A Longing to Return (Awhitu)

Hey - have been pottering along in  my own quiet way for months and feeling very remiss for not posting and maintaining my blog - I have missed you terribly.

Life with 3 young kids and my efforts on The Craft Dept. front over the first half of the year spread me too thinly I'm afraid. But I haven't stopped playing around and here are a few of the things I have finished so far....many more (particularly cushions and some of my first jewellery experiments) to come.

Feels good being back.

(thank you my beautiful Ella for modelling for Mum - you are very patient and wonderfully creative in your own young way, and hooray and thanks to my Mum & Dad for letting us run amock amongst the vines at their special slice of heaven - Awhitu Wines on the Awhitu Peninsula (NZ).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My own Happiness Project in the making

I am long overdue on posting here and have begun but left unfinished several posts filled with pre-Xmas and pre-New Years good intentions.

So like everyone I was hit by the busy-ness of the season but despite my best efforts I just got well and truly swamped. I have enjoyed a fairly tech-void break in the dusty dry heat of Australia. In particular I have enjoyed giving myself some time to just think about ideas for what I want to achieve in the year ahead and map out a bit of a plan for the coming months.

But its feeling like its now time to start committing this all to paper now and get started on the DOING.

My other piece of good fortune over the Christmas break was stumbling across a great book - "The Happiness Project" by Gretchen Rubin. It was part of my scatter gun random downloads onto my kindle pre-departure for the Xmas Oz holiday and it has been a revelation.

Gretchen wanted to see if it was possible to alter or improve your overall state of happiness by making small calculated changes to various parts of your life. Retrain yourself into thinking and therefore feeling happier I guess. It is really well written in that it is a simple concise easy read month by month breakdown of her own Happiness Project.

The last year of my life has seen me considering this same question. This isn't a study in depression or even about how not to feel 'unhappy'. Its about whether you can improve your current state by making some specific changes and improvements to how you conduct your life. My aim is to achieve a great sense of contentment by knowing that I am realising the most from my life and am on track to designing the best and most fulfilling future for myself that I can.

So Gretchen's "The Happiness Poject" has been amazing in that it has given me a framework to work within and some clear goals to tackle on a month by month basis.

I'm only up to April in her book but am keen to start my own "Happiness Project" from January onwards.....I look forward to posting about this and I hope that Gretchen's ideas also provide you with some food for thought too.

I encourage you to check out her own blog www.happiness-project.com , subscribe and sign up to her twitter or facebook feed.

She comes over well read, intelligent and ordered. No crystals, reiki or lentils mentioned as yet. Just seems like a simple, smart analysis with a clear plan which appears to be easy to implement yourself.

Happy new year to you all!

xRebecca

Festive rumblings

The urge to post has been burning a big itchy hole in my brain but it'll have to be a quicky because its been a huge day - Thomas the Tank Engine Day @ Glenbrook to be specific.

Basically I've been dreaming of a range of 'bespoke woollie baubles' to grace stylish trees throughout the world. Its become a bit of an obsession. Problem is my experiments to date have been pretty useless so far and I'm finding it a bit annoying when available time is so short and Christmas charging on into my life in all ways.

So I am going to throw a bit of pressure into my creative experimentations to see if it won't help cough up some inspired outcomes.

I hereby declare the 2012 Smith Family Christmas Tree will be a wholey handmade affair.

It'll be a real tree from the Mangere Bridge chop your own outfit but there'll be no more $2 shop tinsel or bargain bin trinkets from the warehouse. I undertake to ensure that ALL decorations on our tree will be made by the hand of someone we know and love. Probably mostly by me with a considerable portion by the kids but it'll be a fun challenge and will ensure a festive build up like no other!

I'll post progress reports and pictures as gems evolve and will throw in some 'how to's' incase anyone cares to have a stab too.  

Here's to decking my own halls and jingling my own bespoke bells.