First Christmas, Primeiro Natal - 2004

This is the most special post ever -

the first Christmas of brothers Garfield (l.) & Junior (r.), 

two most precious schnauzers with whom i've shared years of my life. 

Junior had Paula Carvalho as his human. To our sadness, he crossed the rainbow bridge on August 11, 2014, following a Super Moon that 

illuminated the skies of Sao Paulo the night before. 

I was chosen by Garfield.the.dog as his human. I owe an enormous lot to this great little guy that is right here by my side, taking a bohemian nap 

before we go to bed (he's a night owl too!).

Esta é a mais especial das postagens - o primeiro Natal dos irmãos 

Garfield (esq.) e Junior (dir.), dois deliciosamente queridos schnauzers 

com os quais dividi, divido, anos da minha vida.

A humana do Junior era a Paula Carvalho. Para a nossa tristeza, 

ele virou estrela no dia 11 de agosto de 2014, no rastro da Super Lua 

que iluminou os céus de São Paulo na noite anterior.

O Garfield.the.dog me escolheu como a sua humana. Eu devo muito-muito e muito mais para esse pequeno grande moleque que está bem aqui ao meu lado, tirando uma sonequinha leve antes de irmos para o nosso quarto 

(sim, ele é coruja também!)

Christmas 2006

small altered book, Christmas 2006 

livro infantil transformado em pequeno álbum de Natal, 2006

going bilingual

Starting the first day after Christmas, we're going bilingual (English is my second languge, being Brazilian Portuguese the first).
Pois é, a partir do primeiro dia depois do Natal, seremos bilingues.

Nice to meet you!  My name is beatriz_souza and I live in Sao Paulo, Brazil. I've been a Portuguese <> English Translator since 1978 and I still love what i do (traducoestranslations AT gmail DOT com - just in case.)
In addition to my daily working hours, I've always pursued some kind of non-work related activity/ies for my own entertainment and delight. In fact, I believe everybody should do the same.
I work full time as a translator and that has been my only source of income. Time, however, has allowed me the pleasure to visit a number of "mansions" I appreciate, admire, and respect. That ranges, without limitation, from French lessons to jewelry-making; from mosaic to knitting; from furniture recycling to bookbinding; from scrapbooking to gemology-101; from tap-dancing to beading. Maybe that's the reason why everyday I do learn something new for non-immediate use.

Você chegou, obrigada!  Meu nome é beatriz_souza, moro em Sao Paulo, sou tradutora (juramentada inclusive) desde 1978, e ainda gosto muiiiiito do que faço (traducoestranslations AT gmail DOT com - nunca se sabe...).  
Além do meu trabalho diário, eu sempre busquei alguma(s) atividade(s) para o meu puro e simples doce-deleite. Na verdade, acho que todos deveriam fazer alguma coisa desse tipo. 
O tempo acumulado até agora me permitiu visitar diversas "mansões" que aprecio, admiro e respeito. Desta forma, além de traduzir em tempo integral e viver da minha profissão, tive a oportunidade de, por exemplo, ter aulas de francês, italiano, joalheria e mosaicos; faço tricô desde os 5 anos de idade (faz tempo!); aprendi algo sobre reciclagem de móveis e gemologia, e também gosto de design de jóias, scrapbooking, encadernação artística e sapateado americano.    Uma vantagem desses interesses tão variados, talvez: para mim, não existe cultura inútil.

A few years ago, I revisited handlettering.  Since then, most of my free time has been dedicated to bringing to life whimsical characters full of color and with a personality of their own - I mean, they are always different and most have features like dots and "feet" (technically, each 'foot' is called a 'serif' - "Times Roman is a serifed typeface and Arial is a sans serif typeface." - http://www.courts.state.ny.us/courts/ad2/pdf/GlossaryFormattingTerms.pdf, retrieved Dec. 26, 2015).
Just as I said in my very first post, I'm still a Walking Digital Disaster (WDD), but I'll be using this window to learn from, share with, show and ask to, dare to answer things about which I may think I know, and talk with those who are willing to dedicate some of their time to venturing into the seas of handicrafts and handmades, especially those using papers and other supports, pens, pencils, markers, brushes, and colors, lots of colors. 
Thanks for dropping by and especially for getting to this point.  It's playtime, folks!

Há alguns anos, revisitei algo chamado "handlettering", e comecei a brincar de desenhar letras tipo engraçadinhas (detalhe importantíssimo: nenhum parentesco com a arte da caligrafia).  Assim, a maior parte do meu tempo livre passou a ser dedicada à criação de letras, números e caracteres variados com personalidade própria. Todos são diferentes entre si, coloridos e constantemente decorados com pontos e "pés" (os "pés" são as "serifas" - por exemplo, a fonte Times Roman tem serifas e a Arial, não tem serifas).  
Quando postei a primeira mensagem em junho, eu disse que era - e ainda sou - um DDA, um Desastre Digital Ambulante. Mesmo asim, vou usar essa janelinha para aprender, dividir, mostrar (exibida eu...), tirar dúvidas, me atrever a responder algo que eu pense saber, e conversar com aqueles que querem passar algum tempo nos ares e mares das artes manuais e feitos.à.mão, especialmente aqueles que usam papéis e outros suportes, canetas, lápis, marcadores, pincéis, e cores, muitas cores.
Meus agradecimentos pela visita e, obviamente, por chegar até aqui!  
Divirta-se...;o)

(PS: low case is my favorite and so are my colored pencils - gosto de escrever em letras minúsculas e adoro lápis de cor.)

woven paper

paper weaving-101 (or call it scrap-saving if you so wish!)

1'n'6 - think 2K.1.6

Merry Christmas!  Buon Natale!  Feliz Navidad! 

Feliz Natal!  Frohe Weihnachten!  Joyeux Noël! 

stepping out the comfort zone

experiment #1, no proper tools, acrylics.

lesson learned: practice, practice, practice.  and practice.

from a different angle

business cards...

though a paper-addict, for some reason i seldom have cards of any sort. 

now it's time to work on lettrera's cards, and 

i expect a number of trials and errors before getting somewhere...

small blue notebook

the smiling cow.... well, there was no coin around...;o)

Bia.

2016: around the corner...

well...

i have to admit i'm spending more time pinning stuff

than doing my stuff and posting here...;o)

1952 Baby Carriage Perambulator black and white vintage 1950s photo

www.flickr.com/photos/christianmontone/4752512506

1923

 details of a scrapbook LO from late 2005 - the pix was taken in 1923.

12 x 12-in. handpainted, cut, and stitched paper (detail)

about time to say hello to 2016, isn't it.

letter R

number 0

0, zero, nada!

word: 4th of July

very late publishing, sorry about that... :o(

a-2-f

- the first 6 letters of a funny alphabet - 

Magic Kingdom

I first visited the Magic Kingdom early Sep 1979, and it was love at first sight.  Back then, EPCOT (opened Oct. 1, 1982) was a construction site but a preview was offered from the monorail.  I've been back a few times, do miss the Adventurers Club, and I'm sure I'll get there again, and again, and again.

background paper is a collage of older pixes and theme park admission tickets;

the photo was taken early 2002.

hello!

my beloved, priceless dog, says hello to all of you.

letter i

letter of the day: F

i've just found it!

letter of the day: H

H for hope, happy, holidays, hot summer days, or (w)hatever!

punctuation of the day: !..

oh yes !...

just because...

made sometime before Aug. 2007 (pix date)

letter of the day: R

ok, the walking digital disaster here (aka WDD) did try to get rid of the black spaces, but had no success at all.

hello everybody!

I knew one day, sooner or later, I would have to leave my comfort zone (that of a walking digital disaster) and step into blogging. Somehow. So here I am. I’m sure I’ll make zillions of mistakes but I’m willing to try my best. I’ve been playing with colorful, kinda of decorative letters and numbers for some time for pleasure only (I cross my heart since much earlier than the coloring-for-adults trend started).  Primarily, I intend to upload at least one handmade character a day. There’ll be days there may be some other stuff too – handmade books, some mixed media, pixes, dog stuff (me luvs dogs, especially mine!!!), and whatever I find at least one body may like. I have worked on the same, non art-related business since the late 1970s (another different story), and liked handicrafts as far as I can remember (I’ve been knitting and cross-stitching since 5 y.o.). However, more often than not I’m told I don’t have much of a commercial taste…If you happen to like anything I post, feel free to say so – if you don’t like for some reason, you can also say so, but please mind your words.  It will be real nice if I can make a nice, fun, safe place for everybody, irrespective of age, location, beliefs, etc  etc  etc, where the golden rule will, well, rule (no pun intended.)  Thanks for reading, and be welcome.