Inspiration Monday: Just perfect for the teacher (or maybe just me :x)

I’ve started on a teaching job after graduating and going for my Europe trip, leaving crafting aside for a while. It has been on my mind though, but it’s not every day that I feel I can incorporate it into my life.

But today, I found some ideas that would be perfect for the classroom

If the boys in my class fold paper airplanes, as they do with their worksheets (!!!), they can stay back to do this to recycle all that paper I have in the office. A much more fruitful use of their time. Of course they will have to complete the worksheet as well, if they had dared to fold the airplane with that.

http://www.michelemademe.com/2011/02/paper-airplane-garland.html

Almost every day, I bring an apple to work. However, I don’t have anything to hold it in. This would be great…if I learn how to crochet, that is.

http://make-handmade.blogspot.com/2011/10/crochet-tutorialget-to-grips-with.html

And as for all those unwanted books, maybe this Until I find an idea which doesn’t destroy them so much…for now I can’t bear to rip apart hardcover books which I know I will never read.

http://papernstitchblog.com/2011/04/06/new-diy-craft-project-how-to-make-a-book-picture-frame/

 

From the trip

Yes, the pinecones and flowers from my trip have been lying around wondering what to do for more than a month now, until they were called in to decorate a Sharyn Sowell cut-out in an IKEA frame. I love the see-through effects I can create with frames with 2 clear plastic panels.

If you think the dried flower is pretty, just have a look at its friend here growing on the railway track in my photo below. This flower enchanted me while I was taking a walk by myself in a quieter area of Salzburg. Doesn’t it look like a snowflake? The lighting at sunset lends it an even more transcendent, magical quality. This flower made my day

The pinecones I handpicked while walking to Murren from Lauterbrunnen (Switzerland).

The grandparents’ backyard

This is a painting I did while the grandpa was beside me swatting flies.  The grandparents are thinking of selling their house which is too big for the two of them and I’m sad about that because I practically spent most of my childhood weekends playing here and about the house. My cousins and I would climb up the stairs to perform a song, or have a picnic with no food under an umbrella.

This is the garden a year or so back.

Inspiration Monday: Pretty Swiss houses

I’ve just come back from Europe and in this month there, I’ve seen so many beautiful houses which inspire me to make my own house as beautiful. It’s unlikely that I can have the wood carved balconies and windows in the Swiss countryside, or even a lace curtain, but there are some tips I picked up. And I love that the concept is so simple and eco-friendly– just make do with what you have!

Twigs, twine…

The plentiful pine cones you see on your way home…

Or just paper, but you already knew that  

Feeling at home in France

Paris is the last place I expect to like.

For one, it is a city. It is crowded. I was told to expect pickpockets. I don’t think there are mountains and lakes.

But I went and realised the seine is beautiful! And the french people, let’s just say I met some really nice ones.

But most importantly, what made my stay so comfortable and happy in Paris was the hospitality in the home we stayed in. While tucked comfortably underneath the covers on both nights I was there, I happily thought to myself how lucky I was. The house is beautiful– books everywhere (even in the toilet), tall bookshelves with ladders like how it is in Beauty and the Beast, a coffee table made from part of a tree the man of the house picked up, the father who draws and paints and sculpts, the daughter who does the same and has a cool bedside drawer painted with horses, a mother who makes awesome plum jam and sandwiches for us to bring out for lunch, raspberry yoghurt smoothie made by the 15 year old not-a-brat-at-all brother, a 10 year old who waits to have stories read to him every night…

I’m happy just thinking about all these things, I could have enough material to write and sing my own version of ‘My favourite things’. I’m so sorry to leave them, but well I’m going to make an awesome thank you card

Magical places and handmade baskets

 

You know the secret garden, or the place somewhere over the rainbow? I love the idea of having a little beautiful place to be happy and alone with magical nature. And lucky me, I have it! In my grandma’s backyard! OK, technically I’m not alone. But really, my grandparents leave me to myself to take photos and touch their plants I took grandma’s paper modular basket for a little photoshoot today in my favourite place…

 

 

 

Laying the basket for me so I can take a photo, only to have me take a photo of her laying the basket…

 

 

Hem your blessings with…

 

 

As the wisdom of years has taught me, it would do me much good to give thanks than to be resentful. A resentful spirit kills whatever joy there is, makes me think that whatever I have I should have and even deserve more. A grateful heart adds a lightness to my step, takes the attention away from myself and on the goodness of the giver.

2 people may have the same things, but the person with a grateful heart has infinitely more, while the resentful one (which is sometimes, me!) kills whatever joy there is in the blessing so it literally, unravels for him/her.

I know it’s hard. So we have to do it consciously, one step at a time

P.S: I’m going on a trip for a month to Europe! I believe I will come back with a grateful heart for the simple conveniences like water, sofas…not that Europe doesn’t have them, but nothing beats home