This week was “kindness week”. Inspired by my daily dose of “Kind over matter” I started to attack people with nice acts. It was fun! Basically I didn’t do anything special… brought my colleague a coffee from the machine, opened doors for others, said good morning to old ladies on the street, didn’t pollute mother earth’s air because I biked to the office instead of driving the car. But what I liked the most was smiling. It’s no effort, you can do it anytime and you see instant reaction. And the positive side effect is that it makes you feel good. You should give it a try and do this for one week. It’s AMAZING!

Now the weekend is almost there – what are you up to? I still need some inspiration for some indoor activity as the weather is supposed to suck. Have you seen any great movies lately you can recommend?

Have a happy weekend!

• author: lou
• category: quote of the week
• comments: 6

postcard, originally uploaded by I put deadly nightshade in your cup of tea..

This morning I was up very early and so I went to the (still very empty) office, had a coffee and did some blog reading. It was a nice start of the day and I enjoyed it a lot especially because I found a website that I didn’t know before that is just as nice as the bookcrossing idea.

The site is called Postcrossing and is about sending postcards to a random address you receive by signing up there. I picked two addresses this morning and will be sending one to Romania and one to the US this week. It’s a simple thing to make someone else’s day a bit brighter and imagine the excitement when you open the mailbox and find a postcard from a different country by someone you don’t know. What will he write? What’s on the postcard? So nice.

Actually I’m now thinking… I would LOVE to write YOU a postcard, too. We can exchange addresses and start our own little Postcrossing. Feel free to email me. That’ll be so much fun.

Wishing you a happy day.

P.S. I’ve found the website on Meg’s Paper Jot blog which I find very sweet. Maybe you want to check it out.

• author: lou
• category: blogs and websites
• comments: 3

Hello and happy Monday to everyone. I hope you all had a relaxing weekend and your week starts nicely.

Last week I received this little magazine from the UK that I ordered because it has a feature of Dottie Angel. She wrote a post about it some weeks ago and being a total Dottie fan I ordered this magazine directly the same day and I am NOT disappionted at all.

Cloth Magazine is published in the UK and is all about self-designed and sewn clothes. They offer very good advice on how to sew your own pieces or change your old clothing (and even shoes!) They show sewing techniques, have little projects that are easy to make and in this current issue they have a whole chapter about how to choose the right sewing machine and how to start with it.

Dottie Angel explains very detailed how to appliquè little doilies on vintage fabric in a great tutorial of a shelf cover. Her work is so outstanding and amazes me everytime I search through her website.

If you have a chance to get hold of an issue of Cloth Magazine I highly recommend to grab it. Especially if you’re a beginner and need help or inspiration this is a treasure. If you can’t check out their website which contains a LOT of information as well.

I will place my subscription now as I don’t want to miss one issue!

• author: lou
• category: handmade, inspiration, internet findings, sewing projects
• comments: 4

On Wednesday I stumbled over this picture here on Karyns blog MAKE SOMETHING which was one of the first blogs I’ve ever discovered and started following. Karyn owns a shop in Toronto where you can sew and craft by the hour if you don’t own craft equipment OR you can take a class as well. Pretty great idea if you ask me and makes me wish (a littlebit) I lived in Canada… *sigh* Ok. But back to what I’ve found there.

Karyn has been to the Spring Trunk Show and took a picture of these skull dolls and – THAT actually caught my attention even more – this fabric heart on the left. These treasures are made by a canadian team consisting of Carolyn Self and Alda Escareño who founded “Beside Herself“. They have an Etsy shop where they offer handprinted objects and wearables.

Beside Herself, originally uploaded by the workroom.

As I checked out their website and looked at their work I realized that I’ve never seen anything like this before. Some things are extremely morbid but on the other hand the way how it’s displayed and crafted is so beautiful. I had to look twice at some things and first I found them bizarre but couldn’t stop looking. For me this work is genius. Look at the things they are currently offering in their shop:

And here is a scarf that I’ve seen on their website. I’m totally in love with it and hope and wish they will sell it once again. The crafting is sublime and the print is so delicate… really. I have not enough words for this out of the box work. Haven’t seen anything that touched me like this in a LONG time. These girls are rockstars.

• author: lou
• category: things that make my heart jump
• comments: 6

This week was so great. It started with a very nice email that I received Monday that didn’t just make my day but the whole week. It was just a little THANK YOU note from a blogger friend that I really appreciated. Then – I guess it was due to the law of attraction – the week was followed by happy happenings. The little blog award that I received from Sandy (a la mode) came unexpected and I felt enormously encouraged and passed it on to 7 other talented women and spread the love. After blogging for a while now it still overwhelmes me how happy it makes me to get to know so many different people, that reading other blogs (and writing one of course) makes my creative juices flow and that it has such a deep impact on my life. I really wonder where this will take me (definitely to Richmond, VA – that’s for sure!). I have to thank many people for sharing their thoughts on their own blogs that make me think and act in such a good way.

So beside my quote of the week wallpaper I want to share this picture that I’ve found on the Kind over matter blog. We should all do this! It’s easy and simple. And speaking from my own experiences I can tell that if you change your attitude into a good and positive one you can accomplish everything.

choose happiness by pinkorchid_too (Sandra)

So let’s do EVERYTHING this weekend and have a wonderful one.

• author: lou
• category: quote of the week
• comments: 4