Intention

During web-hopping this afternoon, I went from "The Hive" European blog Conference to Erin Loechner's blog www.designformankind.com and through her blog connected with Xochi Solis...

“I am continuously inspired by my surroundings and make a concentrated effort to let the present moment resonate with me,” Xochi writes. “I am very aware that every single detail that floods my senses from sunup to sundown has importance and how I perceive this world around us is mine alone. Bad or good, sunny or stormy, this world is pretty marvelous and I try to take my observations and make something unique and true for me.” Xochi Solis

According to her, finding what you love is the easy part... "But infusing your life with that passion - amidst deadlines and voicemails and oven timers - is where things get tricky" ... this is where 'intention' comes to play...

"Intention", a word for me to think about...

Sketching

For years now I love looking at sketches! I love the way people record their lives by sketching their surroundings. I love lines and random color...

A long time ago Sabrina Ward Harrison's first book, "Spilling Open" began a stir in my creative juice :)





Danny Gregory also got my attention...


Laurelines blog is also a place where I can linger with lots of pleasure :)



With all this inspiration I just had to try it too :) So a few weeks ago I did it! Eventually!! My very first drawing...

A paper bow

My favourite South African magazine Ideas magazine brought out a special edition called, "Wedding Ideas". Which turned out to be filled with ideas not exclusively bound to a wedding. The pretty 'origami' bow caught my eye, as well as a paper cone. I combined the two - filled the cone with whisper-chocolates - and gave it as a thank you after having dinner at a friend's house.






The second one I did the same and then added a gift voucher to the cone for a friends birthday...



Then I made a third bow - this time as decoration for my mums' mothersday gift voucher :)



The bow can be made out of a 15x15cm paper and ends up to be quite a decent size!
For a bow origami pattern just google it! I did it for extra notes on the folding.

The story of making bags - part 4

As Hugo got used to his industrial sewing machine the time came that he felt ready to test it on leather! As a result I got a leather messanger bag! Which I love!









The idea is for me to use it when going to work ... which is working wonderfully :)
Yet as we started planning a trip to Amsterdam and Barcelona at the beginning of this year - the bag turned out to possibly being a perfect travel companion ;)

.... then on Friday Hugo decided we will need a "museum bag" for our travels in June - some museums only allow a A4 size bag with you into the museum... the rest to be left in a locker.

The Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh museum have free WiFi and we would love to 'share' our experiences there ... thus the idea of a museum bag into which an iPad, cellphone, sketchbook and travel watercolorset could fit :)

The story of making bags - part 3

Friends of us started the Urban Sketchers Cape Town on facebook and I tested out my new sketch bag on one of their monthly outings...



We went to Simonstown station and had a 3 hour overlay of an old steam train to sketch...






Hugo got to it...



Lovely outing! My very first doing sketching outdoors - which I enjoyed so much!!
Notice that there is no sketch of mine posted ;) Oooo the inner critic got his way in convincing me it is not good enough :)
Despite that I still loved every moment!!...

The story of making bags - part 2

With the industrial sewing machine Hugo started of by making canvas bags - I got the initial one and decided to use it for when we go outdoor sketching...









The bag is also ideal for carring your iPad ;)

It seemed very popular as he sold two right away! This is so cool! ... as the sewing machine needed down payment! ;)

The story of making bags - part 1

Hugo - my cool husband :) - got out all his old leather work tools in the beginning of this year and made himself a leather messanger bag - by hand!










He got such a lot of positive feedback from family and friends - which inspired him to buy a walking foot industrial sewing machine!
Now he could make bags ect. on commission :)

Enjoying Autumn

A friend and I met at our local yarn shop for a chat. While she knitted away at a jersey for her husband, I crocheted a jar cosy and started on a scarf with wool I got as a thoughtful present.

A Jar cosy for little Emma

I made a pink jar cosy for baby Emma the other day...

Error 403

A while ago I got a phone that can actually take a pretty decent picture.... and it does not freeze when I post it on facebook.
This was so cool because it saved me a lot of time not having to download pic's from my camera to my PC and then posting.

With this excitement I also downloaded the blogger app. But everytime I attempted to post a picture to my blog - error 403 appeared! So frustrating!!

Thanks to a husband who has as one of his many creative skills: computer savvy... eventually today cracked this error!
Just to add that blogger did not make it at all easy to fix this!!
Was it not for a lot of computer skills on Hugo's part - I would still be totally clueless on fixing this myself!

Now I can begin sharing again all of the creativety that my heart dreams about! Yippee!!