I hate to throw away cute things. I had all those little pieces of chiyogami paper left from the sheets I put in my spice rack bottles and I wondered what to do with it. Of course, a collage!

What do I store in the little bottles? Beads and glass eyes. The glass eyes for softies were a bit creepy, so I put paper in the bottles to hide them. Isn't it the cutest spice rack ever? It a vintage japanese one I found on Ebay.

J'ai achete une jolie etagere a epices pour mettre mes yeux...Enfin pas les miens, ceux que je colle sur mes animaux, et puis pour mettre le perles hors de portee c'est bien aussi. Sauf que bon, des petits pots meme tres meugnons avec des yeux dedans c'est un peu effrayant. Donc j'ai mis des petites feuilles de chiyogami veritable dans les bouteilles pour mettre hors la vue les yeux hors la loi, et comme ca m'ennuie de jeter quelque chose d'aussi joli qu'un chiyo, allez hop collage. Ca m'a donne envie de continuer, tiens!

I took a close look at the charts , but nowhere they say when a child is supposed to be able to use a Wacom tablet.
They don't say when he should be able to pick himself the colors in Photoshop, either. I'd love to know, because I'm fed up of "cacom " (more) and "non non non" (no no no) if I don't pick the right one for him. Anyway, we have a lot of fun painting together the baby and I, especially when he uses the wacom pen to "paint" the tablet with his cream cheese sandwich. Oh the wonderful things you can do !

©Bibu Doreau et Maman 2008

Les gensses qui pensent qu'un bebe ca fait ci ou ca et puis apres ca mais pas ca a tel age et au millimetre pres m'ennuient un peu. Quand mon fils a l'air tente par un truc et que ce n'est pas dangereux, on y va. Le crayon de la wacom c'est plein de ptis bouts, mais on est pas tente de le mettre dans la bouche quand on est occupe. Alors photoshop a seize mois et sur mes genoux , ca donne ca. Ralez pas, je reviens des qu'on a finit de nettoyer les traces de sandwiche au fromage sur la tablette.

Brand new icons are a call for a desktop background, ain't they? I was lazy and made only one size. It's a very simple background, done to suit any window and menu with chic , enjoy!

©del4yo delphine doreau 2008

Et hop le petit fond d'ecran qui va bien pour les icones. Mine de rien c'est un vrai boulot de design, avec juste ce qu'il faut de place pour vos icones et autres menus deroulants, et fait pour mettre les fenetres en valeur. J'espere que vous aimerez.  Bon, une seule taille, aujourd'hui je suis flemmarde. Je suis flemmarde si je veux d'abord.

From time to time I need to make myself comfortable on my computer and suddenly everything look awkward and my icons are not in the mood anymore and .... and...Time for a new set of icons! And of course a new background to go with it. I wanted something between "pup in cup" and "A Mad Tea-Party"  with a French  twist, and a bit of "back to school" feel. Of course nowhere on the internet I will find such a theme so I made it myself, fresh and crisp to enjoy my old computer. Here are a few of my icons for you to download, the background I'll give you next post!

Click on the appropriate link to download my icons:

Download doodle4yo_mac.zip (444.8K)
Download doodle4yo_windows.zip (378.6K)

De temps en temps je trouve que mon ordi c'est portnawak,et hop il faut que je change tout. Mon precedent fond d'ecran imitait un papier peint avec des trucs pendus devant par des fils de couleurs ( une veste en Ikat, une litho, un oiseau en feutrine bleue, un mobile en papier etc) et des icones inspiree de dessin des anees 50. Super inspirant, limite fatiguant. J'ai eu envie de quelquechose de plus simple, inspire du Dr Seuss "Pup in cup" et de Lewis Carroll. Avec un fond d'ecran a rayures "Seyes" parceque voyez vous ca n'existe pas ici et que ca me manque beaucoup. Ca et les marroniers. Un printemps perpetuel certes, mais pas de marroniers, c'est d'un melancolique...

It's been a while I'm trying to re-think my life as an artist. It's not easy to preserve creative time when you are a happy wife and mother.  I've been working for a while during nap-time and night, but baby is napping less and I still need sleep.  I'd like to keep the "del4yo " spirit fresh and lively, and trying to make it a full time job needs more time than I'm left. So I will be soon back to a day job, and quite happily! I hope it won't be a problem for the blog. Expect less posting, but more creativity. For the moment I'm working on some new icons for my Mac, wait and see...

I was about to post all summer long and then I had family visiting,and a lot of work I can't show you yet. When I had just a little leisure time, instead of posting...I went to the beach.

Non dairy Dairy will be back in a few days, or a few weeks, depends of the water temperature.

Je pensais poster tout l'ete et puis en fait, entre le boulot que je ne peux pas encore vous montrer, les gentilles visites et et et quand j'ai eu cinq minutes

j'ai file a la plage.

Quand j'en aurais marre du sable dans les chaussettes, promis, je reviens.

(que la personne a qui j'ai promis un oiseau ne s'inquiete pas, c'est en cours)

Thank you very much for all the nice comments on the last post! I'm a bit confused now and I have to compute, but I do have some unexpected ideas reading you and I cant't thank you enough! I need to compute all this now so please while I'm working , print, cut out, fold the flaps, and find some funny place to glue a few bunnies:

Merci beaucoup pour vos coms dans le precedents post! Je n'en reviens pas d'avoir recu autant de reponses aussi rapidement , merci merci...Donc en attendant que je digere tout ca et que je bidouille ceci ou cela en plus du boulot de dingue que j'ai, voici quelques lapins a imprimer, decouper, plier et a coller ou bon vous semblera. Hop.

La traduction ici!

The Non dairy Diary turned four today! Happy blogversary to me. And thanks to you all readers for being more and more to read me!

A few days ago I got this in the mail:

Yey! My first sample from spoonflower. It's really neat to see my designs for real.

I chose this pattern , I wanted to see if I could make part of a cushion or something.

I was very happy to see the result , except for a LOT of color shifting in the reds.They became orange. And the really pale colors I added for test disappeared. Maybe I'm too picky? Colors are part of my real-life job, and I'm maybe expecting too much.

Anyway, Spoonflower is extracool. Thanks to them I gave reality to a little dream of mine!

I'm not so sure they are quite the solution I need. It's neat to print my own patterns, but I'd like you to be able to buy some too, at a reasonable price.

I'm trying to have some of my existing patterns printed on fabric, and then maybe make some special ones to print...I'd like something really nice and professional, something I could be proud of.

So : before doing anything,I'd like to ask you a few questions. If you were interested in fabrics from me, what would you like to get?

Do you have a  favourite pattern (please click for some samples)?

Would you like to see a fabric made out of my characters or illustrations?

From all your answers in the comments I will define what I'll print, so please raise your voice, thanks!

I'm afraid I don't post much these days. I'm working on some illos I can't show for the moment, and when I have a little leisure time I sew and read.

This said here's a picture of my sewing desk ( lucky me I have 2 desks). We had a discussion with my son about my lamp (once again, Urban Outfitters), and in the end I had to agree that the hoot-hoot does look like a meow-meow. But I just can't let him affirm that the tweet-tweets are indeed kwack-kwacks , I think the form of the beak is a definitive no-no to this assertion. Don't you think?

Je ne poste pas beaucoup. Je travaille sur differents projets que je ne peux pas vous montrer pour le moment...Et quand j'ai cinq minutes je me pose pour lire ou coudre. Voici mon coin a coudre. Oui je sais j'ai beaucoup de chance, j'ai deux bureaux! Mon fils (16 mois) aime bien ma lampe (moi aussi). Nous eumes une discussion assez passionee a ce propos. Pour lui le houuuu-houuu a une tete de Maaaah Maaah. Ca je veux bien l'admettre. Avec des moustaches cette chouette ferait un chaton tout a fait potable. Mais je ne peux pas etre d'accord avec lui quand il m'affirme que les piou-pious sont des couac-couac en fait. La forme du bec est significative, ce sont des pious. Qu'en pensez-vous?

I guess I won it. I'm not patient enough to do things correctly, but I do have a lot of fun.
My happy cushion covers were made with canvas from Darlene's ( I love the place), some beautiful Japanese dots I bought at WhizBang (cutest little shop ever),and fifties vintage I found on ebay. And the throw is from Urban Outfitters all right. Maybe I will have to work on a sofa cover someday when I will fill courageous enough to to a pattern. Ouch.

Je ne suis pas bonne couturiere. Je m'amuse trop, je ne suis pas patiente et surement pas perfectionniste (du moins pas pour ca). Je ne suis meme pas fichue de suivre un patron. Mais j'aime beaucoup ca!
Un bout de toile du tissus Japonais et un tissus vintage west-coast, me voila ravie...Pas moyen de me rappeller si les pois Japonais sont de Kokka , mais si je cherche je vais encore depenser des sous, non non non!

bis, since someone asked to see it front, here's a front view and a side one.I re-did the back view because I wasn't happy of the colors.

Christine, if it was a recipe, with oil water and green...Maybe pistachio...Sounds like a cake. A rolled up pistachio cake. 'cause of the snail, you see. Maybe with tiny black seeds for the eyes.

Si vous voulez une echelle dans la crognoture, la chtite fleur bleue doit faire dans les 6mm a tout casser.

©del4yo delphine Doreau 2008

We have this little song in France about a green mouse running in the grass. I always loved it " A green mouse was running in the grass, catch her by the tail, show her to these fellows. These fellows tell me " dip it in the oil, deep it in the water and you will have a good hot snail"

I don't know if it's nonsense or if there is any religious or satirical hidden sense in it. Just the way it is I loved to sing it, and I wanted to illustrate it since we have a garden:

Une souris verte qui courait dans l'herbe...Je me suis toujours demandee si il y a un sens cache dans cette chanson...Il ya-t-il un sens religieux? Ou une allusion a un tres mauvais restaurant? Ou peut-etre il y a-t-il un autre sens satyrique... Je me demande de quand date cette chansonnette?

Ca me rend un peu triste , parfois, de penser que depuis les blagues de Victor Hugo jusqu'au chansonnettes pour enfants, tout ce qui est gai et joli est si peu integre a notre culture... On etudie seulement ce qui est serieux. La souris verte au bac, qu'on rigole un peu!