A Weekend Challenge

I realize it's Sunday, not Saturday, but I do things on my own time.

Great things about 2 blog friends:

Lately, Lauren from Seventeenth & Irving has been really inspring to me!  I loved this helpful and honest post that she wrote about conquering your closet.  

Along the same lines, I'm currently reading The Happiness Project which Joy and M.J. both raved about.  I'm excited about conquering my closet and clutter, and applying helpful, practical pieces of advice to my daily life that will make me and other around me a little bit happier.  Today, K.C. and I tweeted about working on our own Happiness Projects.  Hopefully we can make them happen and can hold each other accountable! 

Do something nice for a stranger.

Today I'm going to go onto Tripadvisor and airbnb and write positive review of hotels and apartments I've stayed in and loved over the past year:

• Tamarind Beach Hotel - Canouan, St. Vincent & The Grenadines
• Rosalie Bay - Dominica
• Beautiful apartment in Trastevere - Rome, Italy
• La Tonnarella - Sorrento, Italy

I should have done this a while ago because all of these places were really, really wonderful! 

One of my best qualities:

Probably my eternal optimism.  I always tend to look on the bright side, and Katie recently told me that I "love to give pep talks." I hadn't realized that I did that, but I guess I do. Need a pep talk? Apparently, I'm your girl!  

I'm thankful for...

My health, my family, and the chance to travel. Seriously, I am so lucky and so thankful for all of these things!

The highlight of my week: 

Traveling to Guyana with Charlie to visit my sister!

Last Sunday in Guayna, I visited the most incredible waterfall that I have ever laid eyes on: Kaiteur Falls.  It was seriously so unreal!  Kaieteur Falls is 741 feet tall and is the largest single drop waterfall in the world.  Kaieteur Falls is about three times higher than the Niagara Falls and about two times the height of the Victoria Falls in Africa.  Impressive, no?!?

{golden frog}

We also saw a tiny Golden Frog (the size of a fingernail!), which only lives in the bromeliads by Kaieteur.  Isn't that crazy?  The Golden Frog doesn't live anywhere else in the world.  So, so cool!

Also, in case you were wondering...

Thanks to Paige for creating this fun link-up.  I've been in a blogging funk lately - I haven't felt like sitting down and writing, and have been much more excited about getting out and doing things.  So thanks for giving me a few prompts to help me put together this post!

I hope you're all enjoying the weekend!

Fonts used (in order of appearance):
NeoRetroDraw
NeoRetroFill
Stefffont
Vibur
Amatic SC
Two Stick

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Living with Less

This is one of the greatest lessons I have learned from living in Dominica.  Although I have experiences daily that remind me of this, there is one image that really stands out in my mind and illustrates this point:

One afternoon Charlie and I were going on a hike to one of many amazing spots on the island.  On the trail, we passed a small shack, not much larger than a simple garden shed.  The door to the shack was open and you could see inside: just a heap of clothes, a pile of plantains, and some pieces of old cardboard covered the dirt floor.  The shack itself was constructed of pieces of scrap  metal.  

Outside of the shack were three little girls, skipping, singing, and playing happily. Their tiny shack boasted an amazing view of the mountains and sea below and beyond.  Next to the house were two handmade tire swings hanging from a tree.  One of the little girls was busy playing on the ground with a dirty, headless Barbie doll.  As we walked by, they excitedly showed us their swings and the doll.  Their father was outside working beside a large fire in the heat of the day where he was drying out enormous pieces of bark from a nearby cinnamon tree on a piece of scrap metal.  The girls and their father happily wished us well with their toothy grins and pointed us towards the direction of our destination.  

They did not have much, but I have never seen happier children. 

Font used: Outasight
Quotation from Mark and Angel Hack Life.
Images by Clare Wilkinson for C Squared W.

Be Good

I was reflecting on my Things I'm Afraid to Tell You post from last week and I just kept thinking about how wonderful both my real life community and the blogging community are.  I couldn't believe how many kind words I received after my post!  I mean, you gave me so many kind, reassuring words.  It was amazing.  Y'all are so wonderful, thank you!

I found this line from a one of John Steinbeck's works and it reminded me so much of what I talked about last week.  I loved the message, which I took to be, stop worrying about being perfect and just try your best to be good.  So I decided to make it into something pretty, because I've enjoyed doing that lately. 

Feel free to pin the image above or download your own 9" x 9" printable of the above quote as a reminder that it's okay not to be perfect.

Could you tell that I used my Colors of Sorrento palette for the colors?  I love them, they're so soothing and beachy!

Fonts used:

AW Conqueror Light

Meddon

Playfair Display

Quotation from John Steinbeck's East of Eden.

Image by Clare Wilkinson for C Squared W.  Feel free to share, but please give credit and link back to my site.

Art to Inspiration: Jill Ricci

I absolutely loved the Art to Inspiration piece this month, and am thrilled to have discovered a new, favorite artist, Jill Ricci.  

I love all the color and pattern within her work, and really enjoyed visiting her website and checking out her other pieces.  I found Ricci's explanation of her work to be so inspiring:

One of the most arresting visuals for me is an old wall layered with papers, graffiti and text - our modern hieroglyphics. I try to re-create this beauty in my work, the layers of time and decay are what interest me. I hope that the person viewing my work will linger, trying to discover hidden imagery and text and depending on their life experience, find their own meaning or interpretation.

I also love the layered and mixed media elements of her work, as they provide such interesting depth to her pieces such as Float, pictured below.  

If you're interested in the project learn more about Art to Inspiration and join the fun! 

 

TREATS
Fonts used: Megrim, Haiku's Script
Arrow Brushes from Creature Comforts

Art: Float by Jill Ricci
Other images by Clare Wilkinson for C Squared W.

A verified source for the quotation above is unknown. (It is often attributed to Anaïs Nin without a cited source, and is also sometimes attributed to the Jewish Talmud, without any cited version or passage.)