May 30, 2013

THE BIG BOOK OF ALL THINGS INSPIRATIONAL

Have I mentioned lately how much I love thrifting? I often wonder how people can throw out treasure like the one above. The picture in the right is not a joke. Yoga 1970s style. I'm in love. Maybe because I stayed up until 1 am yesterday night and then slept on my couch. I just didn't feel like sleeping my bed - I'm such a rebel. 

Yesterday I wrote something in my journal like 'The inspirational Jesus is coming back to me' - like whaaaat? Haha I kinda felt like in trance when I wrote that. No I'm not on drugs, I'm too cheap for those.. 
But I seriously felt like there was a ton of inspiration out there, that I needed to take in and because having everything on your screen is fine and dandy, but having something in your hands is even better, I decided it was time for 'The Big Book Of All Inspirational Things'. I just came up with the title right now, haha! Has anyone ever watched that show with the kid and this huge book that he could jump into? No? Well it was great. I should go and find it. 

Albums are expensive and I'm a cheap gal, so this was why I headed to the thrift store. Obviously the walk over would even  have been worth it, if I would only have found the yoga book. Anyway, I found this old cook book from 1974. I feel like it has made a career in some old ladies bookshelves for decades and now it finally got its life back. Horray!  

Sometimes things just come together, and so it happened that I came across this book during a phase of being obsessed with plain white books and black and white pattern. I almost stopped breathing when I saw this inner binding. Whipped cream traces! I'm dying!! On the cover it says 'The cold kitchen's delicacies' which I think is a hilarious title for an inspiration-scrapbook. Oh I'm just sooo in love!



Since its a recipe book it is obviously filled with tons of recipes (and food porn as you can tell). The 1970s loved their easy foods though, I think. Think meat platters, fruit platters, 'The perfect Toast' (seriously, they got a recipe for that in there!) and loads of other cold goodness. Might  try a recipe at some point.

Because sometime too much text might be distracting, I painted over it with acrylic paint. Don't you ever use water on book pages! Aaaand theeen - I went to town glueing down all the fancy pictures I had at hand or that I found yesterday during my late-night blog-reading session. 

Did I mention I'm in love? 
Lots of Love, Tabea ♥

May 28, 2013

CELEBRATING, FAILING & CHEERING UP

Yeay today she's talking about books again! How exciting! Naah actually not, I really just needed a good starter picture for this post, so I won't scare you away, before you even considered reading this. Well I' gonna talk a bit about the book, too, later on but for now I felt like I should just share some other things.  

Today we can celebrate the one month-anniversary of days-in-a-lifetime! Wooop! It's been a great month I can say. I created a lot more than I used to and pressuring myself just that little bit to put up a post every other day really fueled that process.

There's no sunshine without rain though and today I wanna give a shout-out to all those failed DIYs and craft projects. Remember the picture of the painted book the other day? Well, this is what it turned into... 

Gaaaw! What ARE THIS? (I love Jenna Marbles - sorraaay!) I think we can all agree that this was quite a fail. I mean, you can see where I was trying to go with this but ... man ... I just never got there. Sadly I spent most of the last portion of glitter I had lying around which I wanted to save up for something special. There goes that, I guess. Even bigger bummer... Obviously this wasn't the first project ever that didn't come out the way I had imagined it, still this kinda made me a bit mad. Because I wasted that glitter you know? And because I 'wasted' time. Even giving it a do-over (which I'll go for) won't give me that back. 

Which made me think of other things that have made me grumpy these days... Like this for example
Maths. We've been really close friend ever since I'm a junior. I didn't do well on pretty much every test this year. With sucks since I used to be pretty good at maths. In this photo I didn't even show you my own notes, these are my best friend's 'cause mine are just ... yeay not that neatly written I'd say. I got frustrated over the last few months and also I build up a fear of the upcoming final exam (it's tomorrow!). Seriously, I've been freaking out about that for the last weeks! I put in a lot of study time but still felt overwhelmed with new chapters coming up all the time and mistakes I made repeatedly. 

Tonight though I pulled out 'The hundred-year-old-man who climbed out of the window and disappeared' by Jonas Jonasson. I was gonna lend it to my friend and before I stuffed it in my backpack I open up the first pages just f. And there it was again. The quote that I kinda fell in love with back when I read this book some time ago. 

"It is what it is, and it'll be what it'll be." 

Just like that all my problems seemed to be much smaller. Do you ever have those moments when a quote really helps you calm down or cheer up? I realized it doesn't matter that I wasted time on the journal, because in actuality I didn't. I just learned something new. Mistakes make smart, too, you know? And maths. Yeah, I don't how the exam will go tomorrow, but I feel a lot more content about its outcome, whatever it might be. I'll give my best, in the end, it'll be what it'll be anyway.

Jonasson wrote a fanstastic book and I'd really recommend you reading it. But even if you don't, I just felt that there are a lot of people out there who feel like me when it comes to the bigger and smaller obstacles they face in life, so I just wanted to spread some godness to make it all a bit better.  

Also if you feeling a bit down like me today, watch this Video by Meekakitty. She's awesome and I love her voice & message. 

Let's all relax for a bit and be graceful for the problem we DON'T have! Because .. (imagine me singing) .. Alway look on the bright side of life ... (imagine me whisteling) ... 
Lots of Love, Tabea ♥

May 26, 2013

ROCK THAT NECKLACE

Owning a collection of some sort is cool. Like Spongebob's-hidden-library-cool! Man I love episodes where they show how smart that sponge actually is.. It's just a thing when somebody owns like a hundreds porcellaine cows or 500 blue stamps or a hidden library with thousands of books. The last one is especially cool if you're a sponge.

There's something about that determination people have when it comes to hunting down pieces to add to their treasures. I used to collect rocks and gemstones. It was quite a tradition I had together with my mom. Whenever we'd go places, we'd try to find some new rad-looking rocks. Over time we collected quite a few of them...

Dang! There are probably lots of people owning like ten times as many but for me - this is a heck lot of rocks! Since I don't have nice way to display them in my room I stored them away for some time. The other day though, I saw this cute tutorial on how to make a necklace using those gems. So yeah I'm not claiming this idea to be mine and should I ever find my way back to that blog I'll for sure post the link. I'm terrible at bookmarking things like this... 

Well it wasn't my idea, but I'm gonna show you how I created my necklace anyway! To make this fancy-looking rock-necklace you'll need:
I used thin golden wire, some left-over chain, bits to hold the whole thing together and obviously - rocks. I wanted my necklace to be kinda ombré - because I'm a hispter like that. Haha. No, I just liked the texture of these rocks and they happened to be matching colors. 









To start with, you should tie a knot around the rock. Find a good place for it to stay on there. Some sides of the rock are probably better than others, for it to not slip off again. And then wrap, wrap, wrap, wrap! The dea is simple - making it real a whole other thing. I'm telling you, some of these things were beasts not willing to wear a golden wire dress... Here's my advise: Do a lot of knotting. Go under wire parts that have already been wrapped, with the end of the wire and try to make it a real tied net, not just a spiral wrapped around it tiedly. Oh yeah and don't pull too tight, this wire can't handle strong girls apparently. 


And here my focus failed me - it's okay iPhone someday you'll, too, be able to shot macro photos like a Canon 7D. I'm actually sure about that. Anyway, once you wrapped the rock so it won't fall out of its new golden net, you put a ring on the top part and twist it around a few times so it stays on there. 

Now connect that trinket to the chain. You can either use the same or one more ring for that. I used the same one. Also I added the chain lock to the ends of my chian piece and tadaaa, necklace version number one - done!
But loving precious looking things - I wanted more! So I went and fought the battle of wrapping rocks. I'm telling you, the smoother the rock's surface, the more of a pain it is to wrap. It took me some time to figure out the right technique but after all I couldn't let a piece of compressed sand and dirt (isn't that what rock are made of??) triumph over me. Never! And because I'm a fighter like that, after about an hour this is what my final result looked like.

It's a bit heavy but I'm thrilled to pair this with a cute summer dress or a blouse! 
Okay, now I'm off to bed to rock another week of school! Pun intended!
Lots of Love, Tabea ♥ 

May 24, 2013

WORK-OUT STORY + TIPPS

'Just keep running' - that is what my friend Allison told me at the last day of track practise, a few days before I had to leave America. It's been a year since then and this sentence has still stuck with me. Because so many people struggle with working-out on a regular shedule I want to share my tipps with y'all today. Running basiclly is the best way to relief stress and break through a creative block - you just gotta get started.

First off, I was never a work-out person and up to this day, people around me sometimes only shake their heads and ask what happened to me. Well this is what happened...
The Track Team of Denfeld High School in Duluth, MN. Man what a great team. I went to Denfeld for a year as an exchange student and had joined the cross country team in the fall. To be perfectly honest - I sucked at it and started waiting for the season to end merely three weeks after joining. Eventually it ended and I swore never to join a long-distance running group again. Well, I failed at that one. 
When my friends asked me to joing Track, they told me I could do sprinting which wouldn't be as hard as cross-country by far. Haha. Liars! I made it through exactly 2 practises of sprinting, I think. Then I switched over to the long-distance group. I met all my cross-country buddies again and to my surprise, after I made it through about a month of hard practises - I actually caught myself enjoying the daily runs. Obviously mostly the easy 30-minute-run-days, - hill-work-outs do and will always suck! Hehe! We went to meets and when summer time rolled around we went swimming in a pond nearby our route. I had the BEST time. If you're in High School - join the long-distance-team! These people are fuuuun! 

And this is how I started running. Being back in good ol' Germany, I continued running by myself. Here are a few tipps how I stay motivated:
Tipp #1 - Get good basics! For doing home- and running work-out these are like the very basic things you'll need. A good sport-bra, mine's from Target - no need to explain I think, it's comfy, it bears with sweat and yeah ... prevents any bouncing. A pair of tight shorts, they are nice for stretching and when wearing other shorts over them. A yoga mat will make any floor exercise muuuch more comfortable - no need to to do actual yoga on it - hehe! Last but not least - shoes. For running a good pair of trainers is essential. Do yourself a favor and invest a bit more money here, it's definitely worth it!  
Tipp #2 - Make it a challenge! To keep yourself on track, use a calendar and tick of everyday you worked out. I made a challenge out of this. For all of january I work-out on a daily basis and didn't eat any chocolate. Hard one! But so worth it. After 4 weeks all the 'chubb' from christmas was gone and I felt much fitter. I think when you start it's really helpful giving up eating something unhealthy, too. The combination of sport and a healthier diet will show results quicker and keep you motivated! 
Tipp #3 - Use rainy/wintery/ugly days! There are days when you just don't want to go out and run. I found the fitness section on Pinterest very helpful for this. They have so many neat work-outs that can be done inside on a yoga-mat without any extra gear. I put together two work-outs with my favorite excercies. These won't get you a six-pack but you'll definitly find your muscles more defined after about 1-2 of doing work-outs like these.
Tipp #4 - Music! Yeay for pump-up songs! Nothing better than to start off a a run by having 'Radioactive' blast through your body! Here are my ten favorite running/work-out-songs! 

I know it's still hard to get yourself to work-out (WORK-out ... don't wanna do it, duuh!) but being fit is cool and so are you! Everyone is a runner and a trained person if he or she just wants it really badly! So go out now and make the first step!! I know you can do it!

Lots of Love, Tabea ♥

May 22, 2013

SNEAK PEEKS! GET INSPIRED

Hello Sweetie-Pies! Today I thought I'd share some fun sneak peaks around my room. Sometimes it's the best to just fill yourself with some inspiration. I felt like that a lot recently. Nah, let's not even talk about my amount of Pinterest-use over the last few days.. So anyway, I hope I can inspire you a bit, too!

My latest project! Messing around with paint, late at night - Good times! Whenever I feel down, this is like therapy. Not quite artsy, but so fun! I think every so often we should paint in school. It gets a creative vibe going, it's incredicle. Once I start painting I always feel like new ideas are coming to mind my so naturally. 
Lace, lace, lace. If I could I'd probably cover my entire room in lace. I found this darling at the craft store the other day and man it's so cool! It looks like lace - but it's actually a place mat, like some sort of plastic with lace printed on it. I find this thing so cool - I don't even wanna use it for crafting anymore! Well, not yet at least. This could be used for so many projects. I need time to evaluate which one will reach up to the coolness of this thing. 
Have I mentioned that I enjoy making journals? No comment on this one. 
Okay here's the comment anyway: I fell hard for the simple heart pattern. I'm a sucker for hearts! ♥ Hehe
This one doesn't need a caption, does it? I made this card(?) quite some time ago. The scraps I used were all from a 'seventeen-magazine'. I don't give much for the content of teen magazines anymore, but their colorful photos are great to cut out and use! I might show you how I made the cute little book in the left, I used it to write down my dreams - or at least what I could remember of them. The candle on the right - heaven! I burned it everyday around christmas time.
And a last shout-out for: Colors and stationary! Where would all those journal-addicted-people be without their markers, fineliners and what not. I use these on a daily basis for my diary. I don't know, but seeing this splash of color on my nightstand just makes me happy! 

Hope to inspire with this! Now get out color, get out material and let's gooo!
Lots of Love, Tabea ♥

May 20, 2013

10 MINUTES SUNGLASSES CASE

Summer, Sunshine, Sunglasses! Let's head to the beeeeach!! If you'd sit next to me right now, you'd get the irony of that sentence - it's surrently raining and it's been a grey day so far. Yesterday was beautiful though! I got to spent time with my dad and my siblings, we went to the park and enjoyed the sun while the kids played on this massive monster of a playground. What a great summer day!

Being out in the sun I love to wear sunglasses, together with sun lotions they make my summmer season! When I bought my latest pair of sunnies, I didn't have a case to put them in. Cheap as I am, I decided to go for a homemade one. It was similar to the one I'm gonna show you today. I used less tape though, which made it less sturdy, so after using it for a while it looked pretty beat up.

So here is version number two of the DIY sunnies-case! This one should hold up for quite some time!
What you'll need:




























It's really rather simple. Cut your paper so it'll still be big enough to hold your sunglasses when you put both sheets on top of each other. Then decorate them with Washi tape and/or paint. Yeay that's all for the pre-taping steps.

Now take each sheet of paper and cover it completely in shipping tape. It'll make it much sturdier and also add a nice glossy finish to it.
Next stick half of a piece of tape to one of the sheets, put the other sheet on top and fold the tape over. Do the same thing on both long and one short side and cute off or fold over any extend tape.
Done! Yupp, this project can be done in like 10 minutes (plus the time the paint needs to dry). This case for sure doesn't protect you sunnies from someone stepping on them etc. but it does prevent scratches on the glasses and that for me was the main point.

Hope you had a great summer-y weekend!
Lots of Love, Tabea ♥

May 17, 2013

PINK + PARIS - JOURNAL #3

TGIF! Says the girls who has been on break all week - hehe. So weeeh! A good friday to all of you! I don't know about you, but sometimes it's like the greatest thing to dig into memories from trips and travels. Last fall I visited Paris with a bunch of friends.
Paris itself is beautiful, but for me the whole city has kinda turned into one big tourist attraction which I always think is kinda sad. There are probably loads of cool places but being there as a tourist you don't get to see many of them. Well whatever - I've seen the Eiffel tower. Not that I had the energy to walk all the way up or the money to pay for the elevator - but I've seen it, from the ground, but that still counts!

From time to time I do things that probably aren't the smartest thing to do, but still worth it.  So coming back from Paris I felt it to be a good idea to print all 400 pictures I had taken during those 7 days. The good ones, the bad ones, the blurry one - all of them. Yupp, I paid almost 20 Euro (like 25 Dollars)... Naah don't think I'll do that again. Mainly because I ended up just storing them away - the mass of the picturesscared me away from even starting an album.

A few days ago, I came back to that box full of photos and decided to use some of my favorites to create a fun page using shapes and materials I had not worked with before, like baking paper and aluminium foil. I loved the the see-through and shiny effect they added to it.


I also added some handwriting and doodles. It was such a fun trip. Pretty much every corner of the city screams: 'Take out your camera and take pictures!!' Just lovely.

Since it's springtime and I can't contain myself when it come to freaking out about all those beautiful flowers and trees blooming everywhere, I wanted to dedicate a page to my new obession. In my town there's an extraordinary big amount of magnolias to be found. No idea why - but hey, they're gorgeous so I had to use them! 

As you can see I'm a bit obsessed with the color pink as well. I found the backdrop image in a newspaper and I still had those pink and red strips floating around my craft table. Also polaroids are and will always be the coolest photos! At this point I want to send out a huge thanks to the Photoshop-Team. These guys made creating polaroids a piece of cake! So thanks for that!
I don't really know why I used 'Fly me to the Moon' as my caption. Ever since the movie came out I just loved this phrase. I guess for me it's about dreaming (I have never seen the movie, I have no idea what it's actually about..) and so are those springy flowers and colors. There you have your connection! 

Hope you had a great week and now get to enjoy a wonderful weekend!
Lots of Love, Tabea ♥ 

May 15, 2013

SECOND LIFE: BOX MAKE-OVER


Hey Friends! Today I'm back with a quick make-over I gave to those really old wooden boxes that have been around pretty much since I got my first own room when I was like .. a toddler maybe? I'm not kidding you, I literally had these all my life. But since my room is pretty colorful anyway these days and so were those boxes, I decided it was time to make them look a bit more matchy-matchy. 

So this is what they looked like beforehand. I know the picture is pretty brilliant - I should become a professional item-photographer (Oh yeah great english language right there!). Let's just call it an action shot. This project was one of spontaneous ones, started at like 6 pm. Yes, I go to bed early so this is pretty late for me - don't judge! So ya, I was kinda fixed on the outcome and didn't bother much with taking before-pictures - Sorry for that.


Because I didn't want my solution to be permanent I used plain white wall paper. I cut up a piece that would be long enough to wrap around the box. Then I cut this piece horizontally in half again because my roll of wall paper was actually wide enough to make up for two boxes. It adhered it with good ol' shipping tape and folded the remaining wall paper to the inside and used more tape to make it stick. Since this is probably not the best description - look at the pictures guys! 


Yupp that is how I did it. I didn't worry about the fact that you can still see the actual color of the box on the inside. I pack them full with stuff and put them on my shelf so nothing of that will be seen later. I'm clearly a rebel. 

But since just plain white boxes would be even more boring than colored ones they needed some more decoration to them. I had just recently put together a journal page using baking paper, so I still had some lying around as well as my newly bought washi tape...

So I created big labels for all four boxes. Each of them using a synonym for 'things' because I constantely change up the things I keep in these bad boys. I couldn't find a black marker anywhere around the house, so I just used black paint to write the words on the baking paper. I give you one tip - make sure the paint is completely dry before you go anywhere near your new white boxes with the labels, otherwise yeah .. stains.. 

Once I made sure everything was dry and set, I started taping the labels to the boxes. With a heck lot of glue - washi tape is crappiest tape when it comes to actually holding something together, don't even try using it by itself. You'll definitely need a glue stick and some normal tape to make the whole thing stay in place for longer than 10 minutes.


I have been thinking about giving these oldies a make-over for quite some time and I have to say - I'm very pleased with the outcome of this little project. Now organising and reorganising will be even more fun! Yikes!

Until next time, 
Lots of Love, Tabea ♥

May 13, 2013

ON HABITS AND JOHN GREEN BOOKS

Hello there! I hope you all had a great first day of this week  and that those of you out there being on vacation like me enjoyed their time off! 

So yesterday I started reading ' Will Grayson, Will Grayson' by John Green. It's the forth book by him that I read. I already went through 'An Abundance Of Katherines' (I read the german translation), 'Looking For Alaska' and 'Papertowns' (that one I also read in german). I'm not the kind of girl that reads multiple books by the same author, unless they are part of a series. So coming back to Mr. Green for the forth (and probably not last) time made my think about habits and consistency. 

I think habits are the greatest and worst things in life at the same time. During daily life I'm often annoyed by habits since they make me feel like I'm stuck in this routine that is just totally dull and not inspiring at all. Like when I can't get myself to wake up early in the morning to work-out. Or when I come home and check literally all social networks possible (talked about that here). All those things are really just a matter of habit. And that is why they are so hard to get rid of. On the upside though, this is the great thing about habits. You can build them by training yourself. I think that it's such a great thought to actually be able to control your behaviour in such a way.

The training method is relativly easy. Get off your butt and do it. Over and over again - until you get off your butt automatically. Wow, I'm sure I just enlightend somebody. Hahah no, I'm kidding. But seriously, doing something over a longer time will turn into something you do without thinking. My tipps for making this method a bit easier are: 

Use a calendar and check off each day you did the thing you want to become a habit. Share what you do with friends, it's great to have someone else ask how you do or maybe even join you. I did write in my journal for years and it wasn't until last Christmas when I gave my best friend a journal that she started loving it, too, which encourages me even more to keep on going. Reward yourself. the first three to seven days are the hardst when starting something new I find, so I like to get myself a treat when having kept on track for that time. Especially when 'working-out more' is what you want to do, this is a true helper because the actual achievement of a dream body probably won't come until some time later. So eat that ice-cream cone! You deserve it! 


I already said, sometimes I just feel stuck with my life (who doesn't??), so over the course of the last 6 months I changed quite a bit about my habits. I became more serious about journaling again. Not only do I do it on a daily basis, but I also want to focus on emotions more. I was sick of writing the same things every week like 'Today in math we did this..', 'For lunch we had .. and after school the bus was late..' etc. You get the jist. So I really make an effort now to write about how I felt in certain situations. Sometimes it is hard being honest about these things when talking to people, but want to be honest with myself at least. 
Also I spent the month of january developing a work-out routine and for some reason - I'm still working out to this day without some coach kicking my butt. The magic of habits! 

I'm not saying this will work always and for everything. I was gonna get into the habit of art journaling with my 30 day art challenge. Technically I failed on that one already. I don't want to say I didn't have the time (worst excuse ever...) but for me there were thing to be done that had a higher priority. Also I feel like this 'do it on a daily basis' kinda kills my ideas from coming. Usually I work well under pressure but this time.. naah. I will still keep you updated on my journaling this month though. I hope to still get about 30 pages done. 

So yeah, to make a long story short, I love creating new habits and I think everybody should do so as well! It's your life, it's in your hands! Get that new routine going you imagened for so long! Work-out, write on a daily basis or start taking the time to fix yourself a healthy lunch every night to get you through the next day (BEST habit I ever started! I love food...)

Lots of love, Tabea ♥

P.S. Out of the four books I read, Will Grayson is the best - I haven't gotten to the end though and unfortunately those aren't always the best part about John Green books - sorry Mr. Green, love your characters but your ends are always a bit .. flat? Anyway, I just wanted to recommend this band mentioned in Will Grayson to you. They're called Neutral Milk Hotel  and their album In An Airplane Over The Sea is pure genius
! You should all go and check them out and dance and sing crazy to it like I did. I love it. 
If this whole post did not make any sense to you because you have no idea who John Green is... go check him (and his brother) out here!