Weekend Thought

Hello Lovelies,

 

image by Kim Carney, via her blog

Think a happy thought today, it's the weekend! Will see you on Monday for a new round of drawings,

XO,

Alix of TeaButterfly.

However Vast the Darkness: Thoughts on Simplifying One's Day & the Meaning of Life

Hello Lovelies,

One of my main goals in simplifying my day & life is this: "Do more of what makes you happy".

So... I have started to simplify my day and joined the June 2013 ZenHabits challenge. Part of my simplifying project consists in simplifying my online life, too.

I started emptying my email inbox, 35 emails at a time, 70 per day. My inbox currently has over 11 000 unsorted emails in it! I file away the important messages, answer immediately the really important and urgent ones, and toss the rest. I have subscribed to a gazillion newsletters over the years, as I surf the net daily since 1997... I unsuscribe from one newsletter a day. I still need to do the math as to know when exactly my inbox will be finally 100% clean & empty.

After that, I plan to go on a light media fast once i complete the June challenge, at the beginning of July 2013 (more on that later).

Simplifying my online life means that I started to clean and empty my email box, as I said before, but also cleaned my computer desktop icons - now I only have 10 of them, along with a new beautiful abstract painting desktop wallpaper from Ghostly, found via apartmenttherapy.com. It looks like this (you right-click the image in order to save it as a desktop wallpaper):

I also organized my many, many digital files, all the photos I have been taking digitally since 2003! While cleaning my photo files, I found this gem, and wanted to share the wisdom with you lovelies.

Excerpt from a Playboy interview with Stanley Kubrick:

Enjoy!
-Naomi of TeaButterfly.

"Ghosts": My very Own "Happiness Project" [personal photography project]

Hello Lovelies!

When illness imprisons you, you have to break free!

IMPORTANT NOTE: All pictures were taken by me, Naomi Lipson, during May 2013, in the park of the hospital I was staying in at the time. All rights reserved. Please ask for permission before using. thank you.

I think and read a lot about happiness, and I am pretty sure I am not alone in this. Two regular reads of mine on the Happiness subject are:

* Gretchen Rubin's famous Happiness Project
* Maria Popova's Brain Pickings blog, which deals quite a lot with the issue of happiness, too.

I am forever indebted to the lovely Jane Flanagan, who, through her delightful blog, made me aware of the ideas goldmine that is the Brain pickings website.

About my own "Happiness Project" - and what it has to do with ghosts.

First of all, you might be aware that I suffer from a chronic kind of illness, which means I have to check into a hospital, from time to time. This is a chronic illness, I have to live with it, but it is not life-threatening... Anyway...

As I am currently in a hospital, I wanted to describe through photography the long, not-so-often taken path from misery to recovery. In my initial project, I wanted to take pictures of a patient whose face I found particularly interesting, but after a few days of reflection, he shied away altogether from the project. He looked a bit like this:

photo (c) Naomi Lipson, 1999-2000.

So what I did is take pictures anyway, of all the places I wanted to take *his* photograph in, except he will be no longer there, except as a ghostly presence.

These are the photographs I came up with...

At first, you are behind the bars of illness and misery, you are a prisoner of depression (or any other illness). Can you see the unhappy ghost behind those rusty bars?

Then, through a more or less intricate labyrinth or maze (which symbolizes any kind of path, like undertaking therapy, you are chosing to get yourself out of misery), you  try to set yourself free:

On the long, complicated journey from misery to happiness, you might find different landscapes, open gates that symbolize opportunity, such as this one:

Sometimes, on this long and difficult journey, you may need some rest and will sit down on these scattered rocks:

I guess you get the picture now...

More photos available at my flickr photo set called: "The Ghost Project".

Naomi of TeaButterfly.

Sometimes I'm Happy

Hello Lovelies!

calligraphy and photo, my own.

I've been busy IRL, so didn't blog much. I did leave you with a special treat, tough, and I hope you liked it!

I have collected (who said "hoarded"?) quite a few visual typographical inspiration on pinterest, as you can see here on my "Type Love" pinboard. I love, love , love inspirational quotes written or printed in a nice type! And since lately I have been listening a lot to Phineas Newborn Jr. (a genius! I must say) version of the popular song, "Sometimes I'm Happy", I have been playing around with the idea of a printed calligraphic poster, saying just this:  

Oh! SOMETIMES I'M happy

calligraphy and photo, my own.

Included in this post are two versions of my first attempts with this calligraphy. What do you think?


With much warmth,

-Vic from TeaButterfly.

Happy Monday!

Hello Lovelies!

source: 1. Anémone..., 2. don't worry, 3. - Katharine Hepburn

I wish you all a Happy Monday!

Above is a mosaic made out of three of my recent flickr faves, and it's all about happiness and living the happy life (as an independent artist and otherwise).

Please do check the original photographs through the links provided above, they are really worth it!

I'm happy with my new oil painting, I'll provide more photos of it soon and when dry, it will be available in my shop. How happy is that?

Let's talk soon,
-Vic from TeaButterfly.

Oh, and Happy, Happy Friday!

Print above by Sarah Marshall at Etsy - via the design+sponge blog

Hello Lovelies!

After working hard this past week, at my day-job that is, I am now enjoying the sun, a friend's swimming pool and happy French appetizers! July is among us and a fierce wind is blowing here in the South of France.


Have a sparkling lil weekend, my dears!


-Vic from TeaButterfly.

 

In the Mood for Green!

Hello !

Below is my Monday Moodboard, especially made for this bright and sunny day here in France, Europe!

Please note that all three images come from my flickr favorites and that I highly recommend that you click on the links to see the original photographs, as they are stunning!

1. Anahata Chakra - 1 di 2, 2. Green kyanite briolette earrings with oxidized dotted circles and 14k goldfill, 3. *Grow*

Have a nice week!
-Vic