Designing, Designing, Designing

- He añadido en la columna de la derecha en Google Translate  ya que tardaba demasiado en traducirlo personalmente. -------------------------------------->

A couple of weeks ago I spent a day in London with the uber talented Julie Hickey. We spent all day shopping, talking and enjoying ourselves.

- Circa 2004 -

One of the things it kept coming in our conversation was paper craft styles and how much we liked the trend CAS, Clean and Simple. The funny thing is that both Julie and myself have been doing CAS projects since we started our journeys in this industry, which is a long time in case of Julie - in my case only ten years!

- Circa 2007 -

I remember having conversations with Julie in 2004 about Clean and simple, quick and easy, the importance of design... It is after all, our natural style.

- 2009 -

But somehow through the years, the more fussy, vintage or elaborate trends have ruled the scenes and inspiration overflown with those. Consequently, not sure if consciously or unconsciously, we created our projects to suit the trends.

- 2010 -

Inks, distressing techniques... I love them all.

- 2011 -

Now that our natural styles are back on trend, I am both happy and apprehensive. 

- 2013 -

My question is: Am I being a style butterfly? 

Or am I just simply a professional that adapts to the current industry's fashions?

- 2013 -

Whatever I am, I think I will just keep doing what I always have tried to do. Crafting things that I like the look of it, without too much care - at least consciously - about how it fits within the current trends.


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Talking about Julie, The last few days I have been immersed into redesigning her blog, as well as giving her a complete revamped Brand design.
We are near to be able to go live with the blog, so still a while away. So excited!

I have enjoyed it so much, that I think I may start offering my blog and brand design services.  I am no coder but I love deigning so much that I am willing to put the hours learning to code. But we will see...

Traveling, family, food, glorious food...

The last few weeks have been all systems go, mostly for personal reasons. I have officially become a godmother for the first time, as my sister daughter got baptised back in Spain, a beautiful family event.

We landed in Madrid late on a Thursday night. We spent the night on one of those sterilised hotels near the airport. The next morning we got up and pick up a rental car to drive down to the province of Albacete where my brother in law is from.

We spend some time at the Lagunas de Ruidera. It is a beautiful place of natural lakes in the middle of very dry area. It feels like a true oasis of fresh water.

And we ate, and ate, and ate.

(As per Lindsay's request: on the left, jamon serrano and bread with fresh tomato puree, choquinos (tiny cuttlefish) and a salad obviously!)

The next morning it was the Baptism. I loved the simple and profound ceremony.

 We all dressed up. My cousin Angela on the left (I only have two female cousins and one male one, so I am extremely close to Angela even though I am eight years her senior and we always lived very far away). Omar - my husband -, myself, my mum - we are obviously related! - and my gorgeous dad.

And on the left, that is my sister, my only sister and the mother of my goddaughter.
Always it feels too short when I am with any of those two.

And on the way back we got to spend 24hrs in Madrid.

I love Madrid. It is not a showy city, but it is such a wonderful city that I always feel that is really underrated specially considered alongside the more touristic Barcelona.

This is one of the old entrances to one of the best museums in the world, El Museo del Prado. It truly is, not just because it is in Spain. There you can find Velazquez, Goyas, flemish art, and one of my favourite paintings in the whole world, The Annunciation from Fra Angelico.

And, while in Madrid is not like in London where the best museums are free, El Prado is free every day for the last two hours of the day. But of course, that brings queues. Luckily, they are extremely organised and even though we joined what seemed an impossible queue, we were inside within ten minutes of opening.

After spending those two hours we went to the Temple of Debob for the sunset. The view of the Royal Palace and the Cathedral is pretty stunning.

But the highlight is obviously the Temple of Debod itself.

It is an authentic egyptian temple gifted in the seventies by the Egyptian government.

If you have been to Egypt you will see it is not the best egyptian temple, but compared to some other Egyptian on display in other European Capitals (Paris' Obelisk anyone?) this is extraordinary! As I said, Madrid is such an underrated city...

Definitely worth a visit at sunset time.

And on our last morning in this trip, we visited the Royal Historical Botanical Gardens, not very impressive per se, but certainly an incredible oasis in the middle of the city. Although to be honest, one of the things I noticed most on this trip was how amazingly green Madrid is. The most beautiful trees that I have ever seen growing in the middle of a city.

And finally, what can I say? I love my Spanish food.

(As per Lindsay's request: on the left, arroz negro a seafood dish with sepia ink! and on the right, fideua, very similar to paella but with thin noodles.) We had dinner at Bocaito and lunch at Capitan Alatriste. Both were AMAZING!