Our Christmas in Pictures *********************** Out of the Box on Boxing Day

A portrait of the colours, scents and flavours of our Christmas

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Boxing Day trip out to the seaside of Hunstanton

Christmas is a time of Love and embracing it, a time to go back to childhood days and playfulness! So on the second day of Christmas me and my dear hubby fancied doing something different and more adventurous and went for a ride to the seaside and enjoyed a good walk watching the sea and the horizon - it was such a simple pleasure to walk along the front with a cup of hot chocolate and a cup of tea  - it was the first time I saw the seaside on a winter day - let alone on second Christmas day! Surprisingly it didn't look less cheerful and vivid than the rest of the year however pleasantly peaceful! And I liked that! The sunset was just heart warming, the orange tones were so kind and rich just like the festive flavours of cinnamon orange zest and chocolate- it was nature's own way of adorning itself!

My latest albums

The Annual International Craft Fair , NEC Birmingham

I find it hard to believe it's only a week since I went the NEC Craft Fair! Seems ages ago!

Sadly I could barely move in there, let alone take pictures but pleased I caught a snippet of the Prima line featurig some of Donna Downey's art. All very pretty of course!

I was however surprised 7Gypsies items were faintly there, but I also felt so little in this big big place full of artistic goodies!
Not to mention the Cake Fair!
But I'd better let the pictures speak for themselves!

It's looking good!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today it is indeed looking good for two reasons:
I'm very proud of my 4th album for the spring line, done in 2 evenings and with a soft vintage air, but counteracted by a fresh young colour contrast!

Needs embellishing inside but pretty even without! Here it is:

But even more proud, actually ecstatic with this:

I came back from work today, opened the door checked out the post and guess what was inside?! My 6 years' worth-of-waiting - QTS! Wow! I'll make a confession: I screamed and jumped with joy when I saw it! Such a masive achievement! Hope fully will be put to a good use in the future as that makes me a fully qualified teacher here! Once a T, always a T! Can't get away from it, that voice inside tells me that! :)

Passionate about my growing craft plans

So happy I have a plan for spring! I am thinking bigger: the words are EXHIBIT - JOURNAL JOURNEY - 7TH MARCH! i SHALL BE BOOKING A STALL to display my journals at a craft event next spring! I'm soooooo excited! My stall look ideas are growing every day! And my journal making inspiration likewise! I'm so much more productive all of a sudden!

Here's my first few items I made for this event:

October highlights

Swift snow, concert countdown and quince poaching

Yes, I did say October snow, it happened while we were on holiday in Romania. The need for adventure was stronger than the weather forecast message and here we were, turning around before even getting to Sinaia resort, as the skies opened, sieving white cold 'flour' and laying a carpet ahead of us. So going straight back was not an option. Surreal, but the cold was blooming real!

Back from holiday, chance made it that I found out I can book us 2 tickets to the Chris Rea concert at Nottingham which will happen next year on 15th March!
Sooo looking forward to that!

And if that wasn't geeky enough, the domestic goddess in me created a French gourmet art with 6 quinces bought for us by my parents and 'smuggled in' lol (need I mention there's nowhere to find quinces here in England), I poached them and decorated them with rosemary to look pretty in the jars! Picture will follow!!!

Such A GRAND day!

Yes, it's been absolutely surreal our day at the Grand Designs Live Show!

Me and Paul shook hands with Kevin McLoud THE Grand Designs star!

And got an autograph with my name on!!!!!

And as if that wasn't enough I've got a picture as well! Not 1 but two pictures!

How smug and star struck do I look?

So inspiring the whole event!

Creative freedom

My latest art pieces speak for themselves in that they show I've allowed myself more designing freedom and trusted my creative voice more than before and that just overjoys me! Ta daa!:

The big day of the bike virgin! :))

After possibly four years of procrastination, I finally christened my very own bike, I cycled it yesterday for the very first time (like a bike virgin - as Paul said it! lol )
A few years ago, we went to Rutland Water, hired two bikes and it was the first time for me since childhood, when I got back on a bicycle.
Then, we knew what we were getting each other for that Christmas, and we did! Only that unlike Paul, who finds cycling like walking (piece of pudding), I wanted a bike to re-discover cycling and become a confident bike-rider.
And NOW, four! years later, I am using my 4-year old brand new bike (does that make any sense?) for the first time!!!!
I've finally blessed it and it was a blessing for me as I loved it!! (not talking about the monkey bum aches I currently have, it's part of the fun). I do have a picture to prove my achievement! I was bike-brave yesterday!
It may sound hilarious to others, but it was an ACHIEVEMENT to me and a big progress! And now that it's my new passtime I'm very keen to do it again! I did what the old saying tells: Do something that scares you every day!
So if anyone out there in my town sees a plum jacket-dressed bike-freak that can't steer and and looks part of a comedy show, that's me!
Keep away and pretend you didn't see me! And certainly don't drive past me!

New musings

Guess what I found? I have been rooting for more fabric art quilting pages for a while now and here is one of the ones I'm still hoping to find as musings! It's beauuuutiful! My inspiration already feels a bit refreshed!

And there's more here.

A week of laugh / the power of words

I still have aching jaws after a 5 days' visit of our Romanian friends Mihaela, Adi and Ancuta whom we laughed with continuously, while bringing back shared funny times from many of ours and our parents' days out spent together and giggling at the silliest of things! Such a cool time we had with them!
Best things in life are indeed f r e e, and a good l a u g h is one of them!

Really love the three metal decor words on my mantle piece which say Live Laugh Love

they remind me of the power that words have, the same way as the ones in the hallway say HOME in such a cosy, happy looking pose! Captured here:

SO proud of my idea of putting up these words! They make our house talk for itself and equally tell a story about us! The same way as everything else in our home is a riddle about us: the Casa cu veverite (Squirrel house) plaque on the front, the Scottish guest bedroom, Paul's train study, my art room, the back garden with a pending Lilliput look, the rustic chalet living-room, the palm tree front. All of these whisper about who we are, what we love, and what our dreams are! And I love that!

Savouring the sea dipping

What a short but 'feel good' break! We headed down to Bournemouth on Friday and spent all morning measuring the beach with our shell-tickled feet (sand-tickled in Paul's case lol) and the afternoon was sea-dipping time for me! Wow!,jumping over the waves was just like when I was little! That simple joy of playing with the waves brought a pleasant feeling of being in connection with the sea in such an entertaining way! Loved it! It's an unexplainable feeling of freedom and such a relaxing passtime, it's like blending with nautical nature! The simple fun of leaping water loops!.. so pleased to have that joy captured on camera!

Textile tweeties

I'm a big fan of thise little cuties I created yesterday evening.

It's curious how they almost come to life once sewn, the texture is pleasure to the fingers and they are so unexpectedly expressive! I can't wait to find them a nesting album! To start with, I wasn't sure if they were going to be wow or not, but as I went on sewing, I became more confident in the newly created shapes.

Next I will be experimenting with flower shapes, maybe owl ones as well!?...

Random readings

I trully adored these lines found during one of my random Romanian readings:

Why do I want to stay a teacher?...because... as a teacher, you have the chance of being part, in a subtle but important way, to the ''transformations of the world“. The constant effort of ''coming out of yourself'' keeps you fresh and in close contact with yourself. Relating with the young transfers enthusiasm and joy of living. You can become a role model, which would mean lots to anybody. You can help form characters. Finally, the inconvenience of being under the 'magnifying glass' of very straightforward and critical youth can give the priviledge of being careful at what you are, in order to moderate what they will become. You feel a great responsibility, which continually transforms you. How many other jobs can offer this today, when mankind, in the rush for having and doing, has become more shallow? (Elena Pascali)

Would I be going back to teaching? Who knows? Maybe.

Back from Heidi Heaven, as a better me

It's been ages since I last blogged, but hey, it's not about when, it's about how, now it's about how I feel NOW, it's about a new day when I can see things better after a few weeks of seeing clouds ahead of me, following a situation i had to confront at work. Today I started my morning looking at Donna Downey's day story and made me realise that it's not that difficult to be happy if you find creative, positive ways of dealing with life's little odd moments. We can't avoid such moments but what we can do is change them into better if we can or accept them if we can't - it's simply that!

Yesterday was my dear husband's 40th birthday, it felt wrong to go to work and not spend together at least part of such a special day, so I popped in at lunchtime, with a nice hot snack and a cake and realised that it was the best thing I could have done! We were soon four (as Andy and Marianne were visiting) celebrating and singing Happy Birthday in such a cute unexpected way! It felt lovely! I'm sure Paul thought that!

Heidiland (Switzerland) is one of those places where you think you transposed yourself when your mum reads you a bedtime story! It was like going back into my childhood days! The mountains, the wood clad chalets, the meadow flower scents, the dangling of cow bells, the alpine streams and waterfalls, the people with rosy happy cheeks! The nearly 8hour ride on the Glacier Express was simply a JOYRIDE where we both kept pointing and felt like kids on the merry-go-rounds! We took 662 photos just with the SLR, over 1hour film, and more pics on the small camera, but most of all the ride is still in our happy little hearts as a outstandingly scenic piece of 'jewellery' which you just want to 'wear' long after coming back. Taking out the costs of travelling and other costs, it once again confirms to me that the really good things in life are free, looking at the spectacular alpine pictures of the Swiss nature made us happy. It was just so purely superbe and happy -making!

Craftland is the other name I would call Switzerland! Hats, watches, cheese, musical boxes, clocks, woodwork, chocolate, all minute things, you name it, all are cratfs that the Swiss are worth praising for! It was so inspiring to see that someone had the passion and patience to create a music box the size of a thimble and make it play music as well! Everything is designed to make people happy! And inspired! So we filled our luggage on the way back not just with souvenirs and gifts but also packed with inspiration and creativity fuel! Paul's now back to shaping up the garden railway, and I'm back to my writing and crafting new albums!

So that you HeidiHeaven for giving us some of your goodness!

My gusto for Guiness cake and learning photography

I'm excited to have found this inspiring page http://www.karenrussell.typepad.com/. Makes me think is not that impossible to become a good photographer when you have the passion for it and nothing else. Especially now that I've got my brand new toy to learn to get the best out of, this is quite encouraging news. I am getting better at using my new DSLR now i've wattched DVD tutorial that came with it, more confident shall we say!..
As for how gulity but delighted I feel to have tried a yummy Guiness and chocolate cake while at work today, well..., I'm short for words! Nigella's guiness cake has hot even more fans now!One of them definitely being me!YUMMYYYY!

Creating connects! Turning 30 is fantastic!

I simply can't believe it's been almost 2 months since I last blogged! So many nice things happened and so many people I've seen, that one post will not be enough to mention them all! And most important!..I've turned 30! Wow!

My creative side has been busy playing with fabric and canvas and creating all these cuties that I'm going to use as my creative journals documenting moments that matter! I've also played with canvas and made a quiltlet that I'm very proud of. Here it is. I'm happy that I've allowed myself to be so creative lately. Ok, I admit, I was inspired by this lovely lady but I have adapted the ideas filtering them through my own artistic sieve.

The reason I say that CREATING CONNECTS is because very recently I've digitally concoted my invites for my Romanian birthday party with so much

artistic flame and enjoyment that I strongly believe made a difference for my guests to receive them. The invites were the real soul of my party! I say that because my crafted invites were mentioned many times by my family and friends! This made me realise that injecting creativity into my life is just the thing to do more often! I took so much joy in seeing people made happy by a nicely decorated piece of card!

Another inspiring person in my life since married life, along with my very accurately creative hubby is my 'adoptive mother' as I like to call her who made me yet another exquisitely beautiful birthday cake into which she put so much artistic fuel and love and made me such a flattering surprise on my birthday warm-up house party, bringing this pure piece of art which I felt really bad cutting and eating.

I'm so glad I found my artistic identity just as I turned 30! It feels fantastic!

Fruit of the Fabric

It's been a fabric-y week for me and hurray! I've done this! - admittedly not quite finalised inside, but the finishing touches will follow this week, hopefully with lots of 'pretty junk' ideas to add to it! And this is just the beginning of my fabric frenzy as I've just managed to order here some amazing textile bouquets that I'm so excited to start snip snip-ing, sewing machine here I come again!

Online wander Wednesday

Usually the internet is an easy way to lose yourself in random pages but today for me is a lucky internet day as I stopped and read these findings which will be very useful to come back to for feeding my inspiration. Also I came across an older inspiring online friend, 7gypsies, who now have their own blog, well,, this will definitely be added to my readings for future come backs. It's amazingly addicitve to see their crafty-licious ideas.
P l e a s e d p l e a s e d p l e a s e d!!!

New year, new inspiration

It feels like a rather long time since I last jotted on my page - now the new year is here, I am making my own resolutions - using my creativity more and making the most of inspiring moments - being two of them.
Christmas 2008 has been a white wonderland place that I visited and is, as ever, close to my heart, but I brought back with me, in a little camera, all the moments that matter and this is how they look. It's interesting how that snow made me feel so warm -hearted, as cold as it can be!
Back to my art studio, I've been driven by the smells of Christmas cooking in mama's kitchen to create my very own Family Recipe box where I'm going to put all those treasured hand-written recipes that I kept collecting over time but unfairly piling them between the leaves of a Romanian cooking magazine. Now they finally have a shelter and hopefully will entice me to revisit and reuse them more often. And this is how I got to confess my other resolution for 2009, cooking more and enjoying cooking more! I'm hoping my inspiration will reach new dimensions and fill me with the simple joy of being creative in more ways than one!