Usbong is Tagalog for "bud," the moment a flower first breaks open. I dug into Flora de Filipinas (1877–1883), a 19th-century botanical atlas of Philippine plants, through the Biodiversity Heritage Library and Wikimedia Commons. I turned its hand-colored plates into a fictional women's football club. Every native flower became gear: Dapdap → home kit Banaba → away kit Caballero → boots Santan + gumamela → goalkeeper gloves Sanggumay → match ball Makahiya → the supporter's scarf Makahiya is the "shy" plant, the one that folds when you touch it. It's also covered in thorns, and that's the whole idea: these flowers aren't soft or decorative. They bite. Worn by striker Maya Flores, #29, the collection reclaims flowers as fierce, not fragile.

Bella, this is sooo cool!!!

7:30 a.m. First coffee. Same ritual, every single day.

Some people have a sweet tooth. I have a coffee tooth. And while the kettle boils, I usually catch myself daydreaming about the same place: Japan, a trip I’ve wanted to take for years.

For this challenge, I brought the two together. Digging through public domain archives, I found Japanese woodblock prints with rolling waves, round windows, cherry blossoms and graceful women drawn in a few calm, confident lines. I turned them into a custom Recraft Style and gave it a brief no Edo-era print shop could have imagined: a modern café, with takeaway cups, delivery bags, loyalty cards and an ordering app.

The café is called Mado, “window” in Japanese: a small window to slow down in a busy day. Its barista, also Mado, wears an indigo wave apron, a round-window hairpin and wireless earbuds. She remembers your oat milk order, protects the window seats from video calls, and believes every laptop should close when the cake arrives.

Old prints, new rituals. My entry for the Contra × Recraft Archive Style Challenge.

Project: https://www.recraft.ai/project/432bd549-89dd-4c6e-a723-8f0c55bfd16f

Such an original idea! 😍