Happy Lunar New Year of the Dragon!  A little belated but better late than never… Ha!  There’s been a whole hype about this year of the dragon, mainly because the dragon is considered probably the most auspicious of the 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac.   So while I was brainstorming on what to design as a cute birth announcement for our expectant little bundle of joy, I decided to design it around the dragon.  =)  The end result was the birth of a new character named Dragon B.

Dragon B’s favorite food is milk and he tells his story here:

The template for this dragon birth announcement will be on sale eventually as a vector download on our Etsy shop or feel free to contact us for the template!  We’re super excited to introduce more about Dragon B as his birthday comes up.  Hope everyone is having a prosperous year of the Dragon so far and Dragon B sends a big welcome to all the new babies born this year!  <3

Our studio has pet chinchillas!  They are cute, fluffy brothers named Koko and Toto.

Toto is slightly larger than Koko and is usually found running around causing mischief or sleeping. Koko is quiet, doesn’t like to run too much but likes to be playful when he is awake.

As Lunar New Year is just around the corner, Koko, being his demure playful self, puts on bunny ears to celebrate the oncoming Lunar New Year of the Rabbit.

If you would like to keep up with Koko and Toto, be sure to subscribe to our facebook page.  This Lunar New Year wallpaper is available for you to download for free 🙂  Just click below:

1600 x 1200

1680 x 1050

For those celebrating the Lunar New Year, everyone at the studio wishes you a very Happy New Year.  May the New Year bring you good health, prosperity and peace.

be sweet. be blessed.

Every gal usually has a few girlfriends whom they would consider lifelong buddies.  Anne is a lifelong buddy – I met Anne while schlepping through my Masters program at Harvard.  She thought I was a bubble-head at first impression to later becoming one of my most dear of friends.

The idea of creating owl characters have been on my mind for some time due to Anne’s love for the nocturnal nature of owls.  I admired Anne’s perseverance and integrity in her life and career despite being visually impaired.  It was Anne who taught me to appreciate  dogs as service animals and to be able to stomach super spicy food.  Often, for academic purposes, I would find Anne owling late into the night.

Over the weekend, I was further inspired by my cousin AE to create owl characters.  AE, whom I watched grow into a fine, young lady from a mere babe.  *tear ^___^ Sentimentality aside, AE gave me the idea to create a pair of owlettes with certain characteristics of AE and her beau AC.

And voila~ the owlettes I created are in the Iro no Zuku family.  Loosely translated from Japanese as Owls of Color.  So far, there are two of them – Komezuku (rice owl) and Hanazuku (flower owl).  As a an aside, zuku is the scientific Japanese word for owls with ears.  The more commonly known word for owl in Japanese is furoku, however this term refers mainly to owls without ears.

Komezuku loves eating rice and occasionally needs glasses to count his rice grains for safekeeping. Hanazuku loves collecting fresh flowers and making cute accessories for her feathers and Komezuku's tummy.

Komezuku wears his rice bowl upside down when he sometimes runs out of rice. Hanazuku is about to wake up and start collecting flowers~

The vectors of these characters will be up soon on our Etsy shop.  The print is also up on our deviantART site.  In the meantime, I may create some owling friends as well.  Enjoy!

be sweet.  be blessed.