thankfulness thursdays...

OK so I'm a little geeky!  I admit it, I love alliteration!  Thankfulness thursdays and tuesday treasures...I just can't help myself...

Anyhoo, on my facebook page which is here I have started doing the #100happydays which is where for 100 days you post what made you happy that day or something along those lines and you make sure you include the hashtag in your post.  Then if you look up the #100happydays you will see daily posts from people from around the world who are also doing it, all at different stages in their 100 day journey and all completely different types of things.  I just love that it is a celebration of the happy in our worlds, taking the time to be thankful and appreciate the many blessings we all have.

So I thought every Thursday on here I will do a wee summary of my week of happiness.  I truly believe when you take the time to be thankful it makes your day that much brighter and the hard and ugly don't seem quite so big and consuming.  Now just to be clear even though I believe and know this to be true doesn't mean I remember to do it everyday!  Somedays thankful seems too hard and that's just the way life goes and what the journey is for.

My thankfulness happiness moments for the week...

{Day 1}  I just love mugs - this is my favourite little collection of mugs at home at the moment - my little cups of sunshine and happiness - who can be sad when drinking from these?!


{Day 2}  Messages of love left at my work desk by my children when they have visited - feeling loved! 

{Day 3}  Homemade tomato sauce is delicious and it makes it all worth while when only one lonely bottle sits left on the shelf only 3 weeks after making 6 bottles.


{Day 4}  Beautiful weather, lunch out with a friend and all on a Friday and then home to adventures to be had with this collection of beautiful!


{Day 5}  Creative mess is bliss!!


{Day 6}  Being super happy with the end result after spending time on a project - worth it!


{Day 7}  Winter on it's way and looking forward to all the things that it brings - getting my knit on with some finger less gloves and a lace scarf.  Learnt to use circular needles when making the gloves and looking forward to making a cable hat with them too before it gets too cold.


{Day 8}  Free cute pattern at Sew Mama Sew by clicking here - another thing to add to the list of things to make.  Love finding cute things to make and even more when kind hearted people provide free patterns for all to use - kindness!



{Day 9}  Kids art stitched as a keepsake - love it! Finally finished this picture from my nieces drawing and will be sending to my Dad for his wall of memories.


So it's a little bit more of a week the first time round but just had to catch you up.

Feel free to follow me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/thereddeliciousjourney and hope you are enjoying your week so far.

Take care and till then

tuesday treasures...

ooooo so many treasures out there to share with you....so many things I just love, that I want to buy and that inspire me!  So many creative people out there it blows my mind.

I'm going to stay close to home today and tell you about my two super talented sisters - Jody Percy and Emma Gregory.

Jody is a photographer and in my personal opinion she is freakin' legendary but it doesn't stop there - she's amazing at creating and making many of her props and costumes too.  She'll scour the op shops looking for treasures then comes home and works them into pieces of art.  I think she's amazingly talented and creative and she inspires me to always push the boundaries and try new things.  She is self-taught and is so passionate and dedicated to her art and I admire her greatly.  You can follow her on facebook here and below is a wee snippet of some of her work...

Emma is an artist and illustrator and in my personal opinion freakin' awesome!  Not only is she amazing at art works like shown below but even her doodles are amazing.  My kids get the best birthday cards from their Aunty Emma, they are pieces of art in themselves and kept every year.  She also runs art classes for preschoolers helping them to discover the creative inside which I really admire.  She is passionate about artistic expression and inspires me to find the freedom in my own style.  You can follow her on facebook here  and below is a wee snippet of some of her work...

And not only are they both artistic and talented in their own rights but they are both funny, kind, caring, generous, thoughtful and fun to hang out with and I am so thankful to call them sisters!

Hope this helped to bring some magical inspiration to an otherwise ordinary Tuesday.

Take care and till then

hoops of fun

All week long I have had this idea brewing in my mind and I have been looking forward to this weekend when I knew I would have time to turn it into reality.  So yesterday a few hours were spent in my room running with those ideas and this is what it looks like in the process.  Cupboards are open with contents normally well hidden spewing out, draws are rummaged through and supplies are strewn over my bed as I decide which fabrics are going to be used and how I will use them - it is messy and chaotic but soooo much fun!!

I love when an idea is forming in my mind...how do I describe it...it's like my mind is preoccupied with this process, I still function and do my normal everyday life but every spare moment of time is spent thinking about what I want to do an how I am going to do it.  It's not usually a clear cut picture that I know straight away what I want at the end but rather a collection of colours, images, ideas and thoughts all fighting for attention.  It's a free flowing, living, breathing creative process and I love every bit of it!  For me it is almost intoxicating, it is something that is so part of who I am that it is as natural as breathing.

This doesn't mean I always have the energy for the actual doing of the project, many nights when I am tired from work and life I will spend my couple of hours before bed thinking and mulling over ideas.  Sometimes that is looking at pinterest or blogs and sometimes that is simply watching the good old telly with pen and paper at  the ready in case I think of something.  If I'm not feeling the creative vibe flowing then I don't force it, I have learnt over the years that when you force it, it never turns out, you don't enjoy it and it's just plain painful.  For me I have learnt that I just have to go with the flow of it, embracing the intense creative journey when I feel it and letting it rest when I don't.

So after some fun spent embracing the process yesterday here are my finished products...the teapot one isn't in a hoop because I ran out of them but rest assured it is on my to do list tomorrow to pick up some on the way home!  The ideas for these little pieces of hoop art are endless...

 

  Who doesn't love little foxes?

I actually tried this with full sunglasses on too which also looked good.

I think teapots are just so cute and can't wait to frame this little one up in a hoop!

This 'smile' idea I have been wanting to use on a cushion for our lounge and will do soon but for now I thought I would try it in a hoop and pretty pleased with it.

I just love mugs so thought it fitting and the 'love' one I have actually painted onto a little white teacup I own and use it for my jewelry for now so thought I would try it in a hoop.

Anyway I hope you have had a lovely weekend whatever your journey.

Take care and till then

tuesday treasures...

Tuesdays...they are kind of a nothing day...not the start of the week and not the end...they are the day of the week that needs a little magic.  So what better way to bring some sparkle to the day than to share with you creative treasures I find along my journey - every Tuesday I will try to bring some sparkle to your day.

While looking at different blogs last night and following the worm holes of connections inside I discovered madi bleu and fell in love!  Madi bleu has a facebook page here and a website here - I promise, you won't be disappointed by her quirky, delightful and colourful creations - feeling inspired!

Can't wait to buy my very own creation - this is one of my favourites so far...

Take care and till then

Three for three

Just last month I finally finished the youngest daughter's quilt! I get distracted while doing projects by my many other projects so I always end up with about 10 things on the go.  To finish this in a two year period is a success for me.  Jade is so happy to finally have a quilt like her big sisters and hearing her excitement makes all the hours of stitching so worth it.  Such fun!

Take care and till then,

Success..what are we chasing??

Success...it's a word we have been battered with ad nauseam in our current day culture. There are books and courses, teachings and seminars and a constant barrage of steps, tips and information all tied up in the subject of success and how to be successful...because left to our own devices we would never be??!

Wrapped up in that one little word is money, career progression, copious amounts of material possessions, status, admiration and for those that don't ever 'make it'...failure!  One little word that through our own human failings has become so damaging.

I am by no means immune to this way of thinking and have on many occasions found myself tied up in knots chasing the tail of this mysterious creature that will make all the hard work worthwhile.  But one of the many problems with our current day definition of success is that it has an insatiable appetite that is never fully satisfied.  We work and work, accumulate and accumulate but there is always more money to be made, more career progression to chase, higher rungs on the ladder to be climbed, more possessions to buy and one can never really have too much admiration can they??

Sometimes we are so busy measuring our 'successes' with the ruler of materialism that we miss the deeply soul satisfying success that is our life everyday.  And by we I am definitely including me!  I have had a couple of those weeks where expectations of others have dominated my thoughts and I stopped being true to myself in an effort to be 'successful'.  I was grumpy, angry even, frustrated, resentful of my circumstances and feeling down.  I was waking up with headaches and having trouble sleeping as I was constantly worrying about how I was going to be this driven career woman conquering the world when my heart was betraying me at every step.  In my soul I don't want this path and I had stopped listening.  There was a disconnect which led to being very unhappy and out of sync with who I am.  So this weekend I began to ponder what 'success' really is and thought I would share my thoughts.

We don't own a home, we don't have oodles of money, in fact we still live pay to pay, we have three daughters, two of which are teenagers, we don't have flash cars and for the most part I buy mine and my daughters clothes second hand and could not just decide to go clothes shopping whenever I like. We both finished our degrees late (after we had the children) and started our 'careers' late.  So by the ruler of modern day success we are not doing terribly well and I will admit that this has got me down a great deal of times.

After much pondering I have come to the conclusion that we were never meant to be using a universal measure of success for every person.  We all have our very own individual purposes, strengths, weaknesses and journeys and therefore our own individual success rulers.

Would not a more true and real definition of success be to be true to oneself no matter how hard that is at times, even if it goes against what others think, and learning to embrace and hold onto happiness and peace of soul and mind everyday?  In fact should we not guard that peace and happiness if we find it? With this in mind wouldn't we all then need to find out what it is that makes us happy as individuals?

Well for me craft and creating makes me happy, hanging out and enjoying the company of my husband and girls makes me happy, having our home be a safe place for us all to be who we are makes me happy, kindness ruling over the need to be right makes me happy, dreaming and having hope makes me happy and seeing the beauty in the small things makes me happy.  None of those things are at all to do with careers, money or possessions.  So how is chasing careers, money or possessions ever going to bring me true happiness and feelings of success? It's not!

'Success' is something you can achieve everyday not a goal you are chasing for the whole of your life.  Being you and being the best you can be today is something worth celebrating at each step.

Success to me is...

• creating
• being happy and peaceful in the depths of my soul
• being present 
• choosing kindness over being right when being right is not important
• living within our means
• providing for all our children's needs and many of their wants
• giving my best at my place of employment 
• raising our girls to be honest, kind, considerate and responsible people who will contribute their own value to this world
• still enjoying my husbands company after 15 years - long may that last!
• being able to laugh and enjoy each other's company in amongst the chaos

And it is all of these things as well as the smaller everyday moments of success that I need to remember to hold onto when I begin to feel the pressures of this world creeping in and the ruler of materialism knocking at my door.  

One of my successes this week....finally finishing my crochet blanket!!

Take care and till then,