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Holly Wren Spaulding
USA

Etsy Hende
Etsy Littlehende

(word) You (Du, tu . . .)

(place) A community within the Zapatista autonomous zone in Chiapas, Mexico called Morelia. I'm thinking of a particular night, when the stars were in full bloom and I was with a group of international solidarity activists, and one friend in particular, the writer Ramor Ryan. It was a vivid night--the kind that makes for poems, vignettes, stories, cinematic shorts. There was music and dancing--a celebration of the revolution--and there was the beginning of a love affair, friendships, the early days of a film called Muralistas (dir. Muireann de Barra) about solidarity through art between Mayan communities in resistance and urban ex-junkies in Dublin.

(beautiful thing) Lake Michigan in the late spring

(book) Days and Nights of Love and War, by Eduardo Galeano: for it's voice and political perspective, and important account of life in South America during the Dirty Wars of the 1970's. Also Oubliette: a book of poems by my friend Peter Richards, because I was near at hand during the writing of this collection and it marked me in important artistic ways all the way through.

(art piece) This drawing, Untitled 2007, ink on paper, by my friend Jessica Mein . . .
All of her work is incredible so it was hard to choose just one piece. She comes from a family of lace makers in Brazil and her artwork reflects that same attentiveness to detail and fascination with tiny, intricate patterns, and positive and negative space. The way she labors over these drawings reminds me of the kind of obsessive work that is sometimes required to make a poem.

(song) River of Sorrow, by Anthony and the Johnsons with the London Philharmonic

(link) http://www.hende.etsy.com/ & http://www.littlehende.etsy.com/

(one of my creations) The Grass Impossibly, a chapbook of my poems, which came out last year and represents about ten years of work. Since I'm also a Maker artist, I'm going to give you two things . . . the other is this leather 'Huntress' sash which I made for Hende.

'The Great Fires." Here are a few lines from the 'The Forgotten Dialect of the Heart' which are especially moving to me: "What we feel most has / no name but amber, archers, cinnamon, horses and birds." Everyone I share this book with seems to be similarly inspired. It's often the case that if I read something great I am quickly compelled to turn to my own writing. For this reason, I surround myself everyday with good books, beautiful objects and most importantly, I take walks in the fresh air--in the woods, along the lake, beside a stream--and this seems an especially good offering to the muse. I would be a far less capable as a writer if I didn't have that time in motion to think and metabolize the physical world into language.

(food) Watermelon in summer

The first time I heard about Holly was throu' Pia's blog. I first met Holly the writer and was completely emerged by her writing. I bought her book "the grass impossibly" and was smitten. Holly is also a wonderful maker just check her 2 etsy shops filled with beautiful things that will make you feel beautiful.

Holly is giving away one of her beautiful creation, this great pair of leather earrings.
All you have to do today is let us know which item your prefer from her shop .

You comment, you get the chance to win it (one comment only per person). You have until next tuesday to enter this giveaway. Winner will be randomly picked with random.org and will be announced on next wednesday's new post.Good Luck.

Last week winner is : Ana. Félicitations, don't forget to send me an email.

Next week on Creative One's : Shelley Kommers.

Labels: creative one

Not much to say this morning, only that: I've been working a lot, that time passes by so quickly, that we are already on monday again, that summer is slowly mooving forward, that I picked some cherries and fresh pea pods yesterday, that I've been putting on some pretty dresses lately, that love is in the air, that a lot of people are already in vacations, that the town is empty of its residents, that I have a lovely bouquet of carnations in the house that smells lovely and that they remind me of my mother because they were her favorite flowers.

Have a great week.

Labels: creative one

have a big big studio just for me

art room brushes by outallnight-Mark Lomas

Labels: inspired 2

It was a great weekend. The weather was beautiful, hot sunny days like we didn't had in months. Sunday night was spent with the family, around a barbecue. We eat fish, shrimps and grilled sweet peppers. For dessert I went in the garden to pick some fresh fruits (raspberries, currants and the last strawberries).

Uhhmm how I love this time of the year. Abundance is everywhere, nature spoils us, it gives us all we need and even more, we just have to reach our hands and take. How can we not be good with it ?

Last night just before the sun went down, we head home by a secondary road, you know the ones that haven't seen cars in years and I'm so glad with did because once again, nature, gave us a show just before the sun went away. In front of us there were wheat fields dancing to the summer breeze while they looked like dressed in gold. Fields of gold they were. Unfortunately I had no camera around.

The painting above is one of the last ones I' ve been making it is called "yesterdays gestures".

sing a song of distant shores by bloom-grow-love

Thinking of those lucky ones that are heading to the beach this weekend :) Have a great time !

• Find your beach style (via shelter): poolside preppy, resort glam or boho ?
• how about a cute yellow dress ?

Labels: flickr for the weekend

Tea. In winter it's easy to grab a cup of hot tea, besides being good for the soul, its warmth will confort you during that cold season.

When summer arrives we often forget to drink more than 1 cup of tea per day. Tea is so precious to our body. If you don't like to drink it hot during summer do it like I do, put it on an empty bottle of water and drink it through out the day.

Tea is composed, among other things, of caffeine and tannins and if you are inclined to have an iron deficiency such as anemia be careful with the teas you drink, tea prevents iron from fixing.

I love tea but unfortunatly I'm obliged to restrein myself from drinking some types of tea.
That's why my favorite one is rooibos tea, no tannins, no caffeine, a beautiful red color and wonderful taste. At the moment I'm drinking fruit teas I love this during summer time, it's fresh.
Of course, don't forget to get them organic.

Here is a selection of some organic teas from Etsy.

1. happy tea
2. Yogi tea-Masala chai
3. a tea set
4. mint tea
   

Labels: wellness yourself

Miranda Van Dijk
The Netherdlands

website

blog

shop

{One word}
Somehow, I love the Dutch word ‘Verstilling’. It means ‘become silent’, but I don’t think this covers it. Let me show you what I mean with pictures.

When I start a project (both styling and design) I always get inspired by pictures like these. Mostly I combine them with pictures of a person (mostly a woman) who express the feeling I see. I make some collages of it and a book with the whole story. This book is my own source of inspiration for a collection or a forecast. Working like this makes me calm. I did once a whole forecast with inspirationpictures for colors, fabrics etc with only one story: When two people meet. There is always a conceptstory in my work. Some examples of collages:

Labels: creative one

look carefully after the rain is gone.

Labels: inspired 2

Un jour fait de pluie - 20x20cm

“Creativity is a mindset, an attitude. Regardless of how we feel - low or high or in between - creativity is always there.”-Nikki Coulombe

Summer arrives this sunday. The days are longer and there are so many great fruit to pick in the garden.
Last saturday was one of these wonderful sunny days, my husband came to wait for me after work with his scooter motor, this is anouther thing we like to do in the summer when it's hot and sunny I love to ride on his scooter and just feel the wind.

We went to see his aunt because she was having too much fruit for her alone in the garden, so we helped her. I picked some strawberries, some raspberries, I stood under the cherry tree and just filled my mouth with cherries (I love doing this) and we picked a lot of currants. I love this little fruit. A little bit acid but so fresh.

When we got home I thought what was I going to do with all of them as I had so many. Looked in the fridge and found some smooth tofu I was keeping to make a chocolate mousse. So I thought of doing a creamy version of the chocolate mousse but with the currants and voilà...

You'll need :

• currants
• smooth tofu
• agave syrup (2 soup spoons)
• agar-agar (1 small cafe soup)

Smash the currants with a fork, blend with the smooth tofu, the agar-agar and the agave syrup. Put in the fridge for 1 day.
Beautiful, good, healthy and easy. What else do we need on a hot summer day ?

Bon appétit !

Labels: wellness yourself

Anabela Carneiro
Toronto, Canada

website
blog
etsy shop

{one word}

Heart

{One place}
The park behind my apartment just after it rains

{One beautiful thing}
A vintage silk blouse in a lovely shade of peachy yellow

{One book}
Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion

{One art piece}
For years I had a picture by William Eggleston on my wall -- it was ripped out of a magazine. It had a car in it, and a street that I always thought of as being in Detroit. I don't know what it was called, but I always felt nostalgic and sad when I looked at it.

{One song}
"This Place in Time" by Colleen (listen here "Les ondes silencieuses")

{One link}
http://lin-net.com/

{One of your creations}
An embroidery called "La brodeuse"

{One designer-artist}
I really admire Allison Fox's work

{One food}
Dulce de leche ice cream in a handmade waffle cone.

Anabela is a creative that I admire; I especially love her capelet's and I love her style and I always love to check her blog to see one of the best dressed couples in the web : Anabela and Geoff's.

Anabela is offering one of her cute needlebooks.
All you have to do today is let us know which item your prefer from her cute shop.

You comment, you get the chance to win it (one comment only per person).You have until next tuesday to enter this giveaway. Winner will be randomly picked with random.org and will be announced on next wednesday's new post.Good Luck.

Last's week winner is : Isabelle. Félicitations, I'll be sending you an email soon.
Next week on Creative One's : Miranda from Puur Anders

Fly high into a new sky

Labels: inspired 2

the ballerina by Laurennicole81

Anouther week is over, hope you are going to spend a good weekend with your beloved ones :)
Leave you with:

• new beautiful art
• new beautiful blog from very far away
• new recipe of magic bars
• don't forget to enter in this week's giveaway

Labels: flickr for the weekend

Today I bring you one of my favorite summer salads. Everyone knows a mediterranean salad but there are a lot of different ways to do it.
Here's mine, for 1 person.

• one eggplant
• one tomato
• 2 soupspoons of already cooked brown lentils
• feta cheese
• 1 soupspoon of olive oil
• chopped coriander

Chop the eggplant and the tomato into small cubes put them in the oven (190°C) with the olive oil and let it become a little bit caramelized (from 45 to 1 hour but check it often).
Once all is done, on a bowl cut the feta cheese and add the lentils and the eggplant and the tomato. Sparkle with fresh chopped coriander.
I don't add salt because feta is a very salty cheese and I don't add no more olive oil but you can of course.

This is a great salad with all the vitamins and proteins your body will need, perfect for the summer. You can also add sweet pepper of all colors and more vitamins.

I don't drink water while I eat, I think it swells the stomach, I prefer to drink between the meals. I can drink a glass of red wine with the food (one per day) altough I prefer to drink this at the end of a very full day to get the stress out.

Bon appétit.

Labels: wellness yourself

Lotta Helleberg
Virginia, USA


website
Etsy shop
Blog

{One word}

Labels: creative one

sit at a café table

Labels: inspired 2

June is now here, days are long and the sun is hotter. Over the past weeks, whenever I had some free time I made some cute accessories for me with things that I had at home, bought nothing new, I recycled for myself.

• A pair of earrings made from a piece of lace I had
• A ring with a little bird I received as a gift on a flower bouquet
• A bow coral color bangle made with ribbon and at least 10 thin bangles I had bought last year

What do you think ? Isn't wonderful to reinvent new from old ?

Update: the wonderful Nina is having a giveaway for one of my necklaces this week, don't miss it here. Thank you Nina :)

untitled by moggierocket

Have a great weekend everyone.

Labels: flickr for the weekend

Last week I started a post about what I've been doing for my body and soul. This is one of my favourite topics to talk about with my friends so I thought why not to start a weekly post about wellness. Wellness yourself.

I'll start with one of the first things we do in the morning. We eat breakfast, or some of us do.
It is THE important meal of the day. Your body has been sleeping for 8 or more hours. He needs to be reahydrated.

I always start with a glass of water. Some of us like to do like Carry Bradshaw and her friends and drink it with a little bit of lemon juice to detoxicate. Then I eat 3 dried plums and this I eat it every morning.

I have 2 types of breakfast. No croissants, sorry ! Or at least not very often, it would be impossible to eat them daily and still be in shape :)

First week

• soy or rice or almond or oat milk
• 2 soupspoons of oat
• some sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds, some nuts
• a fruit (think seasonal)

I like to put it all in a bowl :)

Second week

• rooibos tea
• 1 slice of dark bread
• Ossau-Iraty french cheese (you can pick any medium firm cheese type)
• some dates (not more than 2 or 3) some almonds (3 or 4)
• a fruit (think seasonal)

No cow diary for me as I'm allergic to the hormones inside. If you are like me try goat and sheep milk diary and of course all the vegetable milks.

I don't know if in your side of the world, there's a saying like this one "Manger comme un roi le matin, comme un prince le midi, comme un pauvre le soir " which would be like "Eat like a king in the morning, like a prince at lunch and like a poor at dinner".

Eat slow, take your time. Get up earlier if you can so that you can enjoy your meal.

Labels: wellness yourself

Catherine Miller
Tasmania, Australia
Blog
Shop

Labels: creative one

SEW

by Yvestown

by blossomhillcottons

Labels: inspired 2

It's one of those days, when you wake up and you feel good ! The sun is shining in the sky, the temperature's high and there's a flea market in town. What better way to start the day ?
Took this photos last week, I love this black and white outfit I was wearing the other day. Particularly that gingham skirt I thrifted some time ago (I'll be wearing it today).

Have a wonderful day, June is here and with it a lot of new things in this blog.
Starting tomorrow. à demain.

Labels: life, sofia barao

the last day of summer by Heidifurre

Wishing you a sunny weekend.

Labels: flickr for the weekend

Reading Susannah's post last week made me think about me. Taking time to rebuild ourselves is precious. From inside out.

Whenever you feel sick; a bad cold that doesn't go away, a pale face, a back pain or those always coming back spots on your chin think food, exercise, breathing.
Everything is connected and as a car needs oil to work, we also need our fuel to keep on walking in this world.

It's been almost 2 months since I started exercising here at home, 5 times a week during 50 minutes. It's also been 3 months since I really bannished all bad food from my house.
I feel different.

In the morning after I wake up, I know that I have an appointement with my body. The first 5 minutes are still fastidious and I have to admit that most of the days I would prefer to stay in bed doing nothing (and I do that twice a week whenever I feel the need). After those first minutes I don't know what happens but I just love to be there in silence doing my yoga, connecting with me, talking to me, hearing me.

Most of the time I think of nothing but in some other moments I think of how my day is going to be.
It is my daily bubble before I meet the world.

Breakfast is the most important meal for me, I eat all I want to eat : cheese, seeds, nuts, fruit, soy, oat, tea, date fruit (I love this). It is the only meal of the day where I let myself go to pleasure food.
Lunch and dinner I try to eat less and I eat low carbs (lunch) and vegetables(dinner) with fish, meat or tofu and to finish the meal I eat some fresh fruits.

When do I eat chocolate ? In the afternoon, I love to take my 5 pm snack to work, I'm the only one doing it but I can't live without my 5 pm snack and my cup of rooibos tea (I'm I english ???). I generally eat some nuts and chocolate or nuts and a slice of gingerbread. And a lot of water during the day or strawberry cold tea.

I've been feeling great with this way of taking care of my body. Back pains left, my chin spots too (I stopped drinking cow milk) and I even have some colors in my face.

Now I'm trying to take care of my soul. You know I'm addicted to books, a psychology book is always on my wish list, so I'm trying to get positivity to enter back in my life. I now want my soul to look in the same direction as my body; in the direction to bliss.

And how about you ? How have you been feeding your body and soul ?

I have this blog since 2006 and if there is one thing I haven't been writing here is answers to questions. I'm almost never tagged. Forget what I said because I've just been tagged by 2 of my favorite blogger friends Nadia and Jennifer.
So here it is:

What is your current obsession?
Ghost Whisperer, yes I admit I have been watching episodes daily.

What is your weirdest obsession?
sunflower seeds, I love love to eat them in the morning on my soy milk.

What are you wearing today?
black pants, black t-bar ballerinas and a cute floral cache-coeur :)

What's for dinner?
tomato salad and chicken

What would you eat for your last meal?
Tons of cakes with lots of cream

What's the last thing you bought?
strawberries and fennel

What are you listening to right now?
Calogero, a french singer.

What is your favorite ice-cream flavour?
Well I can't eat it anymore as much as I wish but it was caramel and salt butter, delicious !

What do you think of the person who tagged you?
Nadia is a wonderful person with a great sensibility that it can be seen through her photographs and her words, I admire her for that.
Jennifer is a wonderful artist who creates enchanted jewelery and I love to read her blog and find wonderful new things and links.

If you could have a house totally paid for, fully furnished anywhere in the world, where would you like it to be?
I hesitate : Brussels or Brugges or anywhere along the Belgium coast.

If you could go anywhere in the world for the next hour, where would you go?
Finland

Which language do you want to learn?
Finnish or swedish.

What's your favorite quote (for now)?
Nothing has really happened until it has been recorded. Virginia Wolf.

What is your favorite colour?
at the moment I have a thing for coral but red is my favorite color.

What is your favorite piece of clothing in your own wardrobe?
Uhmm...dificult. A dress for sure but I have a lot of them I love. I'd say one with lace :)

What is your dream job?
Create, create, create

What's your favourite magazine?
Biba

If you had £100 now, what would you spend it on?
In a piece of clothing, maybe from Manoush or in shoes.

Favorite designer?
Christian Lacroix

Do you admire any one's style?
Zooey Deschanel

Describe your personal style?
I love vintage, retro, modern and feminine. I'm a mix of all that.

What are you going to do after this?
Go to bed.

What are your favourite movies?
Cinema Paradiso, the postman.

What's your favourite fruit?
Watermelon

What inspires you?
Nostalgia, artists creations, nature, books, women

Your favorite book ?
Falaises by Olivier Adam

Do you collect something ?
Angels and beach sand.


The rules :
1. Respond and rework; answer the question on your blog, replace one question that you dislike with a question of your invention, add more one question of your own.
2. Tag eight other people.

I'm tagging:

Jess
Olivia
Stephanie
Shelley
Nina
Anabela
Silvia
Marta

Creative one’s is a new series of post that will be published on Wednesdays here starting in June.

I’ll be asking women creatives (artists, designers and/or bloggers) once a week to tell their 10 number one’s.
This post will be a brief insider into what makes a creative person’s life.
Each creative will be either asked to participate or invited to submit.
All will be handpicked by me to correspond to my blog and my way of seeing life has an artist.

At the end of each post there will be links to them (blog, shop, and website - you need to have at least one of these).

I ask each creative to donate an item available on their shops for a giveaway.
Bloggers will be asked to comment during a week (from Wednesday to Tuesday), and on Wednesdays one winner for the past week giveaway will be drawn and announced. I will give the address of the winner to the creative and she will send the item to winners.

Would you like to be a part of this new adventure? I would love to hear from you.
Send me an email with your submission and spread the word.

Update: I've been receiving great submissions (keep them coming) and it may take some time for me to get back to you. I'm having a great response to this and I'm sorry but I'll only be able to answer to those selected. Thank you so much for your submission.

Labels: creative one

Here's the giveaway for the month of May. I hope you'll like it, it is one of my wallpaper necklaces available at my Etsy Shop.



So, the giveaway is up from today until wednesday 27th and you'll have to have a blog because what I'm asking is for you to tell about this giveaway on your blog and leave me the link right here.
I'll pick one randomly and announce the winner on thursday 28th.



Thanks for participating.

Labels: giveaway