The other day I had a spontaneous tea-party with my lovely friends Sharon (an amazing fine art photographer who's just finished her MA at Uni. Westminster: go look at her beautiful work here), Mary (who really needs to start a blog, addressing the topics of this post) and Michelle (who now is back in Louisville).
Our conversation entered the realm of images (Yes we live in Oxford and are therefore inherently geeky - which shows in our topics of conversation...).
Everyday we are bombarded with so many images of how our homes and our bodies should look - What clothes we should wear and how we ought to decorate our living spaces. And yes I must admit, I really enjoy looking at stunning interiors and well dressed people - taking every bit of inspiration from them that I can.
When our resources such as time, money, space are limited such inspiration can make me thrifty and creative. However, a lot of the time such images give me false aspirations of what I think my life should be like.
Let's be honest - my house is going to look lived in, there will be dust in the corners and on the bookshelves, the laundry pile will probably never completely disappear - neither will my stretchmarks and cellulite, bills will continue coming through the door and I might never be a size 10...
There will never be enough hours in one day to: make everything in the house from scratch - be an amazing creative mum - do my PhD - be a caring friend - a loving wife - have flawless make-up - have a little business selling stuff I make - and change the world - ect... (randomized order of course...*smile*)
But I can do a lot, if I don't try to do all at once and most importantly if I stop trying to shape my life after the edited and perfectly styled images that surround me.
So to sum up my rather long rant-
YES to appreciating what we have and where we are, rather than wanting to be somewhere else.
YES to seeing the heavenliness in the unedited, mundane and messy lives that we actually live in.
The challenge?
Bring out and nurture forth the beauty and potential in our surroundings, without editing away the messy and broken.
As an exercise in this, and hopefully an encouragement to you, I want to regularly post a photo from my life - no tidying, styling or editing (apart from light and contrast after the photo is taken) as a different kind of inspiration from the images we normally are bombarded with.
Here is the first one:
The table the day we talked about these things.
After having a lovely lunch with our friends Claire and Stephen I had a great evening sewing.
The vintage clothes man - Charlie - at the Thursday markets sometimes gives me a bunch of cashmere jumpers with the odd hole or two in them. So the plan has been to re-design them into babys clothes. Like I did to the yellow cardigan in this post. This Sunday a red turtleneck jumper met with the scissors and was turned into two snugly trousers for Aline.
One using the neck as a waistband:
And an other using the arms as legs:
She is rather swamped by the overalls, but I'm sure she'll grow into them soon enough.
Let autumn begin - Aline at least will be nice and snug.
Here are a few photos of things a made just before Aline was born, but that I haven't got around to posting until now.
We were told by several midwifes that we could expect a small baby - but when she came Aline was not little at all so she only got to wear the light blue dress twice and the green one once before she had outgrown them...
Let me introduce you to Darn it & Stitch.
This is officially my new favorite place in town! It makes me happy and nice inside just to even think of this lovely haberdashery and the gorgeous Jo who stands behind the counter. I'm on a (not so) secret mission to become friends with her.
So Jo - Thank you so much for opening up this adorable creative space in Oxford! It was sorely needed! I hope this adventure goes well for you!
Here are some photos from her shop:
So to all of my friends in Oxford - go visit Jo at Darn it & Stitch (on Boar Street by the Town hall), buy something fun and let's make pretty things!
Friday I was out picking Blackberries to make blackberry cupcakes for Michelle and Zack's leaving party. (So sad that they are leaving today)
I used a straight forward vanilla cupcake recipe and put three of four blackberries in each cupcake before baking them.
I decorated them with blackberry buttercream that I just mixed together without a recipe so it turn out a bit runny, but fortunately it was very tasty.
Next time I'll have to use a little less blackberries in the icing I think - or maybe it will help if I cool the icing down to thicken the butter before spreading it on.I'll be trying it again so I'll let you know how my experimenting in the kitchen goes.
The flowers on our coffee table made me happy after a long day of wading through thorns, spiders and stinging nettles after juicy blackberries while entertaining Aline with ooo's and aaah's.
Last week was so much fun! I had two lovely creative days - one with my friend Michelle and one with my friend Sharon and her lovely girl Anais.Michelle made a cute hairpiece, Sharon made a bow tie (no pic yet...)and I made bibs for Aline out of 70's Laura Ashley fabric given to me by Stefan's mum. Hopefully there will be many such days to come - sadly they will be without Michelle as she is leaving Oxford in a weeks time...
The bibs are double sided for more options and have a thin layer of bamboo in the middle to soak up all that dribble.
