Showing posts with label mindfulness. Show all posts

Sharing Internet style

Back in Winter clothing
June 2nd

June!  Ha! Here in the south of the UK the weather gods are playing with us like a cat with a mouse. One minute we think we have summer on our door step, the mouse is free to run and the next the weather turns almost autumnal and the mouse is caught between the paws of the cat.  Can you tell I'm fed up?  Luckily for me I am not that organised and my winter attire is still strewn across the unkempt floor of my bedroom and thus far in June I have re worn thick black tights and knee length boots, just as I would on a damp November day. Not forgetting last night I lit the fire and candles to bring some warmth and light back into the house.  June you say?  No you must be joking...

June 1st and the fire and candles are lit

Colouring in adult style
This week I wanted to share with you Internet goodness.  There is so much wonderful talent out there to be had but sometimes between getting side-tracked by other internet rubbish it can be hard to find or difficult to find the time.  Let me help you...

For sometime now I have followed Staci's blog Very Pink, where she shares her knitting expertise.  Her video tutorials are incredibly informative and helpful and her blog is a great source of help to me.  Yesterday she posted something very different and maybe even of interest to the non knitter.  Next week Staci will share her stranded knitting cowl pattern and in preparation for that has produced a knitted colouring in sheet.  It's half term in our household and with this foul weather I printed it off immediately and sat down for a quite few minutes and coloured away to my hearts content.  Mindfulness courses who needs that when you can colour in.  I feel much calmer and happier, give it a go...  Knitted colouring



Paula's colouring in of knitting


Staci mentions the clever lady, Paula Pertile, who produced her colouring in sheet for her and I admit to often not clicking on links others share a little ironic as that is what I am asking you all to do today and so many links too! but felt intrigued to see what else was to be had. For those of you, like me, who might not click on the link the photograph is a screen shot of some of her clever knitted drawings ready to be coloured in.  Drawings of Knitting







Many of you know that my favourite social media these days is IG and there is a new hashtag in town called #oneperfecthing  This is the brain child of Lizzie from the blog Marmalade Pie.  It's funny this blogging world we live in, often we look at other's lives and think they live the ideal and all is perfect.  What we, or should I say, I, need to remember is that we only show that which we are comfortable with.  Often it is just the rosy aspects of life.  No ones life is perfect and we all lead at times a bumpy path.  So why then do I like the thought of Lizzie's one perfect thing?  As a blogger I have defiantly become more aware of my surroundings and have found an outlet for my crafting but it has made me stop and look just that little bit more at my surroundings.  I think I 'noticed' before but maybe did not actually stop to look and soak it in.  My husband says I no longer live in the moment as I photograph so much and share on social media but I think he is wrong, I think the opposite; that I actually am aware and live more and feel better for it. So what is this #oneperfect thing?  Lizzie writes:
My perfect moment.  Away for the week end last week whilst all
were still asleep I popped into the garden and read and
drank a cup of tea all alone in the morning sunshine, sheer bliss.

Perfection often feels out of reach. But however imperfect you’re finding life, you can make an effort to find #OnePerfectThing. Something which makes you pause, smile and feel thankful.  It’s all about capturing a little moment of your day – a small piece of perfection. This might be a cup of tea in the sunshine or a new pair of shoes. It’s all about taking the time to step back and appreciate the little things.



You can read more about it here and see a sample of photos that have made it to the hashtag even if you are not on IG, some lovely photos to sum up simple perfection that can be found in every day life.  One perfect thing


We have entered into birthday frenzy here in our household with so many on the horizon.  That sometimes it feels a little overwhelming.  My dear friend turned 50 last week and what to get?  Nothing seemed right until I stumbled upon personalised bottle labels [Bottle labels] and I had a light bulb moment.  I think this could be particularly good for men in your lives of for those who are difficult to buy for .  So I made up 9 Prosecco bottle labels, they arrived within a couple of days, looked extremely professional, but I forgot to take a photograph of them.  I then purchased same number of Prosecco bottles but of different varieties, it meant I had to go to three different shops.  Scrubbing the original labels off the bottles was the tedious and time consuming part but it was worthwhile before placing my personalised labels onto each bottle.  Although I bought 9 labels I used 6 different quotes on them and Rosie's name was on each label, some with just her first name and others with her last name too, juts to mix it up a bit.  The quotes I used were:

Whoever said women preferred diamonds never drank Prosecco
 
Put the Prosecco in the fridge for special occasions, like a Wednesday
 
Is the glass half empty or half full?  There is clearly always room for more Prosecco
 
Let's drink and talk sh*t together
 
Prosecco is the answer but what was the question?
 
What though youth gave looks and roses, ages still leaves us friends and wine

Want to see..

9 different bottles of Prosecco

Close up of the personalised bottle labels

Finally the fifth on line share today comes from Gunnvor from the blog Wings of Whimsy.  She is a paper crafter extraordinaire and has an abundance of vintage material from sewing labels, sheet music, wall paper to birdhouses, calendars and Christmas paraphernalia as a small example.   Her latest 'gifts' to subscribers have been a wonderfully vintage wallpaper bunting to the below cake box.  Not having any plain white card in the house but wanting to make this straight away, I printed off onto white paper and stuck it to the only card I could find, not ideal as it was red!  But none the less cake box I wanted to make in time for birthday parties galore, a sweet take home cake box.

Cake box  Quick to print off easy to score on the fold lines within the pattern itself, I reckon I made the cake box in under 10 minutes flat.  Feeling quite smug and pleased with myself...


Cut out 2D net of the cake box




Having glued the paper to the card, you can miss
this step if you print straight onto card,
I was able to begin folding

Et voila a small cake box, just a shame I used red card...



Hoping you have enjoyed the eclectic mix of the five things I have shared with you and some of it may be of interest, do let me know and if you have any good internet shares that you think I might like to go and look at, please do shout out and let me know, it's a HUGE world out there.

Joining in with  Amy sharing my 5 with you. Do pop and see what others are sharing
♥  Hoping the weather is better with you than it is here  ♥



PS I shared photos of bonny Scotland this week, you may be interested...
 












Inspiration, inspiration, inspiration

January 14th 

They say location, location, location but I say inspiration, inspiration, inspiration.  Today I have sourced five inspiring finds that I share with you in hope that it sets off a spark and inspires...


Wherever we look these days, certainly in the UK there is talk of mindfulness and the benefits of living in the moment.  Something that is becoming increasingly hard in this fast paced world we live in and we should take a little more down time and refresh our brain.  Hence this year's big seller at Christmas were colouring books for adults.  Did you get one?  Did you buy any as gifts?  The talented duo of Kay and Ann over at Mason Dixon Knitting came up with the genius idea of creating a book for knitters. Hit the link and have a look.

Colouring for knitters

In case you are interested here are a few free sheets to down load for mindfulness colouring though not specially for knitters or crafters... Mindful colouring


Instagram as I have mentioned many times is a source full of inspiration, it's fabulous and someone I have been following for a while is Sam over at Sam She has an innocent charm to her drawing and draws mostly on beach stones.  Often making a collection and putting them together in little bags as story prompts.  A wonderful gift and idea for little ones.  Just take a look.  It wouldn't be difficult to create this for yourself and a small person in your life, or even just to sit on your own desk, no, no, no, I wouldn't do that, would I?
 

Sam is now branching into producing colouring sheets




Perfect blend of nature and man made




Sam is known for making story stones.  A set of stones to
create your own stories with, how great an idea is this




There are stones for all occasions, look a Christmas set...



Continuing the theme of colouring and beaches look what Barbara has been up to...
 
Using a sharpie pen and shells
 
Clever use of a single colour, Sharpie pen and shells she collected from the beach. She has somehow created almost a Ming dynasty of shells.  This wonderful picture was shared on the Facebook page Darn Good Yarn Lots of inspiring things happen over on that page too.
 
 
And finally, although I mention them a lot, they are Norwegian after all, I need to remind you about Arne & Carlos.  My first post about them can be found here and a perfect post for Spring makes can be found here These knitters extraordinaire have now begun YouTube videos showing various makes, patterns and stitches.  Their latest share was the 96 stitch hat, its worth a look... video and pattern

Wearing his 96 stitch hat

As an odd little snippet, I thought I would share with you the latest trailer form Midsomer murders, this episode, as many others before is filmed in and around our market town and surrounding villages.  Can't wait to see the episode later this month, especially as we were in town the day of the bike race and saw the filming...   Midsomer Murders Trailer

Joining in with Amy  today sharing five inspiring things with you. 
Pop over and see what everyone else is sharing.

  Hoping this post fills you with inspiration,
what are you crafting these days, can you inspire me back?  

Thank you for all your comments, I read every one and always always reply back. 
I love the communication that blogging brings...