves the city where she lives which is San Francisco, she loves books and a certain person she sweetly calls The Boy....She’s also passionate about the upcoming elections in her country and I totally agree with her virulent posts about Sarah Palin.

When one day, she happily announced that hooray, she had her photo book published soon – all about Chinatown in San Francisco -, I emailed her to preorder the book with, please a little written note, inside?

And her beautiful photo book came through the mail right from San Francisco to Granada. I was very touched, because not only did she include a lovely birthday card but she also meant that the book was actually a birthday present ! How sweet is that !!

I scanned the photo below to give you a taste of her book which you can order here.

sorry, the scanning alters the quality of the image

I couldn’t help snapping one her beautiful dahlia's photos she posted for a happy week end post


Miss Tangobaby, you sure have great talent and we're all waiting for your next book !!!


ps : you can get some of her prints on her new photo website

All photos by Tangobaby

Envious of the neighbor's Moorish-Andalusian patio

right at this minute, I wouldn't mind having a light lunch in the neighbor's patio....

and then take a nap....yes...just there !

photos by your devoted blogging hostess

Ay Almodovar !

There are two Spanish men I'd love to meet and they're both movie directors. The first one is José Luis Garci (Ninette, You’re the one) to whom I nearly wrote a letter once just to tell him how much I adore his work and the second one is the cherished enfant terrible of Spanish cinema, Pedro Almodovar.

I started seeing his movies when I lived in Paris and fell in love with his world of characters bitten by passion and desire, the colourful scene of transvestites, the outburst of freedom and exuberance of the Spanish movida during the 80's.

Last night Monchéri and I watched La mala educacion (Bad education). Set in the 60's and the 80's, the story tells about the burgeoning love between two boys in a religious school being witnessed and repressed by the priest director. Eventually, the three characters will meet again when the boys are grownups. The movie, says Almodovar, is like a series of Russian dolls fitting into each other, multiple stories which in the end become one.

Before I moved to southern Spain, Almodovar’s characters seemed exaggerated and a bit caricatured to me but now and then some aspects of Spanish life and society remind me of scenes in his movies. Many times, I would giggle and tell myself : "gosh...incredible..it sounds just like an Almodovar's scene!".

A mis lectores de idioma español. Perdóname si no he escrito esta nota en castellano también puesto que es sobre vuestro querido director Pedro Almodóvar. No escribo el castellano muy bien. Para resumir, solo digo que desde que descubrí sus películas en Paris donde vivía antes, me enamoré del estilo y del mundo de Almodovar: un mundo donde pasión y deseo cohabitan, el mundo colorido y trágico a la vez de los transvestitos, la sensación de borrachera de la movida española en los 80. Ayer a noche, hemos visto La mala educación y otra vez me seduzco esa atmósfera típica de Almodóvar de mezcla de humor con cine negro.

the cine in the village where the 2 boys are
going to see a movie with Sara Montiel

Almodovar directing Gael Garcia Bernal

La mala educacion (bad education) 2004

with Gael Garcia Bernal and Fele Martinez

Tablescape

Monchéri cracks me up. He's learning English - well poco a poco (little by little) as we say in Spanish - and the other day he came up with this word tablescape. This one must be reading design blogs with much more avidity than I. Peevishly, I confessed the term was unknown to me. So here's to tablescape and tablescaping!

this custom made lucite table could be useful to put a glass or two but it's mainly filled with samples of my cards (from last Xmas season), bangles and a vintage bracelet


don't ask me why I added this collage...at the moment I thought it was funny


little shoe from one of the numerous shoe miniature shops in Elche near Alicante, famous for its shoe making activity. A mini guest soap from Guerlain is tucked inside of the shoe. What for ?...I don't know....

a collector's Evian bottle, the red mini is topped with a lighting ball bought at the V&A shop in London, a broken diamond cut crystal, a Christmas decoration and some of my designed cards from last summer

and you do you tablescape ?
(can I see please)

edit to post and note to myself: I think it's time to rethink this tablescape...too crowded

photos by your devoted blogging hostess

The lovely bazaar.....

Gym hold a lovely bazaar/fleamarket at her barn last weekend. What would you have picked?



colorful Morrocan carpets
the inside of a jaima (a Morrocan tent)
more carpets in various sizes

painted doors

a piano may be ?
I hesitated about this little round chair
how cool is the leopard stool !


photos by your devoted blogging hostess