Wings Of Inspiration (And A Winner!)

Birds are a constant source of inspiration for Matt's photography and video, as well as my own jewelry and graphic design. Our most treasured find is this darling nest, found one spring on our deck, with the partial remains of three tiny bright blue speckled eggs. It's the source image for Matt's Nest & Egg Cyanotype prints and my duotone note cards for our line of one of a kind prints and paper goods, Handmade On Peconic Bay. You can find our designs on Supermarket, along with these awesome bird inspired picks for spring from some fellow Supermarket designers!

Perch Shake-a-Leg Salt & Pepper Shakers

Chakra Pennywhistle Little Modern Birds 2

Victore NYC Love Bird

And thanks to all who entered this week's giveaway for the Thomas Paul Nest Pillow. The winner is... Elisa Sugar for her sheer enthusiasm, gobs of love and sharing her vision of the green pillow on her beat up turquoise leather loveseat!

Lovebirds

The term lovebirds was used as early as the 16th century to describe a couple with a tendency for PDA. Lovebirds and doves remain popular symbols in Western culture, representing love and fidelity. A bird is also slang, used by blokes looking upon the fairer sex with a slightly more carnal eye. With that in mind here are some avian inspired goodies for the season of love.

A very feminine amethyst and pink tourmaline partridge charm necklace and dangling partridge charm ring make cute love tokens for your bird on Valentine’s Day.

In nature lovebirds are a small and social species of parrots, noted for human-like affection for their mate. Lovebirds sleep sitting side-by-side and turn their faces in towards each other, like the pair on this note card by Handmade On Peconic Bay.

Cynthia Rybakoff sterling silver Love Bird Necklace, $48.00 on Supermarket and Shopflick. Mrs. Partridge sterling silver charm ring, $28.00, on Supermarket. Love Birds note card by Cynthia Rybakoff for Handmade on Peconic Bay, $3.50 at Supermarket and Etsy.

Nest Pillow Giveaway

This Valentine’s Day, what could be better than finding a note from a secret admirer in your mailbox? How about a gorgeous and totally free Nest Pillow by Thomas Paul in fresh spring green to liven up that sofa or comfy chair!

Not only am I thrilled to be hosting this giveaway event, with an item of my own choosing from All Modern, it seems I have fallen madly in love with the work of Thomas Paul, a NYC textile and fashion designer who’s home collection is featured on the site. A man after my own heart, Thomas Paul favors modern vintage prints with punchy colors, and offers a full range of decorative floral and natural curiosity inspired themes, all rendered in bold graphic style.

Tell me why you're feeling the love for this fabulous accent pillow and how you intend to add a splash of bright color to your current decor, in the comments section of this post, and next Saturday I’ll announce one lucky winner!

Please note, this giveaway is open to US and Canadian residents only.

Heartfelt

I’ve just launched my Spring 2010 card collection for Handmade On Peconic Bay, my husband’s line of unique art prints and paper goods. The un-retouched photo of a spectacular sunset over Peconic Bay, used in my Sunset Love design above, was created with Valentine’s Day in mind but is perfect for sending a heartfelt note to someone special on any occasion.

New this season are botanical blank note cards in a range of hothouse colors like Chive Flowers, shown above in Iris. Based on a scan of dried and pressed edible wild flowers from Matt’s Long Island chef’s garden, I’ve taken some liberties with modern software in creating a 2D graphic photo illustration of the original. We print and fold our cards by hand, using a high end Epson ink jet printer with archival inks on fine quality Strathmore paper. Each card comes with an eco-friendly recycled paper envelope and contains a little bit of our Peconic Bay.

Cynthia Rybakoff for Handmade On Peconic Bay Valentine’s Day cards, $3.50 each at Supermarket and Etsy.

Crazy At Heart

Love is in the air, and it smells so sweet. Dear husband, it's not red long stemmed roses that I crave for Valentine's Day, but bunches of fragrant pink peonies, velvety garnet calla lilies and majestic purple irises. This Valentine's Day, I am tickled pink and purple and maybe just a little bit crazy at heart.

Inspired by our annual spring landscape on Peconic Bay in Long Island, with it’s bursting pink peonies, pink and lavender hydrangea blooms and rich carpeting of shocking pink and purple petunias, I’ve put together a not so understated Valentine’s Day collection of stylish jewels and cards, available at Supermarket.


Highlighted by modern engineered stones that have been dyed or heat treated to create impossibly rich shades of magenta, purple, pink and ruby, the collection features fabulous items like my Dear Heart agate pendants, pictured at top, which are slices of pure color on blackened sterling silver chain. You can also find my Spring 2010 jewels listed on the Kitten Lounge Love Guide, which is all about things we would love to have or do.

Cynthia Rybakoff Spring 2010 Crazy Heart collection, $28 - $125 and Handmade On Peconic Bay art print cards, $3.50 each at Supermarket.

Art Imitates Virtual Life

Check out this super profile of my husband Matt Shapoff, Posted to Main News, the Second Life newspaper. Not familiar with Second Life? Where have you been? Second Life has been around since 2003, but it made a big splash in pop culture back in 2007, in an episode of The Office, entitled Local Ad, which introduced Dwight Schrute's "Second Second Life" avatar. Hilarity ensued.

Matt's a real life artist and photographer, whose unique collection of one of a kind Cyanotype and Van Dyke Brown art prints, called Handmade On Peconic Bay, have been steadily gaining popularity online as virtual art since 2007. That's his art in a Second Life gallery pictured above.

The flesh and blood Matt is transformed in Second Life into his alter ego, a tiny panda avatar called Kat2Kit. In fact, Kat2Kit is not only an artist but also a talented virtual actor who stars in Pooky Amsterdam's popular Second Life game show called The 1st Question. You can catch his live antics every Tuesday night at 10pm on treet.tv!

11th Hour Gifts

The holidays are such a busy time around our studio that I always end up dashing out at the last minute to buy gifts, as the occasion arises. I haven’t even sent my holiday cards yet, and so they will probably end up becoming a New Year’s greeting by default. By the third week of December, I’m already so over Christmas anyway, and happily at work on my Valentine’s Day and Spring collections, so a New Year’s card makes perfect sense to me. Our Earth colored duotone Nest & Eggs cards will be a perfect way to greet 2010, and the set of 8 blank note cards tied with a satin ribbon also makes a wonderful last minute hostess gift.


Speaking of hostess gifts, we've had a full calendar this season, so I came up with a chic and easy gift idea that would be appropriate for any type of holiday gathering. I filled mini Kraft shopping totes with a bunch of goodies, including a packet of our Handmade On Peconic Bay cards, some yummy Li-Lac Chocolates and a decorative but not necessarily holiday themed ornament from Anthropologie, and topped it all off with some brown tissue and an iridescent peacock colored ribbon bow.


We celebrate Hanukkah as well as Christmas, and fortunately for us it’s a very forgiving holiday. My husband Matt and I love the fact that we have 8 days and nights to find last minute gifts for each other, and we shop right up until the 8th day, which happens to be today! Matt is always happy with the gift of chocolate, and Li-Lac specializes in cute holiday themed items. Golden chocolate coins are a tradition in our house, but this year my favorite choco-gifts were Li-Lac's dark chocolate Christmas Moose and Hanukkah themed chocolate pops tied with blue and white raffia.

Handmade On Peconic Bay Nest & Egg note cards, $18 for a set of 8 at Supermarket and Etsy.