Fall's beginning & a give away to love

Good morning :)

Happy Friday and best of wishes for a delightful October! 

Fall is here for good....time for cocooning, hot cups of tea, cuddling on the couch covered in soft blankets, reading favorite books and magazines...

Fall calls for spending more time inwards, which in its turn calls for making our spaces warm and cozy. 

Perhaps we want to redecorate a bit, without necessarily spending big ammounts of money.

Choosing a couple of new pictures to add warmth and give character to our walls

is a nice way to start.

And today there's a shop I love to be introducing you to, with the loveliest of oweners and super talented photographers, who sees the world through tender eyes and mostly pastel tones.

Dear friends, please meet Natalie French from the little town of Porthcawl 

in the South coast of Wales.

A mother of two lovely girls, whose eyes have recenlty opened wide,

 while seeing the world through the lens.

 She has a newly opened Etsy shop, where she sells some of her delightful photographs.

In the collage above I 've chosen my absolutely favorite ones,

the one on the top left, marking Natalie's birthday this past week

and the one on the bottom right,

these absolutely amazing pastel coloured chalks,

having made it to Explore's Front Page!

Congratulations and Happy Birthday dearest Natalie!

I'm particularly happy to be hosting her here, as we have organised a little give away for you.

The idea was set a week ago, when Natalie commented on the Lovely give away Heather and I had then put together on Gathering Spriggs.

She was kind enough to leave a comment in order to win one of my shop's prints.

Speaking of which, this afternoon around 5p.m central European time, the winner will be announced.

Since a give away is ending today we are celebrating that with holding a new give away here!

What do you have to do to enter?

1 ~> Visit Natalie's shop here,

2~> have a wonderful time looking at her gorgeous, soul soothing pictures

 much like the ones below,

try hard to choose only one and

3~> come here in this post stating which one it is,

while writing the email address where you may be reached.

The give away will be running for a week.

So starting today until next Friday 8th of October, 24:00 p.m

you may be entering.

Natalie and I are wishing you all the luck!

...and are leaving you with a couple of more beautiful picturesfrom her shop,

soft like a cloud.

Natalie will be happy to see you on her marvelous flickr photostream here

and in her newly launched blog here

and I 'll be happily seeing you here quite soon, as soon as this afternoon actually,

when I 'll come to announce who has won one of my shop's prints and card & envelope set.

A wonderful day to you all,

Love,

Ivy ~ xx

Capturing moments ~ picturing emotions

A week of lessons...

This is what it has been

and like all school subjects

it had its easy, difficult,

enjoying, rewarding 

and more hard to deal with

 parts.

So, Monday to Friday, 

capturing moments,

picturing feelings,

through the natural flow of life

Here we are:

Monday ~  feeling fresh & energised from a relaxing weekend

 ~ ~ ~

grateful for warm sunny weather, 

so unusual for the country I'm currently living in,

I'm grouping together some of my favorite cloud shots

and get them prerared to be listed in the shop

Still not publicly listed at the moment...

will inform you when they are

                               

~ ~ ~

Teusday ~ a need to look inside arises

               

~ ~ ~

   

  must have been the rainy weather

  

 ~ ~ ~

    which was welcome as a pleasant change

                                     ~ ~ ~

                          soon love was in the air, 

                          much like a floating balloon

It's Wednesday ~ my lovely flickr partner and I 

are in a romantic mood and 

we are putting together a diptych,

 making an ode to being a woman

                                           

    ~ ~ ~

In the same mood, I'm remembering the warmth felt 

when walking in the cobbled streets of Limburg 

with my mother just a few days ago

                           ~ ~ ~

Thursday ~ a bright, happy morning, 

as the first part of the blog post

 I had prepared for Ikea Family Live went on air

....such a wonderful feeling 

to be cooperating on a creative level

 - even just on line - 

with the company I adore 

                  ~ ~ ~

and later lightening strikes, 

as in life happy occasions and sad ones

sometimes go hand in hand,

with sudden negative feelings and emotions having to be dealt...

....looking for keys,

 I reminded myself that all answers lie inside us 

and put together a collage 

with work of incredible talented flickr contacts & friends.

 (For direct links to their websites please click here)

                                               

                             ~ ~ ~

Friday ~ having felt extremely vulnerable,

the notion of building fences around us

 to protect ourselves comes prevailing in my thoughts

and then I realise that so long as I love,

 I'm protected,

 but this doesn't mean that I'll never hurt, 

as I'm only as imperfectly human as us all

and decide to let go of all pain 

that might have been caused

                                    ~ ~ ~

Eventually, I wrap my arms around myself 

and give me a tight, caring, loving hug, 

as a lovely friend suggested...

I'm happy

Why?

That's why....

                        ~ ~ ~

                                                                            

 May  you be having yourselves a mostly happy weekend, keeping in mind that happiness is a deep notion, that goes beyond simply celebrating and much deeper down inside to the depths of our existencies. Being alive and so blessed as most of us are, who have the luxury of reading or writing similar lines, IS happiness.

P.S: by clicking on the ~~~ under every picture, you are taken to each corresponding one in flickr, where  words, opinions, feeback, support and often much love is exchanged.

Sweet partnerships...and other ramblings...

live on flickr

Hello dear all on a sunny Wednesday morning :)

For those of you who don't know, I'm having a very special visitor since this Sunday morning - my mother - and am finding myself in an almost full vacation mode, despite being at home in Germany! (And hopefully this is enough of a good explanation for why this scheduled for Monday post is taking place today)

It is her first visit here since I relocated in this country some two years ago, in order to live together with my German partner.

So, we are spending lovely times driving around neighboring cities like Mainz & Wiesbaden so far, taking pictures, while also walking around the neighborhood and spending nice mother - daughter times @home. In another post I'll introduce her to you more detailed and we'd like to prepare a special post for you together.

But enough with the prologue, time to introduce you to the lovely person I promised to do in a recent, previous post, the lovely, young and talented girl with whom a collaboration has started since a month.

Smaranda Kee and I are putting together on a weekly basis a diptych according to a theme we've chosen.

Below is a mosaic I had put together some weeks ago in order to sum only but a few of my very favorite pictures of hers!

live on flickr

Not only she's extremely naturally beautiful, she's also a very sweet, kind and down to earth person, as much as excelling in her architectural studies and being a very inspiring and talented photographer among other things!

You'll find more of her delightful pictures and view on life here.

To go back to our collaboration, the diptych presented at the opening of this post is the last one we made this week and it 

 represents the theme of "the senses: taste".

As love is said to be both the sugar and salt of life, sweet heart-shaped cookies (by Kee) and salty snacks bitten forming a heart are put together (by me), both photographed under the sunlight.

I'll go on introducing you to the diptychs we put together, going back gradually back in time.

Below are our domestic stories, or else captures of the most common of activities in everyday life, such as hanging the laundry and being in the kitchen.

On the left, Kee's contribution and on the right is mine.

live on flickr

and here is our second actually collaboration based on a theme and activity we both love to do - and who doesn't? - travelling!

At the same time we wanted to engage into the subject with a vintage mood and therefore old, leather suitcases came into the scene!

live on flickr

And last but definitely not least, here's our first collaboration ever, which was the most fun to put together and probably the most successful also, in terms of responses in flickr, where we usually post.

Our theme: Alice in Wonderland....and vintage watches belonging to Kee's grandparents came out of the drawers to be photographed in delicate, romantic porcelain teacup & saucers sets, while I was being photographed by my partner (also like crazy into photography) playing Alice in the castle near our home.

live on flickr

To end this post which took us back in time step by step, let me post here my favorite of the series of pictures my life partner and I made that day, this one representing the entering into a different dimension:

live on flickr

All the pictures are also linked to flickr, where they are originally posted, as there is where the action happens, meaning friends, contacts and other people, entering a conversation or simply leaving some constructive feedback on what they see.

I'll be seeing you quite soon with many more new posts on various issues, from life matters, to pictures and news about the shop, to new columns gradually getting added to the body of this blog. Still making no precise promises about when, as together with on line presence, real life happens, sometimes requesting alterations in schedules!

Have yourselves a lovely Wednesday! Enjoy life's journey day by day and if possible minute by minute.

All the love and wishes for all things best,

Ivy ~  xx