Inspiration Lookbook: Natural Beauty

I have been feeling super inspired lately.

It's probably all the wood grain in this new house,

or maybe it's the hot summer heat,

but I am craving everything earth tone and brass with lots of pops of color!

(source - SF Girl by Bay)

Here is an up close of a little DIY I am working on!

Give me more brass!!!!!

This is one of the little bookshelf nooks in the new house. 

(Source - Little Green Notebook)

Look at all the wood, turquoise, and brass!!!

This makes me want to paint something.

My great grandmothers oil painting has become a color pallet of sorts.

(Source - Pocket Tiger/Etsy)

I just adore this print from Pocket Tiger!

Too bad it's sold out!

You know how I told you there was wood grain all around me?

This is my beautiful ceiling!

Stop and take a look around you.

Be inspired by the things you love.

It's so simple to look at things like famous people in magazines 

for inspiration on things like hair color.

But why not draw your inspiration from your own life.

Be what you love and love who you are.

Random Acts of Gratitude

I have been talking about this project for some time now.  Trying to get feed back from those near and dear to me.  Sometimes I think that there is a fine line between creativity and insanity.  So I must pause to thanks those that talk me off the crazy person ledge sometimes and give me the feed back I need to be creative and inspirational.

Over the past few months I have come to notice just how inconsiderate people can be sometimes.  I gets my blood boiling thinking about how little regard people really have for one and other these days.  I think about my great grandmother who would talk to anyone.  In line and the store she would strike up conversations, she made friends with waitresses at restaurants, and she would often remind passers by to smile.  These days I am seeing the beauty of interaction with strangers in a whole new light.  Through my child, the chatter box.  This kid.  My boy says "Hello!" to everyone he passes.  Almost completely without exception.  He's a good kid.  A kind hearted boy.  He's silly too.  

All of these things combined with his love of putting stickers in creative places made me think of an idea.  He and I would create little "Acts of Gratitude".  Notes, do dads, found objects with a message, simple notes.  Then like ninja's we would randomly place them where every we went.

Today we launched our first two.  

The first one we left tucked on a shelf at Wal-Mart.

The epicenter of where people need to be reminded of how to treat each other.

This little wedge of rubber lemon reads:

"Hey You! Pick Me!

Put a Smile on your face, and pass it on!"

The second one we left on the window sill at Howley's.

It seemed like the perfect little spot, 

camouflaged among all the magazines and fliers.

It reads:

"A gift for you! yes...you!

Life is too sweet to let the sour stuff get in the way."

I have left the Turquoise Violets 

web address on the back to see if anyone responds.

I really think that it would amazing 

(and restore a little of my hope for humanity)

if someone contacted the blog saying that they found one of these

Random Acts of Gratitude.

Be on the look out!

Be Grateful

& 

Inspire

Thankful Thursday...er Friday

(source)

After coming off of my funk from missing my best friend and NYC combined with the punch in the gut news that I received in the middle of the week, I am starting today with a new foot forward.  This week I have spent a lot of time reflecting and my mind keeps wandering back to one simple notion.

 Ego vs Gratitude vs Society.

If there was ever a microcosm of todays society that lived and breathed and sustained it would be New York City.  The amount of 'daily lives' that buzz around that city are unreal, yet there was an underwhelming sense of gratitude and human connection being shown.  As a matter of fact I was laughed at by my best friend and her husband about how kind and happy I was towards the locals.  Truly, it's just second nature to me now.  You treat people kind and fair.  You give that stranger an extra second to say hello.  An excuse me on the subway can prevent ruining someones train ride.  A gentle touch and warm glance can provide that much needed human connection.  Celebrating someone for just being can be one of the most rewarding gestures.  Now I must side note here....I don't want you guys to think that I am some sort of freak who went around the city with a cheesy smile pasted on my face, touching every stranger, and making small talk with every passer by...they have a special name for people like that...it's called crazy.  Instead I just continued my daily practice of showing people that 'I cared' in a place where no shits are given about the person next to you.

All of this thinking about a lack of human connection and perception of down right anger makes me think.  What causes people who are by nature supposed to be happy, to be so unhappy?  I have gone back and forth on this weighing out the possibilities of 'why', and it really boils down to one thing.  Ego.  We are trapped in a reality where people have a tendency to believe that their problem are the most important. Their shit stinks more than your shit.  They have had a harder day. And here's where the Ego really kicks in.....NONE of this is their fault.  The professional Ego centric maniac has no problem passing all of that blame of their own hardships right onto someone else's plate.  Anyone else's to be frank.  Where does all of this lead us?  In my opinion, downfall.  I truly believe that living an Ego centric life is the downfall of society.  And you can scale that 'society' on many different levels, it could be a family society, work, community, city, country, ect. In short if you live on the top of your ivory tower thinking that the reason that you shit stinks is due to everyone around you, at some point everyone is going to get tired of smelling your shit and move on.

The moral of this increasingly long winded story is this.  If you choose to be Ego centric that is your prerogative but know this, you are choosing a life of solitude and your microcosm of society will crumble around your shity smelling pedestal.  If you decide that that life stinks then you must remove your head out of your own ass and choose to live a life of gratitude.  I choose that life. 

Reconnect with the human connection.  Be grateful and Inspire.