Happy Sunday

Today's "Happy Sunday" is a bit different than usual because there isn't much to say about this week except for one word.
VACATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The last seven days went like this:

Monday: ugh, 4 more days of work
Tuesday: ugh, 3 more days of work
Wednesday: ugh, still 2 more days of work
Thursday: ugh, still still 1 more day of work
Friday morning: ugh, 9 more hours of work
Friday evening: MisterT and i both came home at around the same time, and the first thing we screamed was "vacaaaaaaaaatiiiiiiiiiiooooooooooon", followed by a silly "happy dance".

It is actually a stay-cation, but the only thing that matters is that we don't have to go to work, and instead can spend some time together and do whatever we want.
We plan to do nothing, but i want to take the opportunity to do intensive spring cleaning and decluttering and work on new items for my shop. My parents will be here for a week or so, and we are going to Marseille later next month. Moreover I will be able to wear all my colorful socks all the time, which is great because i love my fun socks but unfortunately am not allowed to wear them at work.

Today was the first flea market of the season, and as always i went very early in the morning and later in the afternoon.

We had scrambled eggs and bacon for breakfast, i made a cheesecake, finished two custom orders, took a nap ( or two), enjoyed looking at my new bouquet of gorgeous red tulips, and i wore pink socks :)
Doesn't sound very exciting, but this is what a perfect lazy day looks like to me!

Hope you all have a happy Sunday, too!

Sun

DIY: Washi Tape Plant Markers

From boring plain white to cheerful and bright :)

Before:

I will share more photos of the plant markers "in action" next week when the seeds are planted.

Happy Sunday

My week in review:

1. We had to buy a new mixer. But technically i did not break my no-shopping promise, 1. because MisterT was the one who purchased and paid for it ( he does not want to participate in my no-shopping experience, but that's ok, he rarely buys stuff anyway) and 2. because our old mixer had been broken for several months and we needed a new one badly.

2 . I made chocolate muffins ( aww, so super easy now that i don't have to stir the ingredrients by hand any more )

3. My 1-year employment contract got renewed and turned into a permant contract.

4. Look who came by for a visit on Saturday morning right in front of our living room window:

That cute little guy kept observing MisterT and me for 2-3 minutes while we were sitting at our desks- just enough time to grab my camera and take some halfway decent photos through the window blinds. Then he got either bored or annoyed by the paparazzi and rushed away within a second.


5. I received my tax refund. 537,07€ are not that much, but not bad either, and every cent extra is highly appreciated. Thank you Sweeto for doing my tax return every year!

6. Spring flowers and blossoms are finally beginning to bloom after a very long and cold winter. I did not have the opportunity to take photos yet, but all those beautiful shades of yellow, white, green and pink fill my little heart with joy. It looks wonderful!

7. We had Mister Hang for dinner again, but this time i could not manage to eat the full serving so we ate the leftovers the following day. It does sound gross for sure, but cold duck meat tastes delicious.

DIY: Dr. Seuss Inspired Jewelry Dish

Tulips

DIY: Coin Purse Makeover with Paint and Washi Tape Birds

My inspiration was this super cute wallet by Natural Life:

Photo by www.naturallife.com

Sadly, the shop does not ship internationally, so i had to create my own birdie wallet with paint, washi tape, paper and Mod Podge.

Happy Sunday

My week in review:

1. We celebrated our 2nd anniversary.

2. Yesterday I found a cent and immediately had a feeling that this was a lucky cent, and that i should play the lottery. Well, it was indeed a lucky cent and i won! No odds yet, but it will probably be somewhere between 7 and 10€.  

3. MisterT also won the lottery ( another one): 9€, hooray!

4. The final order of Washi Tape has arrived. One can never have enough rolls, but i think i have a great basic collection for now.

Poor MisterT spent 113 minutes at the customs office to pick up the parcel. I'm definitely done shopping from overseas for a very long time now!


5. My red glitter heart shoe stickers made it into the Etsy Finds newsletter this week,  which brought me 1539 pageviews on tuesday and another 600 on wednesday. My items had been featured in the newsletter before, but this was the first time it led to a sale- three sales, to be exact.

6. Later that week one of my cake toppers appeared in the Etsy Weddings newsletter, which brought me less than 20 page views. Strange but interesting difference.

7. Our travel documents arrived and they came with a little "gift":

My first thought was "Oh no please, we don't need that crap", immediately followed by "Ooooh, that briefcase is going to be an awesome travel craft kit!". Not so much for a short city trip, but for extended vacations, road trips and on the plane. And it's perfect for taking some supplies to my workplace, too.
So, stay tuned for a little makeover :)

DIY: Washi Tape Glasses Case Makeover

Another case, another makeover. This time from plain black to cheerful and fun; with washi tape instead of paint (click here to see my previous glasses case makeover).

Etsy Crush: Draft Snake

The draft snake i bought on Etsy has finally arrived.

Ordering from the US is always nerve-wracking as it takes weeks, sometimes months to arrive, and you never know if the item is still in transit or simply got lost. I'm 100% sure that the term "snail mail" was created by someone like me, who had to deal with the slowness of german customs repeatedly.

Anyway, it's here and i love it! I'm thinking about ordering two more for our large double door next fall.

Prior to that we used an old towel. The perfect low-budget solution, but an optical nightmare! I should be super-ashamed to share this photo, but I publish it anyway.

Check out the seller's shop HomeDecorAmour. She has some lovely draft snakes in pretty patterns, and i'm super happy with the quality.

Wordless Wednesday: Tulip

Happy Anniversary

to us :)

Anniversaries are a bit like New Year's Eve. You have all those high expectations that it has to be the party of the year. But all we wanted today was to spend some time together and have a relaxing day.
So we went feeding the ducks and geese, had coffee and cheesecake, hung up our love lock again ( you can read more about it here, here and here), MisterT got another ice cream spoon, and we had a sub for dinner.

Was it an ultra-exciting day? No.Was it a perfect day? Absolutely!

Pink Paislee Color Crush Challenge

...or why i am very close to throwing my stupid Cameo out of the window!

So, this page was supposed to be a quick and relaxing project after work- i calculated an hour max.

Day 1: No more daylight when i finally came home.
Day 2: I searched my stash for the PP paper i had purchased with my last shopping spree two or three weeks ago. Then, no more daylight. You can't choose paper when you can't see the actual colors, right?
Day 3: Aha, the sun was still shining. Chose the Pink Paislee Nantucket Clam Bake coordinating back as the background paper, grabbed a few rolls of washi tape, and the pack of Silhouette's adhesive cardstock.
Opened my Cameo software to create a loop border. Two hours and much yelling later i was finally ready to insert the cardstock into the machine and cut the pattern. Cut #1 big fail. Cut #2 big fail. Cut #3 big fail.
Why on earth are the default settings completely wrong?? Why the hell does that cardstock tear even on the lowest cutting speed. Why is this the most distrastrous supply ever sold??
Cut #4 came out ok. Then, no more daylight. You can't work on a color challenge properly under artificial light, can you?
Day 4: Hey, why not include some sketches with the new sketch pens? Purchased this pattern from the Silhouette Online Store , and let my machine draw. Draw#1 fail. Looks like the white pen is already dried out. Draw #2 in yellow was ok. I quickly wanted to add the words " beautiful Amaryllis", when the software crashed and the design i had worked on the last hour or so was gone. Damn it, Silhouette! Then, guess what, no more daylight-but this time all i had left to do was sticking and glueing everything to the page.
After 4 days, my one-hour project was finally finished... or so it seemed...


Once everything was done, the paper kept sticking to the cutting mat. My precious expensive paper. Not only did the mat ruin the pretty pattern, but now the page is super curly as well. Aaaargh!

I truly love my Cameo, but there are just too many flaws. The software has glitches, many of the settings are wrong, that adhesive cardstock is a catastrophe and the cutting mat is simply ridiculous. Either waaaayyyyy too sticky, so that it ruins the paper, or not sticky at all and the paper just keeps sliding around during the cutting process, which of course ruins the paper, too. Silhouette, please come up with a better solution real soon!

Anyway, i like how the page turned out. Wonderful colors!

Happy Sunday

My week in review:

1. Beautiful tulips, again.

2. One can never have enough chocolate

3. Best donut in town.

4. Our easter dinner- the first asparagus of the season.

5. Exploring we will go

6. Finally, the first signs of spring.

7. A beautiful sunset.

DIY: Papier-Maché Heart Makeover

In four days, on Monday, we are celebrating our 2nd anniversary. I probably sound like a broken record, but wow, time really flies! Isn't it only a few weeks ago that i wrote about our first anniversary?

To keep up our tradition, i had to create a new number as a photo prop. I wanted to reuse the giant papier-maché heart i made for Valentine's Day, and then throw it away afterwards. It's simply too big to keep it as a permanet decoration.

So when i saw this photo on the Paper Crafter's Corner blog

i immediately knew i had found the perfect inspiration.

Removing the black tape partly damaged the surface- the perfect chippy background for my makeover.
And with some acrylic paint and Mod Podge, the giant heart now looks like this:

I even included our wedding date.

The photos are terrible- it looks so much better in reality.


Fun! Can't wait to use it on Monday.

No more shopping!

Inspired by this blog post by Nancy Ray, i decided to quit shopping for three months. Yes, 3 full months!
I already made this decision last week, at the end of March, and have been following through since then.

And you would not believe how many pretty items i have seen in the last few days. Just yesterday at TK Maxx: a super cute bird sculpture, a scrapbook paper pack, a chevron dinner plate, and an adorable three-tier cake stand printed with birds and flowers.
But i did not buy any of these. Did i want them? Sure. Do i need them? No. Not at all.


There are a few exceptions to my "no-shop" rule though:
- food and beverages ( obviously, we don't want to starve)
- expenses connected with our upcoming trip to Marseille ( again, food and beverages, as well as taxi, postcards and a little souvenir)
- the first flea market of the season at the end of this month. I don't intend to buy anything, but i might. However, 10€ are the maximum i allow myself to spend.
- gifts for birthdays and other special occasions.


Aside from those exceptions, I not only want to stop buying, but also having; in other words hoarding.
I have so many things in abundance, it just isn't necessary to purchase another item just for decoration, or a third set of dinnerware just because i like the pattern ( when i can simply paint the white plates i already own).

This almost desperate "want-to-have" and "keep-it-all" behaviour surely is a result of the year 2011 and the first half of 2012, when money was so extremely tight that we could not afford anything- we barely had enough to buy food.
I kept every tiny snippet of everything. Eventually, this was the only way to be able to create items for my shop, and it surely was a good thing back then.
But now that we are better off, there simply is no need for keeping empty jars, tin cans and bottles, or every single scrap of paper, twine, washi tape or fabric. Now i can afford to buy a new sheet, or spool, or roll or fat quarter ( if necessary (!) to fulfill a custom order).
That does not mean that i am giving up recycling items and reusing them. But i am not hoarding anymore, i am suppressing this "must keep" compulsion. Can i reuse certain items? Sure. Do i actually reuse them? Rarely. And so they just contribute to clutter up our precious little space.

Now, this "keep less but don't buy either" might sound a bit contradicting, but it does indeed make sense. This action is not only about spending less money. It is also about having less in general.

Let me quote Lara Casey: All we need is LESS. Less "me me me" and less "bigger, faster, smarter".

Lara said these words in a different context, yet they still match perfectly. I want to have less. Less stuff, and more space to breathe and live. Finding joy in the small and non-material things.

So, no more hoarding, and even more important, no more shopping just for fun until the end of June.

In addition to that, i finally convinced MisterT that it makes sense to have a joint household fund, to which we both now contribute in equal parts. Until now, my husband has paid most of the groceries, whereas i spent my money on supplies for my shop, other items i thought we might need ( home decoration and such), but most of my money is mainly used towards paying off my debt as fast as possible. I'm excited to see how we are going to manage our finances from now on. I'll keep you updated.

But for now, who wants to join my "no-shop" rule? Anyone brave enough?

Wordless Wednesday: Pastel Spring

Basic White Bread

Ingredients:

330 ml milk
330 g flour
2 tsp baking powder
2-3 tsp salt

Instructions:

- mix the ingredients
- grease a loaf pan or line it with baking paper
- pour the dough into the pan
- bake for 20-30 minutes at 200° C

Let cool and enjoy!