A couple of years ago, I made a mom-and-baby cat illustration for a book that never happened for some reason or other. I found it again while spring-cleaning my hard drive and thought, why not put it to good use?

So if you love cats, red tabbies in particular, and [a] you live in the US where Cafepress is based ((ergo shipping won’t cost too much)) or [b] you have tons of disposable cash anyway and want to contribute to a good cause ((our cat Abby‘s food and play fund)), it would mean so much if you can support my latest entrepreneurial endeavor. 😀

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Our favorite fashion designer Tippi‘s Pret-a-Party and Lounge Lizard lines are now also available at Backstage, located at the 2/F, San Lorenzo Arcade, Pasay Road, Makati (behind New World Hotel), hope you can take a look sometime! Stay up to date with her collections and shows by visiting their respective sites as well as her journal.

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I’m quite pleased with the choice of judges for Philippine Idol. In the beginning I was afraid it was gonna be one of those Regine, Ogie -or worse, Kris-hosted affairs but the moment they announced that Mr. C was gonna be part of it, I was completely won over. ((There’s just no one else who’s as credible. Pilita’s okay, I grew up seeing her all over TV and she’s definitely an icon. As for FrancisM, well I’ve been a fan since “Yo” came out hehe. )). If, like me, you’re curious about how the auditions are going, FrancisM just so happens to be chronicling the judging process in his journal.

So how have you been?

Me? I was neck deep in work and more importantly, in offline life, since the last time I blogged:
1. Arn and I had new water pipes installed in our home. The original pipes were more than 20 years old and one of them had leaked, resulting to a P4k water bill, sigh. The good news is that having new pipes brought forth a surge of water we didn’t know we had – and it came just in time for summer, how about that?;
2. We filed our ITRs – a whole month before the deadline too! *pats self on the back*;
3. I art-directed shoots galore (at least 4 shoots a week) for the upcoming issue of WE. Many many behind-the-scene pics are chronicled semi-regularly on our phlog;
4. I worked on the Claycakes website – it’s quite deep so as of now it’s about 90% done. If you’re getting married, do consider booking with Karla. Her cakes are always fun and witty and best of all, they taste reaaaally yummy. I was (secretly) craving for her chocolate/lemon crumb cake with fudge topping the whole time I was working on the site – yun pala Marbee asked her to make me one as a gift when…
5. I turned thirty- another year older last week. (:


My Claycakes birthday cake, a gift from Marbs — how thoughtful! I told her “it’s the wedding cake Arn and I never had.”

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Yay, my very first CafePress “Pinoy Street Food” model, no less than Ms. Marite Irvine of one of Manila’s top ad agencies. (Thanks for giving her the apron as a wedding present in the first place, Shei!).

If you (or if you know anyone who’s) purchased anything from either of my little shops, please please don’t hesitate to send me a photo showing the item in use (ahem, Luis P!). I’d also love to know how the quality of the printing is since I don’t have access to the items myself.

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TMC shirts in American Beauty red, Atmosphere, Moroccan Blue, and Rattan.
We interrupt the rampant Andong Agimat plugging to make way for another important Arn book-related announcement:The Mythology Class shirts will soon be available at all BRANDED SHIRTS outlets in SM Megamall, SM Southmall, SM Manila, Alabang Town Center, and MarketMarket. Get them while they’re hot! (Click here to view larger images.)

*BRANDED is a division of Spoofs Ltd. Inc.

Please please please buy my Arn‘s book Ang Mundo ni Andong Agimat: now available at Comic Quest (Megamall, SM City North Edsa) and by now it should already be at National Book Store, Powerbooks, Fully Booked and Filbars. Less than a week after it’s release, we were excited to have found exhaustive online reviews here, here, and here, and a few plugs and mentions by friends and colleagues. Thanks so much guys 🙂


1) Arn with Angel Ace/KIA/Kunoichi Boy creator Marco Dimaano; 2) and with the Nautilus/Cast Comics boys Elbert Or and Jamie Bautista.

Andong Agimat is published by our very own Tala Comics, and is distributed by the nice folks at Nautilus.

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Gerry’s Elmer. On the right is the fan art that Arn submitted.

What an exciting time it is for Pinoy-made comics! Our friend Gerry Alanguilan is releasing his self-published Elmer this April:

ELMER is a window into an alternate Earth where chickens have suddenly acquired the intelligence and consciousness of humans, where they consider themselves a race no different than whites, browns or blacks, and push to recognize rights for themselves as the newest members of the human race.

Gerry told us some of his ideas the last time he and Arn met for a yet-to-see-fruition project and turned us into instant fans of his chicken stories. Check out the teaser pages.

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First it was Shei, now Tips has a journal too, yay! In pic: Tips and hubby Ito Ocampo.

Calling all girly-girls, fashion-watchers and brides-to-be out there – my good friend Tippi Ocampo now has a journal! Tune in regularly for fashion advice and creative inspiration. Don’t forget to watch out for her Summer 2006 Collection (resort wear with more than a few twists – and tucks and flounces) at Fashion Week – more details here.

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Aside from our almost-everyday shoots for the next issue of Wedding Essentials, the design and development of these websites have been keeping me busy. Hope you can support both businesses 🙂

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A week ago, I was supposed to formally present our graphic design group Liga Grafica along with our founder (and my good friend) Lizza and our mentor (my former teacher too!) Robert to the design community at the re-scheduled Murder by Design conference at 70’s Bistro. The three of us prepared a video presentation of the creative process behind three projects each of us worked on – the Hit Productions website for Lizza, the Alabang Town Center for Robert, and UltralectromagneticJam for yours truly – which turned out to be good idea because when the event had to be rescheduled, Robert and I couldn’t attend because of previous engagements we couldn’t back out of. Hurray for Lizza who ended up showing the video and representing us by herself – some pictures of the Liga presentation are here.

If you’re interested in joining Liga Grafica, please send me a note using the form at the bottom of this page. 🙂