Labels: "trick or treat", costumes, Halloween, Illustration Friday, Maggie Summers, wardrobe

To celebrate that A Latte A Day is up and running again, let's have some delicious cupcakes and a jar of sweets shall we?

If your seeing the jar in this illustration in a pinkish/peach hue that's bright and vibrant your monitor is viewing it correctly. If you are seeing it as mostly peach and washed out then you would be viewing it incorrectly. You monitor may need calibrating. I apologize if any work posted looks washed out, on my monitor it shows bright and vibrant colors.

Labels: illustration, Maggie Summers

I have been blessed by the good graces of God to have finally gotten my blog working again! After muddling with the settings and reverting my blog to a blogspot address then back to FTP, I somehow overroad the publish settings. Of course somehow I was able send a few test messages once I switched to blogspot and they showed up in Bloglines but you could not see them on A Latte A Day! I also had to reload and old template file that I had saved from long ago, so now I am missing some side bar graphics and such but at least you can see all the archives and comments again. YEAH for me!

Publishing takes a long, slow time but at least my blog is functional somewhat again, even if it is just limping along.

Today my Victoria magazine arrived in the mail! It was as if a dearly loved long lost friend had come back into my life. Many years ago my mother gave me a subscription as a birthday gift. Every page was such a delight and reminded me of my home and upbringing and since that time I have collected every issue until they suspended printing several years ago. My mother is an antique dealer and decorated our home in her signature beautiful victorian style, both of which have become a large part of my own personal decorating style and our love of antiques and vintage decor.

We were so dissappointed when Hoffman Publications, LLC quit publishing the magazine. Much to my delight, they emailed me several months ago letting me know they were publishing this wonderful magazine again and asked if I wanted to subscribe. I said a definite "Yes" and purchased a subscription for both myself and my mother for her birthday which was this past May. My mother hadn't heard Victoria was being published again so I gave it to her as an "I Owe You" as the first issue wasn't to be published and delivered until October. She was as thrilled as I am.

My favorite of this first 2007 edition is the antique clothing collection of Tasha Tudor. Each dress is exquisite and I have often dreamed of living in the era where I could wear these same styles of dress. My favorite is the silk and floral brocade morning robe with ikat woven silk trim (page 59). You must run and pick up a copy so you can see for yourself; I assure you, you will not be dissapointed. The period clothing reminds me of the Marie Antoinette illustrations I created here and here.