I love DIY projects! I love looking at them, marveling and the creativity of the people who make these gorgeous treasures. I’ve been hoarding DIY ideas ever since I can remember. But this year, I want to actually sally forth and do them myself! Here are a few of my favorites
These darling teacup candles are a lovely way to save an old cup that you don’t want to use anymore.
“If you choose to not deal with an issue, then you give up your right of control over the issue and it will select the path of least resistance.”
― Susan Del Gatto
Choices – we are confronted with them on a daily basis. We can choose how we spend our day, how we react to situations around us, how we spend our free time. The easiest path may be the path of least resistance. Just do what’s easiest and ignore the hard tasks. Sometimes we choose to stay numb, to shut out the thoughts and emotions that we fear, to not examine our life or relationships.
But that’s a powerless attitude – and you are not powerless! You have the power to choose to move forward, to come unstuck.Continue reading
There are so many lovely photographs we take on holidays, a lot of which just end up on our computers. I’ve been wanting to start a series of Travel Postcards – one picture with a short little write-up – since a while now. What better way to kick-start it than with the A to Z challenge?
Those of you who have been here before know that I’m a regular old bookworm. I love reading, I’m passionate about books, and my biggest pet peeve is a badly-edited book. But, what does that have to do with altered books? And, some of you might be wondering, what are altered books anyway?
Well, an altered book is a piece of art created from an existing book that has been transformed by painting, collage, tearing, cutting, or any creative means. Some artists use a theme for their books others don’t bother with themes and some use old books to create art journals. The possibilities are endless.
Watercolors and found poetry
Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, Babur Khan – a hard-lined jihadi who enforces strict Sharia laws and promises to get rid of the Poppy pashas and infidel Americans –is also hunting for the Kohinoor to ensure that India doesn’t get its hands on the document.Continue reading
Have you ever stopped and noticed the amount of negativity we are surrounded by? It’s in the media, movies, television…sometimes it comes from our family and friends…and of course, there’s all the negative self-talk in our heads. It’s crazy and chaotic, it tells you that what you have is not enough, that you need to try just a little harder, work a little bit longer, look better than your best…run, run, run….harder, faster, more!
“The moment the lawyer opened his eyes he knew he’d be tired for the rest of the day. He wasn’t sure whether he’d heard it on the radio or read it in the newspaper, but he’d come across a specialist who described sleep in terms of cycles. Often the reason people are tired, the specialist explained, was not due to insufficient sleep but rather a sudden awakening before the cycle had run its course. The lawyer did not know anything about the cycles – their duration, their starting point, their ending point…”
Starting slowly, languidly, Kashua sketches the plot and characters in broad, bold, sweeping strokes.Continue reading
It’s a new year! And a new year means that it’s time to set new resolutions.
Photo Credit: Brett Jordan via Compfight cc
But we’ve all set resolutions with the best of intentions only to have them fall away by the wayside within a month. And for this reason, a lot of us have simply given up on them. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Resolutions aren’t about setting goals and then beating ourselves up when we can’t achieve them.
We’ve all of us set goals
“Lose 10 kgs in time for the annual beach vacation. Which is in, like, 2 months!”
Or thought about plans that we want to achieve
“Buy an island in Greece”
But how often have we thought about how we want to feel?
Eh?
Yeah. Think about it. Now, quick: How do you want to feel?Continue reading
While the coffee brews…get to know a bit about Naina Madan.
When you land on her blog, you’re greeted by bright, happy colors and a lovely header done with cool fonts and a really cute graphic of a girl on a bike.
Naina shares little slices from her life in a chatty, relatable tone. Even if you don’t generally like reading personal blogs, you’ll be drawn in by her writing style.Continue reading
When Ruth picks up a piece of flotsam that has washed up on the beach near her home in British Columbia, little does she know that her life will be changed. For in that package, which at first glance looked liked a jellyfish, is a Hello Kitty lunchbox with a diary, a bunch of old letters in French, and an old watch.
The diary belongs to 16-year old Nao Yasutani, who wants to write the story of her 104-year-old anarchist, feminist Buddhist grandmother. But she ends up writing about her life, the unimaginable ijime (shame) she faces in school, tidbits of Zen wisdom from her grandmother, and the sheer heartbreaking despair of life – both she and her father want nothing more than to commit suicide.
As Ruth is drawn into Nao’s world, she finds herself spending all of her spare time trying to track Nao down. She desperately scrolls through information online to try and find out if Nao or her family feature in the tsunami casualty list; she runs a number of searches to try and corroborate some of the stories from Nao’s diary; and in her quest, she forgets that a decade has passed between the time that Nao wrote the diary and it washed up on the beach near Ruth’s home.Continue reading
