living wholeheartedly | choosing to participate
- on: January 21, 2016
- By Gabi
- theme: creative living, inspiration, one little word, self care
0
Wholehearted. My one little word for this year.
It’s kinda funny how one little word can “push” you into an action, motivate you to work on goals and make you think more about stuff you are doing on everyday basis. It’s just a word, right? But yet, it can be powerful.
I went to yoga earlier this evening. It was actually my second class this week. I feel stronger, more flexible and much more relaxed and it is because I’ve decided to do something with my intentions/goals. Because I’ve decided to participate in my life.
I was incredible fortunate/lucky to meet two amazing people last year who then became my bosses more than a month ago. I’m still pinching myself every morning on my “commute” to work to make sure it’s real. I always wanted to wake up in the morning and say “I love my job” and I think now I can honestly say that.
Both of them teach me every day something new and I am also learning new things about myself. Just the other day my boss told me about Bob Proctor and showed me a video which I’ve posted below . I’ve never heard about him before and was not familiar with his work at all. But the video and the message of it totally got me. Even though the video is business focused, the main message for me was this part (you can watch it around 8:16):
Life can be phenomenal but we have to make it that way. It isn’t gonna happen by accident.
We can either be observers and watch what’s going on or we can be participants and take part of what’s going on.
Well, I don’t think I will ever become a millionaire nor that I will have my own successful business, but Bob’s message really touched my heart. I’ve been making excuses for myself long enough, why not to do the workout on a certain day, or why it’s not the best time right now to make the meal plan for the next week or to finally start reading the camera manual. I’ve finally got to the point where I want to participate in my life and not to be just an observer.
It’s time to fully participate in my own life. It’s time to live wholeheartedly.
Leave a comment...homemade lip balm
- on: November 21, 2015
- By Gabi
- theme: aromatherapy | essential oils, creative living, handmade, natural, self care
- 2
I finally did it.
After pinning a lot of recipes on my essential oils pinterest board and reading through some awesome websites, I took a leap and made my first homemade skin care product. A lip balm. Ms. K has always dry lips during the fall and winter months and because it’s getting cold outside, this was the perfect project and introduction into making homemade goodies. I found several great recipes for lip balms and at the end decided to combine them. So this is what I used:
Homemade lip balm
Ingredients:
- 1 tablespoon of organic coconut oil
- 1 tablespoon of organic beeswax pastilles
- 1 tablespoon of organic cocoa butter (shea butter can be also used)
- 1 teaspoon of sweet almond oil (different carrier oils can be used as well, such as grapeseed, avocado, olive etc)
- few drops of vitamin E (I think I did about 5)
- 5 or so drops of lavender essential oil
- Using a double boiler (two pots of different sizes), combine the coconut oil, beeswax pastilles and cocoa butter and heat up until melted.
- Once fully melted, remove from the heat and stir in the almond oil, vitamin E and essential oil of your choice. Stir the mix until everything is completely combined together.
- Pour the mix into lip balm containers of your choice (we used tins but you can use also tubes) and let it cool down. Once the balm has hardened, it’s ready to use.
This batch made 4 lip balms which we put into 0.5 oz tins. You can multiply the amount of ingredients accordingly.
Note for next time – instead of using two pots I will use pot and glass measuring cup which will be easier to pour the mix from. I used 1/2 tablespoon “cup” for pouring my mix into the tins.
The beauty of homemade stuff is that you can experiment with ingredients of your liking. I’ve noticed that a lot of people are using peppermint essential oil in their balms, but I don’t like the taste/flavour of it so I didn’t include it in ours. Katrin likes vanilla so we added a few drops of vanilla extract (regular for baking) just for the taste. Next time we will experiment with honey as well. The balms turned out well. I love the smell and taste of it and so does Katrin. Guys don’t use lip balms too often but I bet when they will need them, they will be using them as well.
It was such a fun, easy and very quick to do project. If you have any favourite homemade goodies recipes, please share.
Leave a comment...sometime in November
- on: November 18, 2015
- By Gabi
- theme: aromatherapy | essential oils, creative living, everyday life, family life
- 0
Well, hello there!
This place has been quite for a while so I think it’s time to dust the corners and make an update on what’s going on with us. To be honest, not too much is going on but at the same time a lot is going on. The last couple of weekends were pretty hectic with cyclocross races and practices but luckily the cycling season is almost over and our routine will finally slow down. I can’t wait!
I love this time of the year when it’s cold outside so we get a chance to get together at home, play board games and just relax. I know we won’t sit on our butts the whole winter but it is nice to take a break from all the programs and schedules and just enjoy some good family time.
Kids started (finally!) drinking tea which makes me so happy. We prepare our tea into a ceramic teapot (which I brought from my home country) and make this our little ritual. They really enjoy it. I bought an advent tea calendar – 24 days of tea from David’s tea and can’t wait to taste new tea flavors with them every day during December! It’s definitely a fun way how to try different teas without buying it in bulks and to discover some new favorites.
I still can’t believe that in just little bit over a month Christmas will be here! Kids have started their wish list already and I did mine as well. I signed up at Young Living Essential Oils community and ordered the Premium Starter kit. It’s arrived more than a week ago but I’m saving it for Christmas so you can bet that I’m counting the days until I will be able to open the box and try my new diffuser!
I’m new and not to essential oils. I have been using oils for several years now but mostly in my aroma lamp. Time to time I use lavender for burns, scratches or any other skin problems but that’s about it. So I’m really excited to start changing our home to less/no chemical one. I’m in a researching mode right now and trying to get as much information as possible. I already bought some rollerball bottles and plan on making my own mixes. The next on the list is a hand soap and house cleaning products which will be chemicals free. Luckily there are tons and tons of recipes online and also an amazing local group of ladies which do get-togethers and lessons. If you have any favourite recipes or tips, please don’t hesitate to share with me.
I’ve also started knitting again. It’s still a huge learning curve for me but I promised Ms. K that I will make her a cowl so I’m trying my best. And if I screw up, I know one creative expert who will save me from disaster of destroying the whole thing.
So there you go. It’s a tea time, aromatherapy and knitting kind of a day and I wouldn’t change a thing on it. I might squeeze a yoga class in there tonight as well.
Hope life is treating you well in your corner of the world.
Leave a comment...iphone photography
- on: June 20, 2015
- By Gabi
- theme: creative living, photography
- 2
Those photos above are few snapshots from this week. I love having my iPhone on hand and just capturing life on the go. It’s fast and convenient and I’m able to snap photos of things which I would normally miss because I don’t carry my big camera with me all the time.
“This week” wordart by Liz aka Paislee Press available at the-lilypad.
Happy weekend!
Leave a comment...Sunday’s thought
- on: March 29, 2015
- By Gabi
- theme: creative living, inspiration, random thoughts
- 0
Ali Edwards shares beautiful quotes on her blog every Sunday . I love reading those little reminders every week, they always make me pause for a little bit and think about my life.
If you would like to have your own copy of her handwritten quote, you can download the one above from her post here. You can also look through her Give Sunday archives for all of her previous quotes.
Happy Sunday!
Leave a comment...feeling creative | a sneak peek
- on: February 09, 2015
- By Gabi
- theme: creative living, handmade, inspiration
- 0
I mentioned on Friday in my five on friday post a handbook by amy tangerine.
It’s a long weekend over here; I had some time and felt creative today so I’ve started (and also finished my page). I have to admit that this is my first project of this type and I really loved the whole process. Stay tuned for the whole page reveal soon.
And if you decide to join me in creating a page or two as well (I know Harmony will!), please let me know in the comments as I would love to see what you come up with!
P.S. My apology for such a bad quality photo, it’s late and dark here.
Leave a comment...2 girls – 1 LO – 2 lifts
- on: July 23, 2014
- By Gabi
- theme: creative living, memory keeping
- 1
Alice and I have known each other thanks to digital scrapbooking since around 2008. We “met” at Scrapartist.com; it was one of the first stores back then which carried digital scrapbooking stuff. Alice was also a member of my Creative team when I was designing. Although we have never met in a real life (and I hope one day we will!), we share a love of being creative and crafty and miss the early days of digital scrapbooking !
As both of us don’t create as often as we used to, we decided to challenge ourselves a little bit. We picked a layout (LO) from our Pinterest boards and tried to “lift” it which means we took someone’s layout as an inspiration and used similar design, products etc. We chose an amazing page by MelBlackburn called Here and Now which both of us pinned almost at the same time. You can find the original layout at the Studio Calico website.
And here is what we came up with.
Here is Alice’s page called The New Me. I’ve always been a fan of Alice’s style, I love how she mixes brushes and patterns and her pages are always full of little details.
And here is my take on this challenge.
I have to admit that it took me forever to decide what color I will go for the background with. I started with two papers but at the end went just with the white one. I guess it means I should create more often to get back into the easiness of designing a layout.
Feel free to join us if you feel like creating! Please leave a link in the comment section so we can leave you some love.
I can’t wait to do this challenge again soon!
Products used on my page (many of them are long time retired):
– Two Sisters Designs – Alphabet soup, Beauty marks
– Emily Powers – I am free, Puddle Jumper (brackets), Blossom nation
– Karla Dudley – blog hop freebie (background paper), Digi Essentials no. 1
– Paislee Press – Presslines no. 7, Say YES to,
– Amber Clegg – Date stamps
– Alice’s brush – cross
Leave a comment...do you remember?
- on: July 05, 2014
- By Gabi
- theme: creative living, memory keeping
- 4
I barely remember the last time when I opened photoshop and created layout just because I felt like doing something creative.
Last week during our coffee date with Harmony we talked about passion and our creative minds and I told her that I haven’t been feeling creative lately at all. It’s like being in a funk and don’t know how to get out of it. We both agreed on doing some fun projects together in a future to keep the creativity flowing (stay tuned!) and to get inspired and most importantly – to get excited about the whole process of creating once again. I really needed this conversation with her, she is my dear friend and always knows how to lift my spirits. I’ve decided to explore the “almost forgotten” love of mine (memory keeping) once again and spent some time browsing pinterest this week to get my creative mojo going.
At the beginning of my “scrapping days” back in 2006, I had a few fellow scrapbookers whose work I admired so much and knew once I will be in a need for inspiration, I can browse their galleries to get some ideas for my layouts. I loved loved (and still do even though none of these ladies design or scrapbook any more) work of Two Sisters designs – Angela and Emily Powers. Their style of creativity was amazing. Their digital kits and layouts were always so fun and full of modern and eclectic elements and so many unexpected details. I took a few ideas of my favorite layouts of theirs and put together this page above called Do you remember? I dug my old stash of scrapbooking supplies and discovered so many goodies! (note to myself: dear me, please explore the archives of stash more often. You will love it!).
Well, I think after this experience, I will open the photoshop more often now.
Some of the supplies used (many of these supplies are long time retired): background paper is mine from Simple basics paper pack; Paislee Press – Chasing the Sun; Say Yes To; Two Sisters Designs – Artist canvas, Falling leaves; Emily Powers – Funky labels; Amber Clegg – stamped alpha; Emily Merritt – Painted on; Karla Dudley – Life Recorded, Digital Essentials
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