While all of you Austinites were having an early spring snow day, in Berkeley, we were saturated and spilling over with snails.

I don’t know why Andrius and I always decide to take long hikes only when it’s raining, but it has definitely become our M.O. Last weekend, we went down to Point Isabel dog park to check out the bay and imagine who all the different dogs would be if they were humans with occupations (lots of detectives, bouncers, and dowager socialites), but the trip ended up turning into a semi-scientific study of the hundreds of snails that had been chased up onto the asphalt and anise shrubs along the trail.  We documented four main phenotypes: plaid-shelled gooey yellow ones, green-shelled shy black ones, brown-shelled sticky brown ones, and one pink-shelled clear-bodied albino one.

These are pretty well-documented in the camera, but as I came to write this post, I decided that they were not cute enough for this, the cuddliest of blogs – so you will have to use your imagination.

If we had been really hard-core, we could have feasted on escargots…   maybe next time…

Here are some photos of the wet beginnings of spring on the Bay:

Me, hoping I don’t get tetanus from this beautiful, yet very rusty rock.

Something out of a Monet.

Yesterday, it actually snowed in Austin.  The weather newscasters had been predicting it, but we didn’t believe it one little bit.  And, then, right in the middle of the day, it felt as though someone began dumping giant pieces of tissue paper from the sky.  The snowflakes were gigantic.  They were more like snowpapers than snowflakes. Children who had never seen snow were making snow balls, snow men and snow angels.

It was magical.

My original plan for this week was to send you a hint of Spring.  Each year, one day in February, when I drive up our hill, there is my little Flowering Quince bush, suddenly in full bloom, all by himself (or herself) … no other flowers in sight.  I always have a tiny private smile, and think, “There you are, you first brave sign of spring.” I would have never guessed that I might be sending this “Spring is Coming” picture surrounded by ice crystals.  So, happy winter, happy spring!

Number 32!  Congratulations to Lisa R, we hope that your sister and her new baby boy will enjoy their friendly Noah’s Ark elephants.

And many thanks to all of you who entered the contest.  We will be having several more in the next few months to celebrate the arrival of Welcome Home Noah in stores, so please stay tuned for more chances to win.  Thanks also to the online random number generator which decided our winner – you saved us on paper and scissors and a hat.

This is Jewish Penicillin with a Greek accent made by an Episcopalian. I prescribe it to anyone who catches a cold. Over the holidays, the poor pitiful patient was me … I caught a dastardly cold, and then, I passed it on to all of my fellow family members. (And, I promise, I was taking precautions to cough into my elbow and everything!) But, alas, our family cold passed from sister to dad to sister. Once I was perky again, however, and my youngest gal was a sniffly mess, I put on my Dr. Mom scrubs and went to work on my sure-fire cure for the common cold: Cathy’s Feel Better Chicken Soup. Secret ingredient: Lemon.

When we lived in New York, a friend from Greece served us Greek Chicken Soup. It was very comforting, as chicken soup should be, but more so, its lemony accent gave it a wonderful flavor, as well as adding a nice shot of Vitamin C to supplement its curative powers. A few years later, I bought the cookbook, New York Cookbook by Molly O’Neill, which was full of great recipes from the neighborhood chefs of New York. And, lo and behold, there was an entire chapter on the chicken soups of New York City, from Jewish delis to family recipes … one of which was Katherine Polyzo’s Avgolemono, a Greek classic. I gave it a try, and sure enough, it was exactly the same as the Greek chicken soup we had loved. And we have been making it ever since, especially when someone catches a cold. Or, an alergy. Or, even a sneeze.

When I am preparing this for grown-ups, I use every ingredient in the recipe, but when I am making this for younger patients, I occasionally receive some complaints about the green things … and the orange things.  So, in order to get some healthy broth into the tummies of your littlest patients, I recommend this: Prepare the soup using all of the vegetables in the recipe, (extracting all the great taste and the vitamins from the vegetables) and then just take them out before serving your little ones.  Everyone is happy.
Click here to download a free downloadable recipe page.  You can collect them and put them in your own recipe binder, or try this one we created for Tapestry by C.R. Gibson.

Not only will this soothing soup make your patients feel better, but it is a great gift for under-the-weather friends, or even just a “Yep, it’s still winter” present for someone you love. I filled my Feel Better Fast basket with two jars of magic chicken soup, and the ingredients for my other cold cure: hot tea with lemon and honey.  Feel free to add a mindless movie or two.  (My nostalgic memories of some oddly happy sick days wouldn’t be complete without a few episodes of Bewitched.)  Finally, throw in a few oranges for Vitamin C and color, and, now, you can just pop on your red riding hood and run it over to granny’s.

It’s our blog birthday!  And, we are celebrating by saying thank you with our first Giveaway.  Please comment at the end of this post and we will choose a winner this Tuesday, February 23,  to receive a birthday present from us: a signed 9×9 framed print from our Noah’s Ark Two of a Kind collection, a one-of-a-kind gift for a little one you know and love.  (photo at end of post)

At this time last year, we started this blog so that we could connect more easily with all the moms and grandmoms (and dads and grandads) who were buying products from our baby collections.  And now we have over 1,000 new friends (that we know of).  It is so much fun to hear from a new mom who can’t wait to start entering her baby’s milestones in one of our baby books, or to hear from a grandfather who is helping his daughter decorate a room for a grandbaby-to-be.  Okay, okay, you’re right … we also use the blog to brag about Neville, our new rescue pup, who is the newest baby around our house, although in dog years, he is already a first grader.

We have enjoyed sharing new Cathy Heck products with you, while at the same time giving you a little glimspe into the amusing life in the studio. We like to show you our inspiration, and we love to hear about yours.  We are especially proud when our studio tales inspire a budding new artist to stretch her wings and fly.  We have also taken great pleasure in sharing some of our favorite finds in Austin and Berkeley, and hope you will be able to enjoy some of our local discoveries.  If you know of others we should try, tell us.  We’ll try to visit, especially if it involves the tasting of food!

This year brought the launch of our new site, Cathy Heck Nursery Art, from which anyone can help to create baby’s first artwork. The site is interactive.  It is so much fun to spell a baby’s new name with a group of canvases, choosing from cute characters and coordinating patterns, The canvases are archival giclée prints which we print right here in our Austin studio.  And, recently, we added the opportunity to order all of the designs printed on archival fine art paper, framed or unframed.  Go see!

Another fun milestone for this year was the creation of a beautiful new baby book collection for C.R. Gibson.  It is called Noah’s Ark Welcome Home, and it really does feel like a big warm welcome-home hug.  The products will be hitting the stores this month.  You will see much more about this adorable collection soon, but here is a sneak peek.

So, happy new blogosphere year to all of our new (and old) friends and please keep in touch.  We love to hear about the projects that you are creating using Cathy Heck products.  Send us your stories and pictures.
And don’t forget to comment at the end of this post so that you can win your Cathy Heck Studio Blog Birthday present.  See a photo below before we tie a birthday bow around it.

Add your blog link to the blog hop.

On Saturday, we had just squeaked out an emergency deadline and Jim was about to run it to the last FedEx drop-off opportunity for the weekend.  I gave a sigh of relief as I watched a mailing tube full o’ new art head out the door under Jim’s arm.  I dropped down into a chair by the window, when what should I spy out of the window pane?  Margaret and Jim peering curiously into our car.  Uh-oh, dead battery at deadline time … that’s not good … but more importantly, what is Margaret wearing?  A prom dress?  Yes, it is.  What else would you wear for a battery-jumping lesson?  Yep, the dad-side of Jim’s duties had overtaken the studio-delivery-man side, and even though a FedEx cut-off time was looming, he just had to give his new-driver daughter a little lesson: How to Jump a Battery.  And, even though his gal was in the middle of repurposing last year‘s prom dress for a let’s-get-dressed-up-for-dinner evening with friends, there was no time like the present for a car maintenance lesson.  Fortunately for all, it was a quick lesson, and our package made it out in time, and more amazingly, her white dress remained white!  The good news is that if she and I are ever together when the battery dies, I’m sure she will know how to fix it better than I do … even if we’re all dressed up.

May your day be filled with lots of LOVE!

Shhhh. This is a secret.  Don’t tell Margaret, but this will be her surprise on Valentine’s morning.  Every year on Valentine’s Day, the girls wake up to some kind of totally-decadent non-healthy, sugar-filled surprise … a little bit like Christmas stockings, only all red and pink.  This year, we only have one girl at home, and she will actually be playing in a soccer tournament on Valentine’s weekend, so when she gets home from all that sweaty fun, this pile of sugar will be waiting for her. (Makes your teeth ache just looking at it, doesn’t it?)

You might like to create a similar present for your favorite little Valentines this year.  Big Valentines love it, too!  This is a very EASY project, with a nice big wow effect for the recipient.  With the little Love Note Flags that fly over each muffin tin, you can make it very personalized.  You can even make it healthy, with tins full of granola, nuts and fruit … naaahh.  Just go for the gusto.  It’s Valentine’s Day!

Click here for super easy instructions.

While making Happy Valentine’s Day boxes for my college kiddos, I decided to use Mini Tootsie Pops as edible filler.  As I tossed them in, for just a moment, it looked as though one was looking back at me.  With a little embellishment from my trusty pen, he really was looking back at me.  (He didn’t wink, though.  That would have been weird.)  But, Ding!  Idea for a Valentine’s Day treat.  I decided to make a whole batch of Tootsie Pop People for Margaret’s Advisory Snack Day.  As I began, I realized that they needed a way to stand, since they had no legs, so I decided to give them big sweet cupcake chairs.  When I finished the project, I thought they looked a little bit like they were all seated in the movie theatre just waiting for the romantic movie to begin.

To begin, I needed a recipe for a great cupcake.  Margaret suggested that I use Funfetti cake mix from the grocery store, but I had just finished a tight deadline, and I was in the mood to make them from scratch.  I chose a recipe from the Magnolia Bakery in New York City because when I searched the web, it was mentioned all over the place.  (I did not choose it just because it was the favorite cupcakery for the Sex in the City ladies … I promise, I learned about that later!)  You can see the recipe here. And, if you click here, you can see a nifty how-to apply-frosting video from the cupcake pros at Magnolia Bakery.  This recipe did indeed yield some tasty cupcakes that blended with the buttercream frosting for a melt-in-your mouth happiness, but just so you know, I suspect I would have recieved the same appreciation for Funfetti cupcakes from my teen.  So depending on your mood and time, I would suggest this for Step One:  Either prepare your favorite cupcake recipe OR purchase Funfetti cake mix from the grocery store, which is perfectly acceptable, and possibly preferred, if the age range of your audience is anywhere from 6 to 16.

For directions to make EASY Tootsie Pop People Sitting On Cupcake Chairs, click here.

I found this purple aquatint test strip in an old hard-to-open drawer under a film of copper filings and rosin dust.  Thought it was beautiful.  Took it home.