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!