DAYDREAMING & THE TRAVEL BUG

What a weekend you guys! Eastern Germany is fighting this huge flood, folks are out to help everywhere and what do I do? I'm staying at home sick to my stomach, stuffed nose and throat. Brilliant! My area isn't affected very much but I feel with those people living in the badly damaged areas close by. Kinda crazy to think that yesterday my family and I were sitting outside idly eating dinner, whilst only 50 kilometers (about 30 miles) from here people are fighting for their houses and lifes! I'd love to help, but right now it's just not possible for me. Also it's getting more and more and dangerous so people are leaving and the military is taking over now. Prayers for the people are greatly appreciated! 

Because I couldn't just sit around all day, pittying myself for not being fit and ready to help, I tried to find something to keep me busy. Whenever I need distration I like to daydream ... mainly about the future. That Is why I pulled out My cool Campervan. It's my rainy-days joker! 

Going on a trip through all of Europe with a campervan or caravan is defintily on my life-long bucket list. Or maybe drive down the Westcoast from Seatlle all the to San Diego. Oh the travel bug ... 

Since I love this book so much I wanted to share some of my favorite pages with you. Jane Field-Lewis and Chris Haddan write great books and leave alone the photos are an inspiration for everyone who likes colors and crafting.

Aren't these campervans just the most darling thing you've ever seen? They are so retro - You could jump in and travel back in time to see Woodstock with these! I've always had a weakness for cute looking cars but I'm seriously over the moon for these. 

After I graduate from High School I'm planning on taking a year off... It's completely crazy but I love the idea of doing my europe trip before I get too old for it. I think once you've gotten used the comforts of an apartment and having a steady income it's hard to let go and just take off. Obviously this is pure daydreaming ... but who knows what will come?

This is my very favorite photos from the book. VW busses aren't just cars - they're a lifestyle! What would I give for a beauty like this one? 

Dreaming about a life on the road gets me excited! I have no idea whether I'm made for it or not but it feels so good to look forward to a future with this as a possibility. The world is ours kids! Let's conquer it!

Lots of Love, Tabea ♥ 

QUOTE WALL ART

Hey Sweetiepies! Summertime finaly arrived around here now. Temperatures in the 70s and sunshine non-stop!  Wohoo! So today, because the sun was shining so nicely into my room I thought I'd share some of my inspirational wall art with you. 

I've talked about my obssesion with Pinterest as well as my love for poetry. These posters and prints are basically the cross between those two, short quotes in an artsy packaging. The get the certificate 'super-duper-totally-rad'! I oftentimes catch myself browsing Pinterest's quote section way too long. It's an instant motivation / inspiration cocktail! I don't pin very much of it, because I almost always get overwhelmed and just glide into that stage where you stare at the screen and after a while all the little pictures start dancing. Usually that happens late at night. Other people buy loads of stuff at 3am - I pin words of wisdom. It's all good. 

The poster / painting above though is completely handmade by me though and yepp, I'm kinda proud of it. 

I like to say that I have the happiest nightstand in town. And the most crafty one - I painted both paintings, made the little flower box and obviously my journal. I'm into colors and pink clouds, if you didn't know.

To the poster: I made this because at the time I felt like I needed a bit more of a positive vibe in my daily life. Choosing your attitude is the most important decision you have to make on a daily basis. Choosing and writing those words, I hoped that one day I myself and others could see me this way. Also I like that there is no 'no' or 'don't' on there - I strongly belief in the power of 'yes' (YES MAN FANS UNITE!). It's a little reminder for me now. When I wake up, I can choose to be a person just like this. Positive, thankful, light-hearted and all the other good things. 

Talking about sayings I also wanted to show you another wall art thingy... this time Pinterest hit - big time.

I tried to come up with a cheap way to display some art in my room, without spending like 10 bucks on a single picture frame. I saw this washi tape technique on Pinterest and immediately loved it. It's super simple and can easily be changed up whenever I feel like it. I gathered a few of my favorite quotes and art pins and went for it. It was a one-afternoon project and really fun. The 'I love you deerly' - one is just too charming, isn't it? Yes I love deer, yes I miss seeing them on my way home, yes Minnesota is awesome for deer fans like me! The one with the girl is slightly creepy, but I thinks that's why I like it. Oh and my mom told me it sorta looks like me. Thanks mom, kinda creepy, kinda beautiful - excatly what I'm going for! Haha! 

My favorite is the MORE one. So cool! Ultimate summer advise, isn't it? 

Getting stuck on Pinterest at 3am is probably not the best way to spent your night, but sometimes there's really some great wisdom out there. 

I already took on the advise and went for MORE ...

More sunsets! Uuuh! Pink clouds are for real - summer IS the best! By the way this picture was taken from my friend's car and even though we'd only been in there for like 5 minutes, it felt like a roadtrip!

Get Inspired! 
Lots of Love, Tabea ♥

POETRY JOURNAL + ANTHOLOGY

Did you know you cannot mix the colors hot pink and magenta? With some thinking I probably would have remembered the latter one. But I wasn't aware of the fact that it's impossible to whip up a nice hot pink by yourself. You need pigments for that and blaaah... - I'm guessing the people at Menard's can tell you all about that. I was kinda bummed though. So bummed that I had to run outside and cry over my mom's peonies... Not really. But I did ran outside 'cause I saw how pretty they are blooming right now.

So let's get to the point here. I went to fight round number two with this littler bugger of a journal... It gave its everything - I had to work with a KNIFE to get the sand/glitter mixture and paint off again.. Second kind of glue on my black list - wood glue. Don't even ask why I used that stuff...

While murdering this poor little thing, I mused about what to do with it after I would have revived it. Mmh .. looking around .. uuh what is that over there on the shelf? Ahhh! My poetry anthology from last year! 

I always loved poetry in this weird way. I'm the most impatient person, but when I really take the time to read a poem it's so deep somehow. For me poetry is the most elegant writing style of them all - I have a passion for word groups and short sentences. A sentence like 'And then the rain started pouring' just gets my imagination. Weird example, kinda depressing - sorry, I'm a happy person, believe me!

I used to write poetry myself when I was about 14 or so. Then last year we actually got this anthology as an assignment. We had to write and collect poetry and present it in a way that would represent our feelings towards poetry. Love this assignment! I actually took it to Chicago with me, when we went there shortly before this was due to be handed in. Somehow special to work on a small piece of art that is so close to
your heart in such a huge city.

Well I love to share my beloved things with you, so here without further ado - my poetry anthology of 2012.

Don't you love the Cat Stevens Poem, too? I learned so much during those weeks of working on this. Poetry can have so many forms. There are literally no limits! Poetry can be anything from random funny words to deep thoughts put into just the right words. The most beuatiful thing about it is that everyone can do it. Talent or not - everyone owns paper, a pencil and a head. 

You might have already seen my Summer-List, so you know that I'm hoping to write some poetry again this year. Just for me. To have a nice place to put it, I created the journal I was talking in the beginning of this post.

It's not quite this bright pink in reality (hehe Photoshop .. my partner in crime..) but still a very lovely shade of pink. It's got bumps from the cutting and I wasn't very careful with the paint. My bad. I just got too excited about the glitter, I guess. Hot pink glitter - I almost fell over when I came across it. 

If anyone wonders how I did it. Basically 4 easy steps: Paint the journal - Drizzle the glitter over the wet paint - Let dry and seal with ModPodge (or something similar) - Stick the (fake) polaroid on it. Now you're a boss at journal-making! 

Okay one more message - in case I didn't mention it earlier on.

Be cool and try your hands on writing poetry - you'll be surprised by the results!

Lots of Love, Tabea ♥

HOORAY! SUMMER TO-DO LIST

He's heeeeere! Summertime, Summertime, Summertime! Who's excited? I'm excited! Wohoo. First of July is sort a magic date for me. In terms of seasons I think in a very strict 3-month-equal-one-season rhythm. Remember the posters in elementary school, theachers used to teach you about the four seasons? With dandelions for March, April and May. And green trees for June, July and August and so on? I guess that stuck with me. 

Summer is my favorite season. Vacation, my birthday in August and lots of good food (talk BBQs, fresh fruit, ice-cream ...). I'm a list-type of person. So here's my list for this summer - version number one. I got a about two hundred more things to do and try over the next weeks. High times!

Now I want an award for this pepp-talk - who can stay this positive when June 1st looked like this all the way? ...

Nooops, let's just stay positive and a little tiny bit ironic. We'll find a way out of this grayness. Even if that means shamelessly editing photos, pushing the saturation to its limits!

I honestly don't know why this is, but I literally start every spring/fall/summer list off with GO CAMPING! Somehow I always miss every opportunity to do it though. Well, I'm still positive there will be a night in a tent coming up this time! Because warm summer-nights are perfect for that! 

I really want to start a summer journal to collect all the little bits and bobs, I find along the way. Flyers, letters, photos, maybe some dried flowers. Summer is great to make memories. Swimming and bikinis - no brainer, no? I already talked about the deliciouness that awaits all of us soon. I'm over the moon for homemade Ice-cream!

I'll share about the poetry-one soon - stay tuned for that! As a former exchange students I'm infected with the travel-virus. So roadtrips with flea-markets and festivals as my destination get me all excited! 

Okay the photo above might have been a bit of an exagguration - it didn't rain all day in Berlin. I mean there was a lack of sun - but people were still spreading the vibes of a new, colorful season. Pink chairs are almost as good as ice-cream! Love!

Have a great summer everyone!

Lots of Love, Tabea ♥

P.S. No, neither did I move to Berlin spontaneously, nor did I ran along a window-front to take the rainy picture. I visited our capitol city with one my best friends yesterday and snapped that pink chair picture nearby a substay station in Steglitz. The other picture was taken while we were on the train back home, looking out of the window. Just to clarify things, hehe!

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 ♥

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 ♥

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 ♥