bits of the weekend at home

Well, it is the end of January... but I am thrilled to start February in my new home, with lots of new projects in my hands and a plan to go to Los Angeles for a dear friend's wedding in March.
On this busy Monday school has been canceled for a teacher's work day, so I am taking the kids to the Frying Pan Farm for a day visit... probably only a couple of hours because it is very cold outside.

{Daniela cut water bottles and painted them with Crayola paint}

{finished project}

{nothing like a fruit crumble on a chilly day}

{working on new designs}

nautical collection

Our spring-summer 2011 collection of accessories for women is getting ready to be shipped to stores now.
Thick ropes, anchors, chunky chains, key rings, tote bags and much more. Each original design has been carefully hand made by the women working with Fournier's poverty alleviation project in Bolivia.

snow day

It started snowing yesterday afternoon and it did not stop until midnight. We love it!!!
This morning we woke up to several inches of snow {to me they feel like feet of snow}, so we immediately headed out to make a snowman and play with the snow.
{note to self: finish cleaning the garage entrance so I can take out the car tomorrow morning}
Anyway, the sun is shinning now and the snow plows are cleaning the streets. We will try to enjoy it while it lasts!

images from Bolivia

{street vendor in La Paz}

{across the street from my workshop in Cochabamba}

{shoe repair | on the street in Cochabamba}

{lady wearing bowler hat & crochet shawl in La Paz}

a few from our weekend

Happy Monday everyone! It has been a long cold weekend for us here, but we managed to go out to the cinema and see Tangled on Saturday afternoon. We also started a craft project for Valentine's day. The kids are painting wooden frames for his dad who's been traveling for the last 10 days. Hopefully the will finish them before he comes back home this Friday.

{vegetables for stew}

{crunchy Fuji apple}

{paints + brushes + paper towel}

{Sebastian's frame for daddy's Valentine's gift}

{I love this one!!! Sebastian made a drawing of him and his dad saying I love you to each other. Isn't that cute!!!}

happy weekend!

We were expecting some snow last night, but instead we woke up to a wonderful sunny day and no snow on the ground!
Just in case we are following that Welsh folk proverb from 1866 and eating at least an apple a day... If you behave in a healthy way everyday, you will not get sick, even in this harsh cold.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend! Keep warm!

thank you Chantale

How cool is this!!! I've been featured in one of my favorite blogs, The Adventures of Skinny Mini Kiki. I am so thrilled, to say the least!
Thank you Chantale for seeing the beauty of my work and for such a wonderful post!!!
Read the full story here.

Everyday I am amazed at the people I’ve met and hit it off with through my blog and how happy it makes me to read all the comments and emails I receive.

fall-winter 2011/12

My F/W 2011-12 collection, is fully inspired by the the untouched beauty of the Andean Mountains with hints of color and a full line of accessories to match.

The colors: auburns, reds, greens, grays and browns, painting the landscape, the designs blending into them.
The materials: baby alpaca, bamboo, pima cotton, as well as soft cotton velvets and voiles.

comfort food for an icy day

Last night we got a good coating of sleet and freezing rain at our house. There is a thin sheet of ice on everything. It's not going to warm up too much today so the ice will be here for a while...

So, in the cold of January, a bowl of pasta seems like the perfect comfort food for us.

Ice on the tree outside my front door. I ventured out just once and decided that it would be better to see what I could get from my front door without breaking a leg...
Anyhow, a magnificent sight!

Regular blogging will resume when I've finished my latte! Stay warm and enjoy!

a bit of snow

We did not get 10" of snow like in New York city or other places in the northeast, but it was enough to get the kids excited and out the door.

tis abay {ethiopia}

On a recent trip to rural Ethiopia, my husband could not help notice the children coming back from school in the afternoon. Barefooted and hand carrying loose page textbooks.
He shared these photos with me knowing that I would like to share them with you. I've been telling him to start his own blog since he travels a lot to places that are off the beaten path... I guess one day he will {or more like I hope one day he will...}

Tis Abay Village {near Lake Tana, Ethiopia}

pottery class

Last Saturday my kids attended their first pottery class. I enrolled them because they have been missing an art class for a long time... unfortunately, while living in Bolivia there were no art classes available in the area where we lived.
It is a wonderful activity for Saturday morning, especially now that it is cold outside and we need activities to entertain ourselves indoors.
After class the kids have to help the teacher clean the tables and rinse the sponges and the other tools they used for creating their pieces.

some kids played with the stamps to make rings

this is Sebastian's bowl

coffee harvest in Panama {the coffee}

Happy Monday everyone!
I started my day with a cup of coffee which made me want to share with you some more images of the coffee harvest at my husband's farm in Panama. By the way, the farm is located at the border with Costa Rica.

The coffee cherry is hand-picked at the peak of ripeness, with each tree being visited several times during the harvest season to pick only the red-ripe berries.

The fruit is processed on the day of picking, and spread it on a drying platform for complete sun-drying.

packed and almost ready to ship

Coffee History

According to a coffee history legend, an Arabian shepherd named Kaldi found his goats dancing joyously around a dark green leafed shrub with bright red cherries in the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula. Kaldi soon determined that it was the bright red cherries on the shrub that were causing the peculiar euphoria and after trying the cherries himself, he learned of their powerful effect. The stimulating effect was then exploited by monks at a local monastery to stay awake during extended hours of prayer and distributed to other monasteries around the world. Coffee was born. Despite the appeal of such a legend, recent botanical evidence suggests a different coffee bean origin. This evidence indicates that the history of the coffee bean began on the plateaus of central Ethiopia and somehow must have been brought to Yemen where it was cultivated since the 6th century. Upon introduction of the first coffee houses in Cairo and Mecca coffee became a passion rather than just a stimulant.

kleine fabriek {fall-winter 2011/12}

Only twelve days until Kleine Fabriek in Amsterdam!

We've been busy preparing and are excited for you to see our Fall-Winter 2011/12 Collection of clothing and accessories in baby alpaca and bamboo.

Come see us at booth C33a

January 16-17 @ Amsterdam RAI

Europaplein 8

1078 GZ Amsterdam

For those of you who can't make it, don't worry we will share the pictures!!!

coffee harvest in Panama {the people}

It is harvest time at my husband's coffee farm in Panama. We used to lived there years ago when we did not have kids and my husband did not have to travel so much for work... but that was long ago. Since then we have moved many times from houses and countries {not complaining}.