Spring

This peaceful saturday afternoon, my friend planted in our urban garden  the spring flowers that kids in school gifted us for 8th of March. We are three teachers in the house, so there were lots of flowers :).

Spider plant

At the begging of spring, I noticed at some point a plant growing in the pot of one of my cacti. It grew next to the window, in a spot where I couldn’t notice it till it was already quite tall. I was thinking to pull it out, but somehow I didn’t feel like doing it. My friend told me it could be a spider plant. Meanwhile, it bloomed! It has pretty white flowers. I will have to find it a new pot ( I think the cactus is not very happy to share the pot), but I will do it after the flowers are gone.

I’m so stressed and busy these days, but the quiet, early evenings in my room, watering my plants, eating chocolate, just relaxing are so nice.

 

Winter sunset

I have finally finished this embroidery I have started a while ago. I have knitted the canvas for it, from some pink and yellow ombre yarn and I have used cotton felting for some parts. It was quite easy and pleasant to embroider on this.

Here are some details and some in progress photos.

The atmosphere here is very similar to this embroidery these days.

My birthday gifts

My birthday was almost three weeks ago, but these days seems very difficult to do things just for fun, so I kept postponing taking photos of all my gifts this year. But I really wanted to have a post about my birthday haul, because I enjoy looking back at these sort of things and I always like reading about other people’s gifts, too. So, finally I post about my gifts, even if most of the photos are blurry phone pictures.

For one year already, I have a closet for my art and embroidery supplies and other such things where I had only one shelf. The rest of the closet was one huge pile of stuff, of boxes built on top of each other. I was ok with it for a while, but lately it was driving me crazy. When I needed something in a box below, I had to take out the whole pile of things and then put everything back. So, one of my birthday gifts this year was shelves for my closet. I don’t have a before photo, but this is how my closet looks like now (even with the shelves it looks kind of cluttered, but now I know where everything is and I have easy access to all my things.)

And here it is my friend Maria installing the shelves for me.

She also gave me a nice, vegan and organic hand cream (that I didn’t take a photo of) and this great black Dala horse for my collection!

And tiny succulents. 🙂

The fluorescent nail polish is from Oana, who also gave me this bunny watch that I am wearing these days.

Rodica made me this beautiful pencil wrap, were I keep my Policromos pencils. Souris likes it, too.

I also got a lot of clothes this year (from Rodica and Alina).

Oti gave me this nice notebook, with drawings of flowers inside.

I kept watching online this Edwardian bangle for a few year now. It is hallmarked for 1911 and it’s really beautiful. I bought it with birthday money from my mother. I think it belonged to the same person as my other bangle from the same period (I bought it from the same seller).

And finally, my uncle bought me these very expensive watercolors. I already started using them a bit, but I hope to find time in the second half if November to really paint with them. The colors are so beautiful and vibrant. The pocket brush was included and I was relieved to see the hairs are synthetic.

I was got chocolates from my friend at work, but those are long gone before taking a photo of them :).

 

Pinhole photos of this summer

I have finally found the time to scan these pinhole photos. I didn’t make so many of them this summer, but I am content with some of these images. There are times of change for me (my school moves to a new location) and my time seems so limited. But more than my limited time, my mental space seems crowded with all sorts of thoughts and worries. But I am hopeful, too, that change is a good thing this time.

 

Some new drawings

It’s really relaxing to me to make these drawings from time to time and just observe small scenes from our house. Also, I get to use my big collection of all sorts of colored pencils (I’m slightly obsessed with color pencils, I should make a post with all my sets, some found at the flea market and some bought new). The last set I bought have multiple colored leads, actually they have a few nuances of the same color in each pencil. I really like them and I use them a lot combined with other pencils I have. 

Cacti

Some update on my small cacti “garden”. The beautiful big white one is a new addition, a gift that left in our urban garden by an acquaintance from our neighborhood. Also, I received from my school another one that is not in such a good shape, but maybe it will get better with more light this summer. I’m kind of worried for the biggest cactus I have, that seems to be very dry, but again, I moved the pot closer to the window and I hope the light from the summer will make it better. I’ll also look for some soil enhancer for it. My vintage flower stand, that was my grandmother’s needs some repainting, but I don’t think this will happen very soon. But I don’t mind the shabby look, it goes well with all the different pots and cacti.

Drawings

I made these drawings in different periods in time these last years. I scanned them in for a school assignment and I thought to share them here, too. I hope to do some more of them this spring.

My birthday gifts

My birthday was 10 days ago, but I was so busy these days and I neglected my blog. I took a sick day today, in order to heal from a flue, that kept nagging me for some time now. So, I have found the time to take pictures of some of my birthday presents, of the hand made, vintage and second hand ones, my favorite kind of presents.

My friend Rodica made me these beautiful bags. The bigger one is from an interesting fabric that looks like paper.

She also made me the white blouse in this photo. The vintage Japanese yellow cardigan is also a gift from her, but form last year.

This beautiful fancy dress is also made by Rodica, initially for her sister who wore it for some special occasions. But her sister decided to give it to me, as I usually wear fancy dresses with cardigans and such in informal situations, too. I was very glad to receive it. 

My friend Maria gave me a ring for my figural jewelry collection. Also, she transformed for me a nineties troll doll without any hair or clothing. She made the hair out of a mineral and she created for the doll a cosmic dress :). She never liked troll dolls but I like them a lot, so she spend a good deal of time on it :). 

Also, she transformed the cover of a notebook that I used to have since a long time ago, but I didn’t want to use it as I was embarrassed by the colonialist map on its cover. This transformation deserves its own post, in details.

My favorite coworker gave me this set of geometric shapes used by teachers in the eighties. I wanted such a set for a very long time, but it is kind of expensive to buy online and I have never found it at the flea market. I was very happy to finally have them! They were produced in a factory from the town I grew up in. Another coworker gave me also a beautiful gift of a book she illustrated,  a tasty syrup and this soap she had made herself and wrapped in a doily. 

Oti found at a second hand shop this cute t-shirt. 

And the kids at school gave me these flowers that we have planted in our urban garden. 

It wasn’t only my birthday last week. Our dog Cici was born sometimes in October, this is the time frame our vet estimated. So, he put down in her id the same birthday as mine. We had celebrated together :).  

Goji

Four years ago, my friend Maria kept the seeds from a dried goji fruit that came in a bag shipped here from China and bought from a health store in a shopping mall. The seeds germinated and she planted them in the urban garden she created next to our building. The goji plant grew all these years but it never had flowers and it didn’t seem to thrive. It was just an ugly plant under our window, taking up space, but still a plant that grew out from something dry, travelling the seas to get to a shopping mall, part of a global system that usually does not let life perpetuate. So, my friend never had the heart to pull out the ugly goji plant.

This year it bloomed and this is the first berry.