HANG THEM!

Visualizing is probably one of the best things to do if you're stuck with a creative block. Or if you're a Pinterest hoarder like me. Whoever came up with that page must be a genius when it come to understanding the female mindset. I mean, collecting all kinds of cool things and tipps and whatnot without actually spending money, time to make them or having them clutter your apartment? I'd marry that man ... He just gets me, you know?

Because I felt like hundreds of pins still weren't helping me get inspired, I thought why not make them a bit more real.. Especially with fonts or pattern I feel like it's much easier to take inspiration from something printed than from a screen. So I printed some of my favorite pins (btw - I'm claiming any copyright on any of these). Since I wanted to have them up somewhere but still be able to take them off the wall and over to my desk anytime, I used these clips. I love the combination of red and white. One of my favs! I avoided drilling holes into my door to hang them, by using self-adhesive hangers from the bathroom section. Very simple, very handy!

I fell hard for this llama in a sweater. So adorable! I also love colorful watercolor paintings. So for me this  makes pretty much a perfect combination! I love the font used for the yes  - and being a huge fan of Jim Carrey's 'Yes man' I feel like 'yes' is one of those answers we all should give more often! 

So  - yes for hanging things without nails or tape! I'm excited to see my collection grow!

Lots of Love, Tabea

CHALLENGE 365 + INSTAGRAM WALL DIY

I'm really into all kinds of challenges this year! So much fun to see how the results get better over time, how one overcomes obstacles in terms of keeping up the dedication and then: Enjoying the memories you made. For 2013 I wanted to try the 'Challenge 365 - A Picture A Day' - challenge. There are so many little moments during everyday life that are worth capturing.  I've tried to take pictures everyday in late 2012, but I have to say especially as a student it is kinda hard to find interesting pictures on a daily basis. Phones are prohibited in my school and after school I usually spent my days at home. 

But then I came across this cool app called Project 365. You can set yourself a reminder which will pop up everyday at a set time and tell you to take a picture that day! I set mine for 4 pm, right when I would come home from school. Once you took a picture (via the app or just with your normal camera app) you can put it up in a calendar and add a description. So much fun to look back at the end of the month! 

These are some of my favorite pictures from January til May. I have to be honest with you though. There have been days when I cheated. Yepp my bad, but sometimes I just forget to take a photo. Then I used a picture taken earlier or later which kinda represents that day. Sorry to myself for cheating on me! Haha! 

Happily snaping away photos is great - but I even went a step farther and printed them out. Like for real - photos that you can actually touch! So retro maaan! Being a hispter like this I put them up on the wall over my bed as an 'Instagram wall' - can't get much more hipster than this! Okay let's leave the hispter alone - picture wall are great, whether the photos are squares or not! 

Here a quick tutorial on how I got the photos from my phone to the printer.  

Open Photoshop. 1) Open a new file, the size of the sheets you're planning on printing on. Mark a square and fill it with a light shade of grey (I recommend a light color, since some of it might come out when you print along the sides of the photos). 2) Copy and paste that square six times and drag all of the squares in place. 3) Open your picture and change its size so it'll fit the grey squares. You might have to experiment a bit. My pictures had to be 1007 by 1007 px. 4.) Drag and drop them into them right place. PS will automatically add a new layer to your file, so you can move around the pictures seperately later. Lastly - Print!

I adhered the pictures to the wall with double-sided tape. So far all of them stayed in place just fine. When taping them to the wall, take breaks to wash your hands. For some reason they get kinda dirty and you might leave small smears of grey around the photos. Just a tipp!

This inexpensive and relatively easy way to display photos really adds personality to a space I find. So nice waking up, looking at some great memories. 

We're kinda too far into the year to start a 365 challenge, but why not a 180-days challenge? Or a 3-months summer photos challenge? The possibilities are endless and making memories is always fun! So get out the cameras and phones and snap, snap, snap away! 

Lots of love, Tabea ♥ 

ADVENTURES WITH DYEING!

Hello you crafty ladies and gentlemen out there! Today I wanted to share one of my latest first-time-doing-something adventures with you! Last year during the summer months in the US everyone would wear tie-dye stuff all the time. Sadly I never got to do it myself - another project on my bucket list this summer! Some time ago I came across this blouse at my local thrift store. It was pretty huge, so I had resize it (hehe, I'm by no means a professional seamstress so this was quite the adventure, too!) and since it found white to be a bit boring it called for a cool gradient! Thought it'd be helpful to share my experience with you!

As you can see it didn't turn exactly black but more grey. I still think it's a cool color and this little experiment taught me some things about dyeing. 
So here are my non-professional, things-you-should-know-before-the -first-try tipps:
1) Wear GLOVES! Seriously! I didn't because it didn't have any at hand but still wanted t go        for it so bad. Just wait another day to get some - otherwise you'll regret it. And walk     around with fingers black as if you just dug up a dead body or something! Not fun!
2)  Don't have too high expectations - most likely the color will not come out as you      imagined it. But that's the fun! 
3) You can't dye nylon tights. Most people probably knew that. I didn't  - but I learned!
4) This might be a no-brainer , too, but if you're planning to alter the piece of clothing in     any way - do it before you dye it. Otherwise the thread you use to sew will probably     be awkward to match with the gradient...I'm in love with my new blouse and can't wait to style it with some other fun summer pieces! I will definitly try some tie dyeing this summer! Such unexpected and fun project! 
For now - happy dyeing, I'll see you soon!Lot of love, Tabea ♥

CRAFTY HAUL, SECOND PAGE

A wonderful evening to all of you my friends! Yepp it's been a very pleasant and relaxed weekend. I enjoyed some time with my dad and I went shoppng. Well I tried at least, you wouldn't think the mall would that packed on a sunny summer day, but hey, apparently people rather spent their precious weekend spending money than enjoying the nice weather. And yeah .. ranting about others, I'm not any better at all. I went to the craft store ... and got a bit too excited. Basicly I went like this: "BUY ALL THE THINGS!" Hahah! I had a great time digging through all the fun buttons, ribbons and other things they had.
And spending more money than I probably should have, I got inspired to create my second journal challenge page. I've never drawn with coal before, but this coal pen is really fun! 

Well as you can see, I had the best time with this. Getting creative with just a few new-bought supplies is always fun and so refreshing! 

On just a quick sidenote, I was actually at the mall to buy a pair of white Converse - they didn't have my size. Bummer. So instead of buying shoes I grabbed a horribly expensive drink to make myself feel better. It worked out great - Yeay for mango-orange-juice!! 

Lots of love, Tabea ♥

30 DAYS JOURNAL CHALLENGE - DANDELIONS & SWEET WORDS

I LOVE journaling. Hehe, I think I already said that in my last post. This year I really wanted to challenge myself to stretch my creative muscles when it comes to this hobby of mine. Just as much as I love journaling, I love making a list of goals at the beginning of the year. It's just so cool to dream up all these things you'll do during the coming year. This year one of my to-dos was: 'Do a 30 day journal-challenge'. Let me tell ya, I have been putting this off for months, since I think it is quite a big commitment to set aside an hour or so everyday to do some kind of art journaling. But hey, here I am going for it this months! Spring is awesome, May is one of my favs - so let's do it!

I was inspired to start my challenge by these wonderful dandelions which are growing outside my house. I'm always stunned by what nature gives us. To make them last longer than just a few weeks I dried some of them and pressed other between books. You know - just to see how different they turn out. The dryed ones obvioulsy shrunk quite a lot, while the pressed ones just flattened out. I liked both 'looks' though. Since over time all of them will drye out, I think it is cool so have smaller and bigge ones (pressing them = makes bigger).

I chose a really simple layout to create my page. I tried stampig with some of the dried flowers, which created a very light pattern. Over that I wrote all kinds of lovely things I connect with spring. It's always about the small things. Writing this made me so happy because I realized that I get to enjoy these things on a regular basis. I'm such a happy person these days! :)

I taped on some ribbon and some pictures which I took over the last weeks We had a beautiful spring so far this year! Having great natural lighting outside just calls for taking random snapshots all the time!

I'm so pleased with the outcome of this little starter page! It's colorful and springy and I get to keep those pretty pretty dandelions! As I said before - journaling is awesome! 

So excited to share my experience with this challenge with you over the next few weeks! I think there are some really cool things coming up. I'll keep you updatet!

Until next time, lots of love, Tabea ♥

NEW JOURNAL + PEEK INTO MY PAGES

Remember that little 'glue-incident' I talked about the other day? Here's the outcome of 
that little project! I finally got to sit down and create this small beauty. I always carry a journal in my purse to jot down ideas, things and dates I need to remember or just to doodle. I love hand-making journals, but this one just didn't really coorporate well. I swear not to use super-glue in large amounts again! I just keep using my good old Elmer's glue - can't go wrong with that. So ya, I had a bit of a struggle making this journal, but I'm just satisfied with how it turned out. I'm still in the process of learning so it's all good!

Since my old journal has retired now, I thought it'd be kinda fun to share my favorite pages and doodles with you. So enjoy and get inspired!

Yaaa, as you can see the poor thing had a rough time being carried around for months... but it did a great job. I still love the heart-design no matter how beat up it looks now.

I remember sitting in spanish class when I sketched out my room in it (Don't do this kids - always pay attention to your teacher! Hahah!). I had a blast coming up with all this cool decoration and you know what? I actually made some of this become reality. My parents got me a desk like the one in the middle for my birthday. I use it for all my crafting since sometimes I leave a mess and yeah .. cleaning up is so hard, isn't it? Better to have a seperate desk, so it won't bother me when I need to do homework etc. 

Also I made a jewelry holder like the one in the lower right corner. Might share that one with you soon! I hung pictures above my couch and my bed - so check those off the list, too!

I looove making lists! I always have shopping-lists, to-do-lists, wish-lists and so on. Is there a greater feeling than crossing off the last point on a mile-long to-do-list at the end of the day? I don't think so! Both of the lists above were really just born out of excitement about the upcoming summer. Maaan it's may and I can't wait to go camping with my pals soon! Summer is the best!

More fun doodling! Sometimes there isn't anything better than passing the time by drawing some hearts, birds and happy faces!

Hope you enjoyed that little peek into my journal! Keep journaling you guys, it's a great thing to do!

Lots of love, Tabea ♥

I HAVE ISSUES: MY PHONE IS KILLING ME!

Well hello again! After a painful encouter with my super-glue this afternoon - this stuff is some serious glue, still cannot get it off of my fingertips, eek - I'm back with some thoughts on this modern, fast and always-changing world. Yeah, sometimes I like to be dramatic like that... Haha no, but this is an issue that has been bugging me for a while now and I thought I'd throw my thoughts out there. 

Multitasking and a decreasing ability to stay concentrated on one thing over a longer period of time. To me this sounds like out of a newspaper article. I feel like these days there are tons of articles written about this topic - or is that just me? Anyway, what inspired me to write this was in fact a newspaper article but more about that later.

Concentrating is hard, but for me is has become muuuch harder since last october -that's when I got my iPhone. I love my phone,  I truly do - but sometimes I curse it just as much as I love it. My phone is the reason why I can't watch TV anymore. For the last ten years or so twice a week my family would gather in front of the TV to watch 'Who wants to be a millionaire'. And as much as I enjoy that show, after 15 minutes of watching I catch myself being on my phone. Well watching TV or being on the phone, doesn't make much of a difference one might say. For me it actually does! While watching TV might not be a very stimulating activity, it is something I used to enjoy with my mom and dad. Family time becomes more rare the older I get and I get mad at myself when I'm wasting it online. 

The worst thing about the whole thing is that most of time I'm not even facebooking or whatsapping or what not - I'm looking at funny pictures on Pinterest. I can literally spend hours looking at funny cat pictures.. Pinning has become my new 'crafty' hobby. "Today I was creative because I pinned 30 new DIYs" - Oh really? No, but I mean that is my reality. Instead of sitting down to acually do something crafty, I jump from one app to the next collecting picture sof other people's crafts ... Gahh! 

But my saviour is on his way - well not really but I found an article about him in the newspaper and immediatly thought: That guy just solved all my problems! Kinda at least. I'm talking about Paolo Cardini. He's a product designer with a pretty impressive moustache. And he makes pretty rad things. Like the MONOtask Project (Check it out!). He came up with those blaze orange iPhone faces which cover up all 'unused' areas - you are only using your phone for thing at a time with them. No more Pinterest, no more Facebook - Just checking the time or checking where north is (doing that all the time, don't you?). I love the concept behind it. Not quite practical, but still a great invention. 

I could not come up with any revolutionary ideas on how to completely overcome this constant influence of media and social-networking. But hey - who cares? We love social media. Sometimes though there are really more important things like family and hobbies that happen offline. I'm really having a hard time doing this, but turning off my phone at least once a week for a couple hours would probabely be a step in the right direction. Also when being online I want to make an effort in the future to not waste my time jumping apps, pins and / or Youtube videos just to kill time. 

Wooof! Now that I got this off of my chest I feel better. Hope you could follw along and maybe I could inspire a little bit. I'm off now to watch some TV with my parents - without my phone. 

Until next time, lots of love, Tabea ♥