CRAFTS, BAKING & COZY HOBBIES FOR A CREATIVE HOME

I have another fun, side project. It's  The Daily Danbo! Follow Danbo's adventures, travels and moods for a year.

Having a quiet, rainy Sunday. I'm collecting all tranquil thoughts for a stress free new week. Hope you're enjoying the weekend!

Christmas ornaments escape from the tropical heat to enjoy  a winter wonderland inside the freezer. Hot cocoa optional. ;)


Santa thinks a little zipline adventure is more exciting than hanging from a Christmas tree. Let's zip away to Christmas Day!

Photo credit: ***mog*** on Flickr

• Plasticknuckles on Tumblr
• ***Mog*** on Flickr
• Haco on Flickr
• Days with pen

• DIY camera cases,  covers and straps from Tipnut
• Photography DIY video tutorials (in Japanese) from Olympus Pen Lite
• How to give your photos a cool, retro analog look ( thanks Kata for the link)
• Build a Dirkon Paper Camera 

• Pixlr
• Picmonkey

Nourish

Contemplate

Balance

Transform

“We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day.”

-Edith Lovejoy Pierce

 Thank God for New Year. We can always start afresh. Happy 2012!

No matter how carefully you stored the lights last year, they will be snarled again this Christmas.  ~Robert Kirby

Images from Christopher Boffoli

For once, I want to become a miniature figurine to gain a  cute, playful point of view.  It must be so exciting to go scuba diving in a cup of Earl Grey Tea!

Live up your food fantasy with photographer Christopher Boffoli's miniature food play series. Check out the delightful gallery here.

Make it a fun day!

No need for a fancy desk. I think the best creative space is made of green carpet grass and endless blue sky ceiling.

Thank you to all who participated in my birthday giveaway. I will be drawing the name of the winner tonight.

Click to enlarge and download 1028 x 760 wallpaper

I like brewing sun tea and enjoying a soul recharging sunshine bath early in the morning. I just love how the world glimmers in early morning sunlight. Blades of grass sparkle in scintillating bokehs as the sun kisses a new day. Happiness is really seeing the world awash in color.

As I chased sparkling bokehs around the garden, I  found myself mesmerized by a bubble pink hibiscus. I imagined a flurry of  butterflies getting intoxicated by its  pink lemonade nectar. Truly a natural thing of beauty that merited a photo-op.

Camera in hand,  I pursued a sharp macro rendition of the pink hibiscus. I am obsessed with ultra sharp photos and I staunchly and often ridiculously categorize blurry,fuzzy photos as bad. However, the more I tried to achieve focal clarity, the more out of focus the image became. Spellbound by the softness of the strangely out of the focus hibiscus, I found myself drawn into its bubblepink candypop energetic frequency.  So delightful. Now that the image has completely defocused and all hard edges have blurred and dissolved into an enigmatic interplay of monochromatic pink romance,  I could literally feel the hibiscus pulsating, vibrating, radiating its sweet pink energy. I basked in the beauty of the hibiscus' essential suchness as a wave of peace enveloped me. Eckhart Tolle's quote from his book A New Earth came to mind:

Even a stone, and more easily a flower or a bird, could show you the way back to God, to the Source, to yourself. When you look at it or hold it & let it be without imposing a word of mental label on it, a sense of awe, of wonder, arises within you. Its essence silently communicates itself to you and reflects your own essence back to you.

Soon enough, I  was running around the garden, flitting like a bee from one flower to another totally agog with excitement by my newly discovered photography technique and a glimpse of a spiritual truth. This soft eyes photographic technique is deeply awakening. Much like learning to see a human aura, by softening your gaze and opening your heart you will see fairy lights twinkling on a blade of grass.


This is a little slideshow of the ethereal, auric colors seen on the humblest of garden flowers and a patch of blue sky. Enjoy!

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under the trees on a summer`s day, listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.

John Lubbock

Today is one of those rare days when everything is is bright, sunny, perfect.. it's almost unreal. Everything feels like Cloud Cuckoo Land.  So on a perfect day, the most sensible thing to do is to go cloud watching {scientific name: Nephelococcygia}!

Cloud watching is fun and cheap and if not for the tasks that are awaiting me I can go cloud watching all day until my dark brown eyes turn blue!

May your weekend be as bright and sunny as today. Happy weekend!

"Aim for the moon. If you miss, you may hit a star." W. Clement Stone

How important it is to create a rich, inner life...a sanctuary where you feel peaceful and secure. Come visit my pond.

One of my greatest joys is discovering fresh blogs that express a new way of feeling and seeing. I'm so happy to share the lovely world of Pretty Good blog, an exquisitely stunning photoblog created by Mary. I'm drawn to her beautiful, pure and crisp photos and the amazing clarity of them all. Her imaginative, short and sweet witty proses also tickle the mind and soul. (Insert long, happy sigh!)

The following images are some of my fave posts from her blog (images posted here with permission of course). Isn't it amazing how she conjures such lovely photos and words with such delicate tenderness? Visit her blog here for inspiration!

I love Tiltshiftmaker! You can create "tilt-shift miniature style photos of real life pictures that are manipulated to look like model photographs." Take a peek at these photos I've taken a few years back. With Tiltshiftmaker, they look like tiny, magical worlds!

I love waking up to the light of dawn. It is said that God's blessings come with the morning sun.


I woke up to find a single gardenia (Gardenia Jasminoides) flower blooming amidst the frangipani trees, its heady and rich romantic fragrance perfuming the warm morning air. The gardenia flower softly whispers, " I love you in secret."



Visit One Crabapple's blog about Art, Tea and Life and read about the Winged Messenger on Mission. If you like tea, why not take a tea leaf reading as well?

My tea leaf reading to contemplate on for today says:

Answers, without first embarking upon the journey, will have no resonance
Powerful creatures should try to be good.
Not everyone, however, is called to climb mountains and deliver commandments.
Be fruitful and be at peace.

Happy Friday, everyone!