Sanrio believes in creating smiles one person at a time and spreading the circle of happiness even further afield.
]]>Originally founded in 1960 as the (Yamanashi Silk Company) The enterprise produced everything from silk to sandals, with a floral motif. It was noted that by adding a cute design to the sandals, popularity increased. The company then acquired the Japanese licensing rights to the Snoopy comic series. By 1973 the company was officially established as Sanrio.
Today, Sanrio includes the notable characters Keroppi, My Melody, Cinnamoroll, and the little black rabbit Kuromi as just a few of the favourites.
The Sanrio philosophy is "nakayoku". The meaning translates in English to "getting along together" Everyone wants to be happy. Sanrio believes in creating smiles one person at a time and spreading the circle of happiness even further afield.
Today Sanrio provides a variety of social, communication and gift products including collaborations with the eco-friendly company Baggu. And yes, you can even fly a Hello Kitty airplane from Chicago, USA to several destinations in Asia.
To see more from Sanrio + Hello Kitty click here
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Every year on April 22, Earth Day marks the anniversary of the birth of the modern environmental movement. Created in 1970, the theme for 2023 is "Invest in Our Planet". It is call for all for governments, businesses and individuals to invest in a better future for our planet.
Here are a few simple ideas and activities to celebrate and incorporate into your everyday life.
1. Support our pollinators.
Select plants this season that are butterfly and bee friendly. Consider a mixture of plants with diversified sources of nectar, such as dogwood, willow, cherry, and wildflowers. Bees, butterflies, and ladybugs need a mixture of plants to do their important work.
2. Cleanup plastic in your neighbourhood or local park.
This can be done everywhere. See some garbage - pick it up and dispose of it properly.
3. Conserve Water.
No running the tap forever to brush your teeth.
4. REDUCE - REUSE - RECYCLE.
It is one thing to drop a plastic bottle in the recycling bin. Another, to actually incorporate recycled products into your life. Look for items with recycled content. Reuse items more than once, that may have been tossed. Reduce your consumption of products with non recyclable materials.
5. Turn off the lights + turn down the thermostat.
6. Use refillable water bottles
7. Buy and use reusable bags Use compostable products
8. Walk or ride your bike or share a ride with friends.
9. Buy produce from a local farm
10. Spend time outdoors.
Earth day is a reminder of how beautiful and awesome our planet is. Take advantage of it. If you have a backyard, spend the afternoon in your garden. If you live in a major city, take in one the parks or recreation areas. ( be sure to pick up a random piece of garbage, while you are out there.)
Kelly Lewis Cards & Gifts is pleased to offer a selection of recycled products + compostable products that have been thoughtfully created for reuse over and over again. You will find a minimum of useless packaging when your items arrive. Compostable mailing sleeves are used instead of plastics.
To learn more please visit www.kellylewis.shop
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Creative Growth was founded in 1974, guided by the principle that art is fundamental to human expression and all people are entitled to its tools of communication.
It all started in the home of Elias Katz and Florence Ludins-Katz in the Oakland, California area. They were committed to the artists and would provide professional representation to exhibit their work.
The Creative Growth studio is now home to over 140 artists who work in a variety of media.
As a non-profit gallery, all artwork sales are directly support the artists and Creative Growth, which in turn purchases materials, and keps the program operating.
Creative Growth artwork has been acquired by prominent museums and collections world-wide. Including MoMa, SFMMOMA and the Smithsonian.
Kelly Lewis Cards & Gifts is delighted to offer images of art featured on Baggu products in the shop. Including John Matin, Rickie Algarva, & Jessica Rodriguez. The collection is now sold out, but the love of Creative Growth continues.
Click Here to learn more about the Baggu/Creative Growth Collab .
The little lemon is a major source of vitamin C and contains numerous phytochemicals ( things that are good for you ) .
The juice of the lemon is used for our favourite drinks, desserts, and marinades. The peels are preserved and can be found in sumptuous dishes all over the world.
And then there is lemon oil: used to enhance a variety of products, edible and non. Including aromatherapy.
The leaves are used to make tea and for preparing cooked meats & seafoods.
And, we just love looking at them. The imagine of a lemon, represents freshness, happiness, reminders of good times. Which is probably why the images are used so often in art, music, and home goods.
Click here to see the lemon oyster shell trinket dish offered in the shop
Jessica Williams is an artist based in Los Angeles, California. She obtained her MFA from Columbia University in New York , NY. Her BFA from the Rhode Island School of design, in Providence, RI.
Growing up in the San Fernando Valley by LA, she loved art from a very early age. Not remembering a time when she didn't draw. She and her family would paint and do ceramics. Her parents encouraged her, and she had a memorable art teacher in middle school. She decorated her art studio with Frida Kahlo posters and talked with her often about art.
She attended the LA County High School for the Arts, in which you had to choose a major and hers was to be visual art. Half the day was spent in art class: painting, figure drawing, and printmaking. She later won a painting prize which gave her more confidence as an artist. She then went on to study painting and art history at RISD and Columbia.
Her paintings invent narratives to explore themes of transformation, regeneration, and memory. She works from observations from her immediate environment as well as from photo-based and art historical references. She is interested in the relationship between nature and humanity, remembering and forgetting, desire and dreams.
I am very excited that she has collaborated with Baggu to present a dreamscape of imagery collaged with figments of magic and reality.
See more from Jessica Williams and Baggu
]]>Yayoi Kusama is a Japanese artist working primarily in sculpture and installation, but active in many areas of painting, performance, video art, fashion and poetry. She has been acknowledged as one of the most important living artists to come out of Japan.
Kusama was raised in Matsumoto, and trained at the Kyoto City University of Arts in a traditional Japanese style of painting called Nihonga. She was however, inspired by American Abstract impressionism. Moved to New York in 1958 and became part of the avant-garde scene in the 1960s.
She covered surfaces with polka dots or "infinity nests" as she called them, and they would become a trademark of her work.
She once stated, "A polka dot has the form of the sun, which is a symbol of the energy of the whole world and our living life, and also the form of the moon, which is calm. Round, soft, colourful, senseless and unknowing. Polka dots become movement...Polka dots are a way to infinity."
Recent works have sold at auction for over 5 million dollars. The highest ever paid for a female artist. She continues to create and amaze.
You can find a homage to the artist in the form of a hand silk screened tea towel called Calico Cat designed and made by Naked Decor.
]]>Question: What kind of hat gives the best protection from the sun?
Answer: Broad-Brim or Bucket Hats
When temperatures are scorching , a sun hat can provide some much needed heat relief. But it does more than keep you cool...It can shield you from the sun's harmful, sun-burn-causing ultraviolet rays. In addition to slathering on sunscreen, many people forget to don a hat.
The WIDE BRIM HAT - is the best in terms of sun protection. The wider the brim the better. The brim will shade your neck, ears and shoulders from UV rays, plus reflect rays from water and sand. the good news is this style of hat has been seen all over the runways, making them fashionable as well as practical.
Next up the BUCKET HAT - You don't have to be a fisherman to don a bucket hat. This old school style has gotten a modern update in recent years and popularity is booming. Make sure yours has at least a 2-3 inch brim all the way around to protect your face and ears. It should has a non-reflective underside to the brim, which can keep UV rays from reflective surfaces such as water, away from your face.
Keep in mind the sun is strongest from 10 a.m. to 3 or 4 p.m. It is best practice to wear in sunny or cloudy weather. Dress for the boat or the beach, but anywhere you are outdoors is important. Tennis, pickle ball, or a walk in the park.
The hat mixed with a good sunscreen will protect your beautiful skin and enhance your WOW factor!
IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO PROTECT YOURSELF IN STYLE PLEASE CLICK HERE TO SEE THE OFFERINGS from BAGGU featured in the shop. Kelly Lewis Cards & Gifts
They were Canada's first internationally recognized art movement. Strongly believing that Canadian art could be developed through direct contact with the country's vast and unique landscape. The goal was to change Canadian taste and values through the distribution of painting, articles, and publications, encouraging collectors of Canadian art. The group presented the dense, northern boreal forest of the Canadian Shield as a transcendent, spiritual force. Their depictions of Canada's rugged wind-swept forest panoramas were eventually equated with a romanticized notion of Canada's strength and independence.
The painter Tom Tomson was an important influence on the group although was never a member as so many believe. A fishing guide and occasional forest ranger, he was an avid outdoorsman, and encouraged the members to paint the rugged landscapes of Northern Ontario. It was there they found the imagery that would imprint itself on the Canadian consciousness.
If you would like to see a selection of products in the shop by the Group of Seven or Tom Thompson click here
I try to visit the gate at least once a year, thru the park on highway #19 then return via # 5 to Dauphin. I imagine my grandparents travelling from Dauphin with my mom and auntie in a vehicle just as depicted in this photo, making their way first to the family cottage on the north shore of Clear Lake, then later to the shop my grandfather H.W. Scrase established in 1938 within the townsite of Wasagaming. Where learned the craft of retailing + family business. Lessons not taught at university. Only learned by complete immersion one might say.
If you are inspired by your own story of Riding Mountain National Park and would like to see some of my exclusive creations please click here If you have never experienced the park please consider a trip....to visit a little piece of paradise.
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Bees play a major role in maintaining balance between humans, plants, animals, and the environment. It is because they increase agricultural production around the world by pollinating. As a result, World Bee Day is celebrated to raise awareness about the threats faced by bees as a result of human activity and to acknowledge the significance of bees in our biodiversity.
Honeybees are used to pollinate many popular crops, including apples, almonds, broccoli, cranberries, squash and melons.
To help you can create a pollinator garden yourself. You might consider getting rid of your lawn. Lawns are meccas for toxic fertilizers, and are water guzzlers. The average lawn requires more than 10,000 gallons of water every single week. Instead, shrink it down. Plant some fruit trees, invest in some perennial hedges, or start a great big wildflower garden, using native plants. You can easily attract bees, birds & butterflies to your yard by diversifying. Just don't be so quick to get the lawn mower out this spring!
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Their diet consists of earthworms, grubs, grasshoppers and caterpillars, and can usually be seen digging up lunch after a rainstorm when the worms are easy to pull. It can be seen running back and forth on lawns picking up worms, and it's running and stopping actions are a distinguishing characteristic.
The robin builds a new nest for each of the 2-3 sets of their famous robin's egg blue eggs, it will lay in a season. The building is the exclusive work of the female. It does not shy away from building near humans. The nest is then incubated by the female alone. After 14 days the eggs will hatch and the chicks will leave the nest after another 14 days.
How we delight in discussing the weather and asking "Have you seen your first robin yet?"
If you would like to visit Kelly Lewis Cards & Gifts and take a closer look at the North American Robin by Canadian artist Amélie Legault, click here
You might also enjoy the charming bird craft kits from Plego
Kelly Lewis Cards & Gifts is pleased to offer five different greeting cards with Anastacia's art featured. 100% of the net profits from my sales will be contributed to the CANADIAN UKRAINIAN FOUNDATION #HelpUkraineNow.
If you would like to purchase please visit Kelly Lewis Cards & Gifts .
Follow Anastacia Sholik on Instagram
To honour and mark the birthday of one of the greatest artists of all time, LEONARDO DA VINCI. Unesco declared April 15th World Art Day in 2012. It is a celebration to encourage the development, distribution, and enjoyment of art on this day annually.
Art encourages creativity, innovation, and cultural diversity for individuals all over the world, and it plays a vital role in information exchange, curiosity, and discussion. These are the attributes that art has had and always will continue to have if we continue to support conditions that protect artists and artistic freedoms.
Art is a popular hobby for so many people, and some 2 million people earn a living as artists in North America. Writers, designers, animators, graphic artists, painters, dancers, fashion designers, theatre artists, film makers, sculptors, photographers, musicians, and in my business, greeting card designers.
While most of us go about our usual day, let's reflect on the influence art has on our entire society, appreciate and give thanks.
If you would like to see more from the incredible artist contributions to Kelly Lewis Cards & Gifts: Click Here
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Jackie Traverse is a multi-disciplinary First Nation Anishinaabe, specifically, Ojibwe, female artist that calls the City of Winnipeg home. She studied at The School of Fine Arts at the University of Manitoba, and graduated in 2009.
A large portion of her work contains a combination of popular and traditional cultural reflections, which she portrays through her knowledge of urban living, contemporary visual art, traditional craft, and her own cultural practices. She works in many mediums from painting in oils and acrylics to mixed media, sculpture and stop motion animation. Traverse is widely known in art communities across Canada. Her paintings, drawings, documentaries, and sculptures speak to realities of being an Aboriginal woman. Jackie is deeply moved by the injustices faced by First Nations people. She is committed to her community and teaches art in public schools, which bring together the traditional teachings of the First Nations to various cultures. She is an activist and supported of the empowerment of Indigenous women in Canada. The strength and power of women is often depicted in her artwork and is reflected in her activism. She is the founder f a ride-share program in Winnipeg called Ikwe Safe Ride, designed to provide a safe alternative to taxi cabs after a string of sexual assaults on women in Winnipeg taxi cabs. In 2015 she founded Indigenous Rock the Vote. A movement in Winnipeg inspired by Indigenous people across Canada to challenge historically low voter turnout rates, by voting in the 2015 Canadian Federal Election.
I am ever so GRATEFUL for the work and messaging from Jackie Traverse, from my hometown of Winnipeg. Treaty One Territory.
If you would like to see the work GRATEFUL and more from Jackie Traverse please click on the link:
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In 1921, Georgia was annexed by the Soviet Union, and stayed that way until 1991. The Soviet Union had been in shambles for over a decade and so Georgia suffered as well.
During this time Khizanishvili was also a mother, but she still managed to paint up to six hours a day. With the darkness she experienced both literally and figuratively, one might expect her work to be bleak. But, they are not at all. Most of her work is quite colourful and draws from many traditions, including of course Georgian culture.
In a NEW STAR RISING, it is a riff on a traditional madonna and child. It is a testament to motherhood -- which she cherishes--but describes as "not the idealized, off-limits, vaulted kind. Instead it's the kind of motherhood that's fabulous, but not without its difficult moments."
The full interview with the artist is included in the Kinstler 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle now available in the shop.
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Johnson was inspired by these felines and has featured them in her art ever since the first encounter at the bodega. She creates her work at Pure Vision Arts, a NYC non-profit that provides people with autism and development disabilities a safe encouraging space to creatively express themselves.
Pamela Rogers the director of PVA remarks that Johnson has a great sense of colour design and texture and patterning. It is a talent that goes beyond PVA's celebration of neurodiversity, and is an example of what the organization calls " Savant Garde" a term that recognizes the PVA artists as fitting in a larger history of figures who have made major contributions to the arts and sciences ( Mozart, Andy Warhol, and Steve Jobs, for example) In Rogers words: "There's a culture of autism thats maybe existed that we just hadn't been aware of, because we didn't have the language. But these people have really changed history - people with this ability to hyper focus and create something and dive into something to make new discoveries."
The full interview with Simone and Pamela can be found within the Bodega Cat with Fruits and Vegetables 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle from Kinstler in the shop.
]]>Mindfulness is the act of bringing conscious attention to a task in the present moment, and puzzles are a great way to practice it.
Puzzles are also good for the brain. Studies have shown that doing a puzzle can improve cognition and visual-spatial reasoning. The act of putting together a puzzle requires concentration and improves short term memory and problem solving. Using the puzzle as an exercise can spark the imagination and increase your creativity and productivity.
Spending time alone with a puzzle can help you unwind and restart from a busy day. Working on a puzzle with someone else also helps build personal connections and bonds with other people.
There is nothing more satisfying than finding that just right piece to put in its place.
I encourage you to try puzzling and let mind go on a little mini-vacation from the outside world.
You can find lots of interesting puzzles at Kelly Lewis Cards & Gifts to get started.
He once said: " When I look at a wildlife or nature subject, I don't just see feathers in the wings. I see exciting shapes, colour combinations, patterns, textures, fascinating behavior, and endless possibilities for making interesting pictures.I regard the picture as an eco-system in which all the elements are interrelated, interdependent, perfectly balanced, without trimming or utilizing parts.: and herein lies the lure of painting: in a world of chaos, the picture is one small rectangle in which the artist can create an ordered universe."
Kelly Lewis Cards & Gifts is pleased to present a small smattering of products with the incredible images Charley Parker left us.
To see more please visit Kelly Lewis Cards & Gifts
]]>There is nothing better that reaching into the mailbox and amidst the flyers and bills, out slides what is clearly a handwritten note. You haven't even opened it, and you feel a warm smile coming on.
So many people tell me they have trouble knowing what to say or write in a card. They even have difficulty selecting a card.
May I assure you, there is no need to be indecisive when it comes to this. Ask yourself? Have you ever been disappointed when someone took the time to reach out to you on your birthday, anniversary, engagement, celebration ( insert occasion here ) ! I think not.
So, if you keep that in mind when making your selection, just remember how you felt. Do not fret about it being the right one. It is always the "write" one. Even for those difficult messages of condolence or illness. A hand written note will always be appreciated.
Here are a few tips to use when setting the pen to paper: write three things -
This is a mixed bag of suggestions, but the point again is not to worry about what to say. Just say it, keep it short, and sign off. A few words will go a long way.
Know your message will be most appreciated. GUARANTEED
In future posts I will break it down into more details, for more specific occasions, but in the meantime, just send the note.
To get you started, I have included a link to the entire greeting card selection
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It originates from Victorian Era England where the traditions of serving tea in the social setting took off. See "Downton Abby for details" The finest china required a towel of distinctive qualities to make the service presentable. The tea towel of the modern era is typically linen or cotton. What it is not, is terry cloth, that is a kitchen towel or hand towel. If you want your fine glasses and china ready to serve, you want a towel that will wipe them clean without leaving any streaks or marks. You want the TEA TOWEL.
What to do with a tea towel:
A few more creative uses you might not have thought of:
ADDED BONUS
You can find your new favourite tea towel here
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Here's the drill:
More and more socks are being made from sustainable, ethically resourced materials and manufactured under ethical labour standards. Let's give a shout out to Baggu for doing just so.
In conclusion, wear what you want, there are no hard fast rules, and select a sock supplier that cares about our world.
You can find Baggu socks and Baggu reusable bags in the shop! To see more from Baggu just click here
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