Elsa Mora

May 9 is nice :)

Happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday to you!
Happy biiiirthday Elsiiiiitaaaa!
Haaaappy birthday to you!
Yay!!!!!!!
37 my friend!
But I feel like I am somewhere between 17 and 23, not less and not more!
I say: It is not the way you look but the way you feel!!!!
Young forever!!!!!

An old neighbor of mine from the time when I lived in Cuba used to say: Oh, if I were just 60! How many things I would do! He was over 90 by the time he said that. Every year on my birthday I remember him because he was someone who celebrated life every single day and I have been trying to learn that lesson from him.

And going to the gift department: I drew these fancy dogs as a self-present because they make me smile! These doggies are all over 10 years old but they still feel like puppies! But the best present eeeever today is that my super busy husband is taking the day off from work to spend time with me!!!!. HOW COOL IS THAT? Thank you Billy!!! When he told me that yesterday I started literally jumping like Natalie does when she is happy. And then tonight Bill and I will have a special dinner at my favorite restaurant not far from our home. I am sure that today is going to be one of those perfect days where everybody is happy.

Have a wonderful day my friend and I wish all the Mothers on planet earth a beautiful Mother's day on Sunday!!!
See you on Monday!!!!
Elsita :)

There is a branch for every bird! :)

The other day I went to Ross and got this wonderful little jacket (first picture) for $12.99. I was walking through the alleys of the store where thousands of pieces of clothes were waiting for their perfect buyers, but non of them talked to me. I was ready to go when I heard something, like psshhshh... WHAT? (I said) Then I looked to my right side and there it was! I saw the little jacket looking straight at me like saying: YES, it's me, you found me!. And I said: ABSOLUTELY, I am taking you with me little jacket! I felt in love with the design, the color, the fabric and the attractive numeric combination of 12dot99 :o!. Once in my studio I saw this bird and brach and CLICK! I immediately got inspired to do something with the jacket! In the second photo you can see what I did. This was a very simple thing to do: I just drew the bird and branches on the fabric with a regular pencil and then I filled up the shapes with this textile paint using a brush. I then ironed the fabric from the back to fix the paint.
Yay!!! Now my little jacket and I are like best friends and we go out together looking happy!

Have a wonderful day and see you tomorrow!
Elsita :)

(I am sooo glad to know that you liked the little buttons from our last giveaway! Thank you for participating in the game!!!)

GIVEAWAY: Decorative handmade buttons :)

The other day Yael (who has been working with shrink plastic for a while now, see her Etsy store) recommended the printable kind of shrink plastic to me, and next day I got some of it (Thank you Yael!). Here you see some of the buttons that I made featuring four of my illustrations. They came out sooo cute! I decided not to make all of them flat this time. And now it is time for our giveaway game! If you would like to win these four decorative buttons just leave a comment in this post and I will announce the winner on Monday!

Have a wonderful day!!!
Elsita :)

Little Gucci :)

This is a silly post to introduce you to my friend Gucci the Box Boy. I just gave myself a mini fancy present: a little Gucci perfume. The box was sooo cute that I didn't want to get rid of it so I turned it into a little friend. He wants to say hi to you :)

Gucci didn't want to be naked so I gave him something to cover his lower body with and he is now sooo happy!

Bye-bye Gucci and bye-bye my friends!!
Elsita :)

Wearable original little art.

And the winner of the Wee Reader is: SHOBHANA!!!!!!! Yay Shobhana!!! This time Diego opened the book in page 15 :) If you are not number 15 don't worry because our next giveaway will be after tomorrow, Wednesday May 7 :)

And now let's see our Monday post:

These are some little creations that I made using linen fabric, shrink plastic for the buttons and this textile paint.
Steps:
1. I painted directly on the fabric with the textile paint (using a brush).
2. Once it was dry I ironed the fabric from the back at a high temperature to fix the paint.
3. And then I attached the buttons (featuring handmade one of a kind tiny drawings)

This little creations are so versatile, they could be framed as they are but we can also use them for decorating children clothes or adult clothes or little bags or for making pockets...because they are washable!. I am sooo excited about this new little creations! I will be listing these three ones on my Etsy store tomorrow. These little creations are now available on my Etsy store! They measure about 7x5 1/2".

Now I have to go but I will be back tomorrow!
Have a great day!
Elsita :)

Vintage Resurrection :)

The other day I turned out to be the winner (hold down one second please: YAY!!!!!!!) of a wonderful giveaway from my dear friend Margie who has such a special collection of everything vintage. Down here you can see some of the treasures that were included in my prize! These are pieces of vintage fabrics and trims, I love them sooo much!

In the pictures below you can see something simple that I created using Photoshop with some of the pictures of the fabrics. The uses that we can give to pretty vintage fabrics are infinite. Sewing small toys and other things for the home is one of them (which I am planning to do with these beautiful fabrics) but you can also scan the fabrics to your computer, print them on paper and use them for collages etc. If you are familiar with Photoshop then you can use this program for creating illustrations etc.

If you are not familiar with Photoshop but have dreamed to learn how to use it then I HAVE GREAT NEWS for you!! I just found an amazing set of video tutorials that teach you the basics of Photoshop. In order to do wonders with photoshop all you need to know is the basics and then with a little bit of exploration you will discover all the possibilities. You can buy this treasure online (here is the link) and it is worth every cent, I payed $97 for the set, it is not super cheap but again it is worth every nickel. I am recommending this to you with total confidence because it has saved my life regarding how to use Photoshop and because I wish that someone had recommended this to me like 10 year ago, it would have saved me soooo much time. (You buy the access to the tutorials which you can watch online or download to your computer, it is not a CD but it is 100% safe). Also I really enjoy the way David Peters sells this product, he must be an interesting person :)

Have a wonderful weekend my friend!
And see you on Monday with the winner of our last giveaway!
Elsita :)

Vintage Inspiration :)

I find vintage images to be so inspiring! Like for example these little cards that Bill found somewhere. Aren't they cute? I just wanted to share them with you today :)

I also wanted to show you the buttons that the little vintage cards inspired me to make out of polymer clay. Polymer clay is another great material for making buttons :)

And here are some inspiring links for you:
Amazing vintage cloth dolls from Gretchen's collection.
Beautiful vintage images from books etc.
You will loooove this one, so many sets to look at!
Kokeshi dolls.

See you tomorrow!
Elsita :)

GIVEAWAY: The Wee Reader :)

As I promised on Monday we are having our new giveaway game today!

This time we have a tiny doll and tiny book made out of wood. I painted both of them with acrylic paint and then I drew on the surface with a black pen. As you can see in the pictures they are really small! If you would like to participate in this giveaway game just leave a comment in this post starting today and I will announce the winner on Monday, May 5!

Have a great day!
Elsita :)

Dolls' Clothes.

I just had to get this book!
This book is out on print but you can still find used copies online. The prices are a little high ($ 115 for this one) but in my opinion it's worth every dollar because the content is priceless. I have been dying to learn how to make dolls' clothes from authentic antique patterns and this book was the solution.

And in the pictures you see my first little piece using a pattern from the book (from 1813)! I made the little dolly so she could live in the pocket of the jacket. It makes me happy to hold the jacket and the crazy-looking dolly in my hands :)
I love tiny things.

Now let's have a great day full of nice tiny moments!
And see you tomorrow!
Elsita :)

Winner of the Little Bag! (and something special)

First of all I want to announce that the winner of the little bag is: Julie! Hola Julie!!! The little bag is packed and ready to go! I gave Diego one of Bill's books and he opened it in page #12 that's how we found out who the winner was. This was the most practical way to do it because if you give Diego a bowl full of little papers he would never pick only one but a whole bunch of them! I want to say THANK YOU SOOO MUCH for participating in this little game and if you happen not to be number 12 don't feel disappointed because I promise to do this game more often. To be more concrete we will have our next giveaway after tomorrow (Wednesday, April 30).

Below you can see a little drawing that I made to say Thank YOU for participating in the little bag giveaway. I wrote your names in the body of the girl :)

And now I want to share something special with you and that is the album of photos from our walk on Saturday April 26. This link will take you to the album where you will see the photos and below the photos you can read the little text explaining everything. I hope that you enjoy it. This event was so important for our family.

Have a wonderful Monday my friend and see you tomorrow!
Elsita :)

Our Children :)

And today I want to share this little present from Natalie with you :)
I can't even describe what I feel when she comes to me with these kinds or little treasures. She says: I made this for you Mommy! And then she knows that I am going to hug and kiss her and say that she is the most wonderful Artist in the whole world. Being a parent is a very hard thing sometimes but these little moments are worth all the hard work. I am so lucky to be the Mom of Natalie and Diego!

Tomorrow we are going to participate in an important walk over here to raise money for the research about Autism. Bill and I are proud to announce that with the help of lots of wonderful friends here in Hollywood we have raised over $20.000. Diego inspired our friends and relatives to donate money to this important cause and we want to thank each one of them for their generosity. Go Diego go!!!!!

Have a wonderful weekend and see you on Monday with the news about the winner of the little bag!
Elsita :)

Two Drawings :)

And here we have two silly drawings to start the day in a good mood!

I am so excited about who is going to be the winner of the little bag! I asked Diego if he was excited about his job of picking the winner and he said: There is the Monkey!!!! Thank you for your words Diego!
And thank YOU sooo much my friends for all the wonderful comments from yesterday, I deeply appreciate each one of them :)
And now I say Good-Bye while I blink my right eye ;)
See you tomorrow!

Elsita :)

GIVEAWAY: Little Bag with Handmade Buttons :)

I have been sooo curious about Shrink Plastic so I ordered some of this material the other day and I have to say that I love it.

I made the white buttons that you see in the pictures out of shrink plastic, I drew directly on the material with a black pen. And I will be giving this little linen bag away to someone that Diego is going to pick! The little bag comes with a miniature laminated print inside. You can just leave a comment in this post starting today until Sunday at 5:00 PM (see clock on the left sidebar) I will announce the winner on Monday April 28!

Have a great day!
Elsita :)

(And here you can learn more about shrink plastic)

Three Girls :)

Girl playing with snakes.

Girl playing with some sort of snake plant :)

And I am the third girl who is trying to start this day of the week with the best state of mind possible! If you want to join me there is plenty of space in my intergalactic helicopter, I am heading to planet Real Life in just three seconds!!!!

3...2... 1...
See you tomorrooooow!
Elsita :)

Naranjo the Dog and His New Friends!

Buenos Dias!
This little story is dedicated to you because you are reading this right now. Before I had my blog I didn't wake up inspired everyday (not the way it happens now). I am inspired because you are out there and through this blog I can give you something silly to make you smile and feel better in this hard thing called life that we are all part of. I am more busy now than ever before, I go to bed feeling like a run a marathon but knowing that I have this little blog where I can let my imagination fly makes me smile and feel happy. This place wouldn't make any sense without you. I want to say THANK YOU SO MUCH for being out there!

Have a wonderful Monday and see you tomorrow!
Elsita :)

Great News!

I made this little bird to illustrate the good news that I want to share with you today:
Diego is getting NINE extra hours of DTT (one of the therapies that is helping him so much). Like the little bird in this picture Diego has a great potential for flying but in order for him to do it we needed to provide him with even more help from the outside world. The confirmation of that extra help arrived yesterday and we have been celebrating since then. These few months before Diego turns three are crucial for his development. Our little man has been having sooo much progress! I still cannot believe that he is saying words and even short sentences. He still doesn't do it in a logical way but this a great beginning. It is called echolalia and it means that he repeats words and phrases that he heard before and it is very cute, this is a list of his favorite words and phrases:

Mommy (that one is my favorite :)
Natalie
Daddy
Miro
Hey, what happens?
There it is! The Monkey!
Cat...Miao!
Where did it go?
Come on! You can do it!
OK!
Yes, I want.
Car, Bye-bye car.
Oh no! There it goes!

These are the most popular ones in his repertory :) From echolalia Diego will start making connections with reality and then one day he will be using language as a way to communicate with everyone. And then in a few years I will invite him to write a post right here in this blog!!!

In the mind time have a beautiful Friday, a wonderful weekend and see you on Monday!
Elsita :)

The Lion-Rabbit and His Friend Hormiga :)

This is another result of the exploration that I started here. This time I painted on the fabric using acrylic paint instead of ink. I love the way white and red look together, these two colors get alone very well. The Lion Rabbit and his friend hormiga get alone very well too :)

See you tomorrow!
Elsita :)

Ex-Barbie Pincushion :)

Her name is Mirta. She used to be a Barbie but then Natalie didn't want her anymore so I helped her find a new job. She is very helpful in my studio. Natalie thinks that this is just a new girl and she is indeed, gone are the days when Barbie was all about the way she looked. Mirta is now more interested in seeing how many pins she can hold on her head.

I just made her a new head out of paperclay. The top of the head was stuffed with polyester fiber. And I want to leave you with this idea: There is always new life for anybody who is willing to work hard like Mirta! :0 :o :)

See you tomorrow!
Elsita :)

Taladro and Ruby :)

Hello my friend!
Today I would like to introduce you to Taladro and Ruby. They are little people with big eyes and all they want to say right now is: Have a great day!

See you tomorrow!
Elsita :)

(Taladro and Ruby can be found in my shop now)

Flower Girls :)

And today let's start the week with a new group of girls that arrived in my Plant School a few days ago! They will introduce themselves by their names:

Celina

Lourdes

Lizette

Miriam

Marietta

Rossetta

Regina

Ana

Let's say hello to the flower girls!
And have a great Monday!
Elsita :)

Delivered to you by Elsita (Principal of the Plant People Elementary School) with the collaboration of our garden plus some elements from the Flower Department at our local supermarket :o :)

Mushroom Girl.

And today I want to finish this week with Mushroom Girl, a piece dedicated to all the girls that daydream. She says that when life gets too hard you can always reinvent everything in your imagination and make a special world for yourself to live in. I try to follow her advice as often as possible :)

We are going to have a great weekend with the kids, one of the things that we are going to do is going to a birthday party! We love birthday parties for little ones and grown ups too. But this one is for a little girl who is Natalie's friend. I will see you on Monday with something that I think you are going to enjoy!

Have lots of fun!
Elsita :)

(This piece is available here)

Silent Cat Takes Egg Face and his Birds for a Ride!

You should know that somewhere on planet Earth there is a gentleman called Egg Face who is a protector of birds. Egg Face is admired and respected by his community for his dedication to protect nature. Even Silent Cat (who is not an easy character) likes Egg Face. Here in the picture you can see how Silent Cat offered Egg Face and his three legged birds a special ride. They seem to be having a great time!

This piece is dedicated to my old neighbor in Havana who had hundreds of birds in his little apartment. They weren't legged birds like these one but they were pretty good singers :o

See you tomorrow!
Elsita :)

(This piece is available here)

Miaooo :)

Once upon a time there was a little girl called Mia. One day Mia went to the flower shop and on her way back home she found two kitties abandoned on the street. She immediately decided to adopt them. Mia named the kitties Alberto and Margarita. And from that very day they became one close family.

The End :)

This drawing/painting is dedicated to all the girls who love cats, specially my dear friends Acelita and Margie.
Have a great day and see you tomorrow!

Elsita :)

(Available here)

Drawing on Fabric.

I have been so excited about sharing this little piece with you :)
I made it with cotton fabric stuffed with fiberfill and then I painted the surface with acrylic paint. On top of the acrylic paint I applied matte varnish for a smooth finish and then I drew on it as if it was paper. For the drawing I used a black fine pen (#005). I finished the piece with another coat of matte varnish for fixing the drawing. Yes!!! I can't wait to explore this little road a little more!

Have a great day and see you tomorrow!
Elsita :)

(Available here)

Fernando and Egg Boy!

And here is Fernando the Incredible performing for the audience. Fernando wants everyone to see how he keeps Egg Boy on his head for about twenty-five minutes. Egg boy is supposed to give the audience a huge smile but the truth is that he is fricking out! Hang in there Egg Boy, two more minutes and you're done!

I hoped that you enjoyed the show!
Have a great Monday!
And don't forget to smile!

Elsita :)

(Fernando and Egg Boy are available here :))

Small World in a Box.

Today I want to share this little creation with you. These are Miriam and her friend Ignacio. I love making tiny things because it's very relaxing. In the future when I'm very old I want to live in a quiet and simple place where I can create lots of dollhouses and miniatures for my grandchildren :) But in the mind time we are planning to have a fun weekend with the kids, they deserve everything because they are doing sooo great! And the weather is getting sooo nice over here! I love April in California!

Have a wonderful weekend!
And see you on Monday
Elsita :)

(This little box can be purchased here.)

Functional Artwork for School Fundraising Event.

This is one of the projects that has kept me busy this week and now I will explain you what it is. Natalie's school has a big fundraising event every year where each one of the classes has to bring a project made with the participation of the students. What you will see in the pictures is the project from Natalie's class.

Process:

1. One of the parents got a blank piece of furniture and gave it to Natalie's Mom (that's me) so she could come out with an idea for a project.

2. I cut little birds out of paper for the students at Natalie's class so they could paint on them, that was their job and they did it great!

3. I scanned the birds and wrote the names of the students on them so they were ready to be printed on sticker paper to use later as a collage on the furniture. (All the birds have the same eye which I designed on photoshop, I wanted all of them to have something in common).

4. I arranged the birds on the different sides of the furniture to create cute scenes.

5. I also cut some shapes like trees and flowers out of some sticker papers that come with nice patterns (you can find them at Target).

6. With black Acrylic paint I created fern accents on all the sides of the piece.

7. The final result is a functional artwork that could be: a table, a container for toys and a collage to hang on the wall (the top).

This was a great experience and today I am taking this piece to Natalie's school. The way they sell the piece is through a silent auction, very exciting!

Wish us good luck!!!!
And see you later!
Elsita :)

Girl Looking for Directions.

I remember so well when I created this painting. I was in a bad relationship and I needed to figure out how to end it. It is always so hard to end any relationship, mostly because we get so used to the other person. It is like we build a whole mechanism inside us in order to function with our partner. Then when things go wrong we know that we have to stop that mechanism but it is so hard to do it. The good news is that after we do it we realize that it wasn't the end of the world. I did it and here I am many years later writing about it :)

See you tomorrow!
Elsita :)

Small Rooms.

Seeing these pieces after more than ten years is such a revealing experience to me. These are all paintings about myself but I didn't know that back them. I thought that I was painting about people that I didn't know. These two ones for example are a reflection of the way I felt in the nineties. I was living in a little dark place (like in the paintings) I never went out unless I didn't have another option. I spent most of the time painting in my studio and I wasn't happy with my life. All I did was try to scape far away into my inner world. I painted lots of small rooms with surreal scenes in it.

How to Grow a Little Girl.

Inner Animal.

Looking at my old work makes me realize how much I have changed. It is amazing how you project the way you feel in everything you do.

I also wanted to show you a little drawing that I made for my Etsy store! I got a great moleskine watercolor notebook with detachable pages, the paper is acid-free with a little texture, I love it! You can find it here. It is great for making little drawings for relatives and friends.

I will be back tomorrow with more from the past!
Elsita :)

New Old Paintings :)

We miss my Mom a lot! She is back in Florida now and we are back in our regular routine. She will miss the children so much but fortunately she is in Florida and not in Cuba where it would be so hard for her to travel.
This week will be sooo busy for me but I am ready for it and looking forward to winning the battle with time. I will have to make magic in order to do all the things that I have in my list. On the other hand I am so excited! Bill and I just got a great scanner and I am in heaven because with this new machine I am going to scan hundreds of 35 mm slides that I have with photos of my old work from the nineties. And here you have a little advance of it!

Two Heads.

The Secret.

The Tower.

The Lesson.

And this last picture is a more graphic version of The Lesson (the original painting that you see up there) that I created in 2007 for my Etsy store. It is the first time that I make a version of an old piece and it was lots of fun. I would love to paint more, I used to do it everyday in Cuba but back then I didn't have my "kiddies" and my life was all about my art. Now I have to find some balance between art and family. That's life, after you have your children it is not about yourself anymore and this is the biggest challenge that we, as creative people face, but we should never stop doing what we are passionate about! While our children grow our creativity should grow with them!

I wish you a happy Monday and wish me good luck!
Elsita :)

Blank Book Project (Day 15)

And in our last page you see my Mom, Natalie and I saying SEE YOU IN TEN YEARS to our little book. We decided that in 10 years, when Natalie is fifteen (important age for girls in the latino culture) the three of us are going to spend some special time together in order to remember and celebrate all the experiences that we went through this project. We will take a new picture of the three of us then so we can place it on the blank space that we left specially for it in this page. We are sure that our Blank Book project is going to stay always alive as a family tradition. We will officially give this first book to Natalie in 2018 but then in the future she can make it grow with the family that she will have on her own.
My Mom, Natalie and I are so looking forward to 2018!!!
Please come back in ten years to see the continuation of this project! :o :)

My Mom and I want to thank you all sooo much for staying with us during this experience, sharing this project with you made it even more special!

Thank you sooo much again!
Las Tres Mosqueteras!
Elsita, Margot and Natalie :) :)

(I will be back here on Monday, have a wonderful weekend!)

Blank Book Project (Day 14)

The theme of our page today is POINTS OF VIEW.
My Mom and I came out with a way to explain Natalie how important is to pay attention to other people's points of view. We told her that every person's point of view is like a little hole on the wall of a huge house. The house is the world and what's inside the house is life. We all see life differently because everyone looks at it from a different perspective (hole). Every hole is located in a different place so it is impossible for all of us to see what's inside the house in the same way. The point of this conversation was to teach Natalie that in order to have a better understanding of life we should learn about what other people can teach us from what they "see" from their own "holes" or points of view.

As you can imagine this idea is pretty sophisticated for Natalie to understand right now but I am sure that she will appreciate it in the future. So the part that we enjoyed the most about this experience was that after we explained Natalie everything and showed her the little paper house with the holes she said: Oh, I think that what you mean is that the world is like a cheese house and the people are all little mice looking through the holes...is that it? And of course we said: ABSOLUTELY Natalie, you got it! So she inmediately started drawing the little cheese house with mice to illustrate her own idea.

Isn't that wonderful!? Through Natalie's drawing my Mom and I learned that indeed we all see things in a very unique way from our personal points of view and we just loved getting to see Natalie's personal vision of our lesson based on her tender and innocent world.

We are going to miss these kinds of experiences sooo much!
We invite you to come back tomorrow to see our last page and to say good-bye to our little Blank Book project!!!!

Elsita, Margot and Natalie :) :) :)