Every gift is a blessing! The bible says in James 1:17  that “Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.” That’s right!!  Every good gift, grace and favor that you receive each day comes from our Father from heaven.  We just need to open our eyes and see those gifts we receive everyday specially during tough times. Don’t you wish you could receive an unexpected gift every day?

Next day  I received another wonderful present from my friend Angela who came to visit me from Indiana.  She gave me some new brushes and a dozen donuts for J !!!! Gracias Andrea y Angela !!! i feel so loved!!!

“My new bookmark from my friend Andrea and some delightful brushes from Angela”

I am more than grateful for all the wonderful presents that I have received lately but most of all for the privilege to call someone  my friend.

Ties!! they were all different colors and patterns…..

I just love them

And I’m looking forward to wearing all of them myself  ;)

Doesn’t he look handsome?

Also she made this wonderful functional travel bag for D’s “Hot Wheels”. Was perfect for our trip

to Puerto to Rico to visit family.

It has 6 cars and a road where he can drive them in.

Just wow!! Thank You Iliah!! we love you and all your beautiful family!!

This 75¢ cd rack was originally black so I decided to paint it white, then using some old cord I tied up the rack in opposite direction so it makes little squares where I can put each brush.

That’s it!

Hope you like my easy DIY project, remember don’t waste just re-purpose …. and for those of you like me that are brushlovers enjoy!

Recently I received an email from the buyers of one of my recent paintings and I just had to share. The new home for “The Four Living Creatures” is a house built in 1837 by an Anglican priest in Quebec, Canada.

This priest started a church on the property and also established a University for priests to come and study and preach the gospel to Canadians The University is called Bishops University. He also started a private boys school called BCS. The Priest Rev. Lucius Doolittle started off in the house with morning prayers and ended with evening prayers.

The new owners, Brian and Tanya Allat, bought the place two years ago, and spent a lot of effort time and money restoring it. Judging by the pictures an description the house is gorgeous!. After this, God spoke to them that it would be a House of Prayer. Later, Brian and his family spent three months at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City where they receive further confirmation that this house was to be a house of prayer. They officially opened last October streaming the live webcast IHOP-KC and getting ready to do live music too.  Hope you enjoy the pictures (below, click to enlarge) as much as I did. Maybe someday I will visit my new friends and precious family and share with them more than just art!

Please keep Brian, Tanya and family in your prayers and if you are near Canada,

go visit Quebec House of Prayer (QHOP) !

I  sometimes use the walls as an inspiration board where I stick sketches, pictures, drawings as a part of my creative process. Is not a loft-style warehouse, with high ceilings or sky lights but it works perfectly for me and I love it!  Although during winter gets extremely cold in there and I have to take everything out and move to my living room. Extremely Messy!!!!!!!!!

I just finished work for an exhibition so what I am working now is organizing and classifying all my stuff, every day,  30 minutes. Getting rid of cluttering and clearing everything. And I’m already seeing results!! I’ve realized that my creative juice flow better when everything is organized  and I don’t have to spend so much time to find the right tools for when inspiration comes. Also I’ve found the value of searching for inspiration in absolute silence, usually I’m used to paint surrounded by music and many distractions but I’m finding more and more how the quietness can let me “hear” and concentrate on different things that need to be expressed in art. I guess I’m finding a new place, a new season and new challenges to create in a genuine way from the heart.

Something else happening is my new Etsy shop!! www.cosanueva.etsy.com I joined Etsy.com last February but my shop wasn’t up until April. Here you will find some vintage jewelry, prints and illustrations that I’ve been working lately. I hope you find something you like and inspire you. I’m very excited about it and please  visit often because I will be updating it. Thanks again for visiting and joining on my creative journey.

Tengo que decir un gran: ¡GRACIAS!,  a todas las personas que comentaron en mi post anterior. A veces subestimamos lo que una pequeña nota puede hacer en la vida de otros.

Estamos viviendo tiempos difíciles, tiempos donde buscar una posición o nombre es lo que dirige a muchos. El afán a lo material y a la “buena vida” esta llevándonos a vivir vidas completamente vacías sin sentido y peor aún sin amor. Y esto nos hace olvidar muchas veces el poder del mismo.

La Biblia nos dice que el amor de muchos se enfriará en los últimos días, lo que significa que en los próximos años las cosas cambiarán de malas a peor. Es por esto que el mayor énfasis q Dios el padre desea hacer en nosotros es amarlo a Él, a nosotros, y entre unos y otros.

Yo soy baja en estatura y esto lo heredé de mi mamá que a su vez es más bajita que yo. Pero cómo ella, esto nunca me limitó pues siempre pensamos en cosas grandes: grandes proyectos y grandes ideas. Pero más aun aprendí con ella a valorar y no subestimar las cosas pequeñas. Recuerdo que mi mamá casi que nos torturaba a mi y mis hermanos con sus notitas  desplegadas por toda la casa y sus rincones. Nos dejaba notas de las cosas que teníamos que recoger, cerrar, guardar… pero siempre escribia su palabra de amor, un dibujito o un verso bíblico. Quizás lees esto y dices: aww eso es cute!!… humm! Cuando te los encuentras por todos lados créeme que te puede cansar. Todavía lo hace aún cuando me visita. En fin aprendí algo: a detail of love could change a life for ever!

Anoche recibí un e-mail que cambió mi vida y otra vez la manera en que veo las cosas. Me hizo entender nuevamente lo importante que puede ser un detalle. El e-mail es de una nueva amiguita que conocí el pasado diciembre durante la conferencia de Onething que se lleva a cabo anualmente en Kansas. Su nombre es Antoinette, una chica super simpática pero más aun llena de Dios. Esta conferencia atrae sobre 20,000 jóvenes de diferentes partes del mundo para despedir el año en ayuno y oración. Y yo estuve ahí con mi arte y mis chapas de botella (Bottle Caps LIFE Necklace). Antoinnette obtuvo uno de mis collares de chapas de botellas, ella escogió el que tenía la foto de mi hijo Diego con la palabra LIFE. Este collar era un detalle de una exibición fotográfica que habia hecho anteriormente sobre el movimiento VIDA, un movimiento que es en contra del aborto. Le conté a mi nueva amiga el testimonio hermoso que papa Dios habiá hecho con mi bebé Diego, cómo éste sobrevivió milagrosamente a un accidente que quizás les cuento luego.

Bueno no hablo más el e-mail habla por sí solo:

“I wore my LIFE necklace today and there was a girl in my class and she asked me about it and so i told her about life and what I believed and then she asked about whose baby was this and i shared the story of Diego and she began to cry and she opened her backpack and pulled out all these books on abortion and i looked at her and she asked me to step out of class. And we went into the hall way and she threw them in the trash and i got to pray for her and she asked me if i can go with her to cancel her appointment. So thank you for doing what God has given you the gift of art and creativity.

Ama La Vida
Antoinette”

Cada año se pierden alrededor de 1.3 millones de bebes sólo en Estados Unidos. Gracias Antoinette por ser un instrumento de Dios y de vida y también a ti mami por enseñarme amar con los detalles. Juntas hemos salvado una vida!
A veces te puedes sentir como una chapa en el tope, pero otras veces tirado en una esquina y es ahí donde un desconocido te toma y te da una nueva oportunidad, quizás un nuevo propósito.Demos amor a aquellos que lo necesiten y salvemos más vidas para la Gloria de Dios!

Salmo 82:3-4
“¡Defiendan a los huérfanos y a los indefensos!
¡Háganles justicia a los pobres y a los necesitados!
¡Libren del poder de los malvados a los pobres e indefensos!”

I need to say a big Thank You!! to all the people that commented on my previous post. Sometimes we underestimate what a small note can do in the lives of others.

We are living in difficult times, times were searching for a position or a name is what drives many. The worries of the material things and the “good life” is leading us to live lives that are completely void and without sense and worst still without love. And this makes us forget many times the power of it.

The Bible says that the love of many will grow cold on the last days, which means that in the next years things will get worst. It is for this reason that the biggest emphasis God the father wants to do in us is to love Him, love us and love one another.

I am short in stature and that I inherited from my mom who is even shorter than I. But like her, that was never an obstacle because we always thought big: big projects and big ideas. With her I learned to value and not underestimate the small things. I remember that my mom almost tortured me and my brothers with notes all over the house. She would leave us notes saying the things we needed to pick-up, close and store… but she would always write a word of love, a drawing, a bible verse. Maybe you read this and say: ah, that is cute!!!…humm! When you are finding those type of notes everywhere believe me you get tired. She still does this even when she comes to visit me. I learned something: a detail of love can change a life forever!

Yesterday night I received an email that change my life and again the way I look at things. It made me realize again how important a detail can be. The email is from a new friend that I met this past December during the Onething Conference that takes place in Kansas City. Her name is Antoinette, a very lovely lady, but more than that full of God. This conference draws over 20,000 young adults of different parts of the world to bring in the new year with prayer and fasting. And I was there with my art and bottle caps (Bottle caps LIFE necklace). Antoinette obtained one of the necklaces of bottle caps, she chose the one that had my son Diego with the word LIFE. This necklace was a detail of an exhibition of photography that I had done earlier because of the LIFE movement, a movement that is against abortion. I told my new friend about the beautiful testimony that Father God had done with my baby Diego, how he survived miraculously an accident that I may tell you about later.

Well I won’t speak more because the email speaks by itself.

“I wore my LIFE necklace today and there was a girl in my class and she asked me about it and so i told her about life and what i believed and then she asked about whose baby was this and i shared the story of deigo and she bagan to cry and she opened her backpack and pulled out all these books on abortion and i looked at her and she asked me to step out of class. And we went into the hall way and she threw them in the trash and i got to pray for her and she asked me if i can go with her to cancel her appointment. So thank you for doing what God has given you the gift of art and creativity.

Ama La Vida
Antoinette”

Every year 1.3 million babies are lost in the United States alone. Thank you Antoinette for being an instrument of God and of life and also to you mom for teaching me to love with details. Together we’ve saved a life!
Sometimes you can feel like the bottle cap on the top, other times thrown on a corner and it is there where a stranger takes you and gives you an opportunity, maybe a new purpose. Let us give love to those that needed and save lives for the Glory of God!

Psalm 82:3-4
“ Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless;
maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed
Rescue the weak and needy deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”

Hoy tambien empecé mi blog. Nunca me he considerado una escritora pero ahi les va…espero q disfruten mi journey entre lápices, brochas, amor y fotos. ¡No es casualidad que hallas caído aquí!

Welcome! I am so excited and moved with my new and long awaited website. Thanks to this great couple, Gedy and Eduardo, today, I incorporate myself and my work online to the world! I’m so grateful to them for making me this marvelous design (which I consider the best in the world). Thank you both for your patience, your friendship and for sharing your talent with me.

I also begin today my blog. I never thought of myself as a writer, but here it goes. I hope you enjoy this journey among pencils, brushes, love, and photos. You didn’t land here by chance!