Use the coming Valentine's day to make up the balance of your relationships.

The world needs a Valentine Day

Some time ago my husband and I went to a restaurant; we were making conversation when a couple arrived and was shown to their table. Barely seated the girl started texting and this went on till their food arrived, then some conversation was started!  Her plate finished, she returned to her cell phone and her companion/friend/husband was left to himself.

Luckily there is Saint Valentine to remind us, human beings, that we live a life in community, are part of a entity. Valentine's Day gives us a chance to celebrate the special and wonderful relationship you HAVE with another person or you get a chance to SHOW that you want a special relationship with someone.

Lovelea's Valentine Jewelry

My Valentine jewelry is here to help you express your feelings when you can't find the words, if words don't come easy to you. More: Valentine jewelry is a permanent declaration of your love.  If you do find words, your gift will fortify them. A gift shows that you took the time, the effort to choose and spent money on a present for your beloved.

This year I only created bracelets so you get to choose between different kinds of bracelets: in a color you associate with your beloved; pink or pale blue leather will look nice on a delicate girl.  The word "LOVE" plain in sight will do wonders, your message will come over, no dubiety;

Lovelea's pink and pale blue leather
 Love bracelets

or your message can be passed on a lot more subtle with one of this leather bracelets:

Lovelea's black or red leather bracelets
 with intermediate heart.

If your boyfriend likes leather bracelets, I have 2 very sturdy and cool bracelets: cowhide and hand-cut leather hearts! He will love it and be proud to were your gift.

LoveLea's brown or white cowhide
boyfriend bracelet with black leather hearts

Below is a close-up of the hand cut leather hearts:

Maybe you are more tender-hearted and prefer soft, pliable, supple leather hearts, 5 for an exuberant girlfriend or 3 for a boyfriend?

LoveLea's red leather bracelet with 5 red
 leather hearts and white cowhide bracelet
 with 3 black hearts

have a closer look at the 5 leather hearts from the red leather bracelet.

Detail of the 5 leather hearts.

If your boyfriend is a bit boho, ethnic than he will like this bracelet in cognac colored leather with a LOVE sign, a vintage evil eye bead and a distressed coin.

Lovelea's boho/ethnic men's  Love
bracelet in cognac leather

For punk girls I have this bracelet in black leather, a red metal plaque with a silver heart and 3 leather hearts, hand-cut, stacked on top of each other.

LoveLea's black leather bracelet
 with heart plaque and leather hearts

and here a close-up of the stacked hearts:

Detail of stacked leather hearts

This choice of 8 different bracelets is available at my FB shop: look out for my "Valentine 2019" collection.

LoveLea's leather Valentine bracelets

or email me for more info.

Check your relationships

A little more than 4 weeks is left for Valentine's day: gives you plenty of time to give your relationship a good thought. Is the quality of your relationship with your beloved alright or could you do better? What is good and where could you do better?

Personally I made the resolution to invest more time in my relationships and less on my blog and Pinterest account. Finding were you can do better and making a resolution to DO better is an easy step; sticking to it and applying to your life is the hard part! Maybe I should add this item to my "Every Day To-do List".

Never thought I would glamorize Saint Valentine's Day! As always, it depends on how you look at life!

Quotes are not read-only, yet apply-only!

Says the Dalai Lama: Love is the Absence of Judgement! 

This week, my quote is ready. I've found time to turn my insight into a nice quote. The rainbow adds an extra dimension to the quote as the rainbow is a sign from above that someone is caring, loving us, watching over us. The rainbow reminds us in time of sorrow that we are not alone.

My quote about love and self-love.

A good quote should stir something inside you; it should speak to your heart, create an emotion, a thrill. Then you say: so very true, nice, lovely! and there it stops! Only your intellect was touched and your brain tells you: this is nice. We get a glimpse, a flash of a truth and that 's it. 

The goal and the intention of the author of the quote is to pass his/her insight to you, the reader, and to inspire and  push you to apply the message to your life. You can read hundreds, thousands of quotes, books and even if you understand all of them, without applying, you might as well not have read them, it was a waste of your time.

Authors of quotes and self-help books have worked on their subject for years, maybe decades and they feel ready to write their book. And that's the problem: the poor reader, the novice in need of help and advice does not have the luggage, insight and experience of the author and the message is merely words, nice sophisticated ideas. The message hasn't been passed on; they tell you the what, where, why, when, but nothing about how.

The whole cue is about judgement! The Dalay Lama says: Love is having no judgement. If we don't have a judgement, if we don't judge, we have love, we feel love, we can practice love, we are love. What does judgment mean, what is its profound significance? The oxford dictionary says:"The ability to make considered decisions or come to sensible conclusions" and a second meaning: An opinion or conclusion." 

I have 3 grand children and I love all 3 dearly; one of them is difficult to love, the child was noisy, boisterous, with a huge ego! You see: all judgments. The moment I told myself: this is your grand child, you should see through his performance, don't have opinions, I could love this child easily and I could see his big heart, his facetiousness, kindness.

We have all sorts of opinions about other people. We see a person in a flash and we have made an opinion on this person: he/she is


If we turn back to what the Dalai Lama says: Love is the absence of judgment or Love is not having an opinion! And if you don't have an opinion about a person, then you can love the person, in other words: see the person as he/she is in his/her wholeness, without your life experiences coloring this person. The secret is to accept another person as he/she is. If you do this, than you are able to love a person.


Let's apply what has been said above to ourselves!

Says hilde denys: Self-love is the absence of Self-judgement

I have, you have, we have problems loving ourselves because we know all our flaws and faults, our imperfections our weak sides; you know what really is going on in your head, the bad, negative, harmful thoughts you have, the nasty grim words you don't say... All judgments about yourself. Your are not alone in this, we are all in the same position, we all judge ourselves. If all we have said above is true, then the path to self-love goes over not to judging yourself but accepting yourself the way you are.

Now you won't miraculously become flawless, faultless or perfect. In a way, you are perfect, as perfect as you can be in THIS moment. Being perfect in this moment is not a permission to narcissistic behavior, does not mean that you have to be pleased with yourself and that you can't do better! 

The point is to accept yourself how you are without having an opinion about yourself. You simply observe: I failed in this! and recognize your failing. Don't beat yourself up for it. Don't say: how could I be so stupid, how could I do this, how silly of me; this is judging yourself. In all honesty and sincerity find where and why you made the mistake and plan a way to do differently. Don't accept excuses; this is shoving all responsibility on someone else or on circumstances; we are responsible for our acts and words. In all situations, we have a choice: to do or not to do.

If we give love, we get love back! If we give love to ourselves, we will be able to love ourselves more and if we have more love, we have more love to give hence we'll be able to love others more easily.

Wow, 804 words! all about 1 quote. The publishing of my quote and the new year are good timing! This year I am choosing "balance" again as theme. I can do better. And I intend on incorporating more love into my life; in other words: abandoning all kinds of opinions and ideas about the persons in my life and accepting everybody as they are, myself included!

Admire my vibe board pictures! Synchronicity to spare: dark rooms, fish skins and a quote,

Vibe board pictures.

Two weeks ago, I posted about the photoshoot, using my daughters hands; she has nice groomed hands that  show off the leather jewels I make beautifully. More mood pictures here. Putting everything together resulted in the mood boards below! Well, maybe "vibe" board would be more appropriate.

Choosing which pictures to use and trying out different ways and arrangements was tough. My vibe board should entice females to wear my jewels and either feel like a classic beauty, elegant and chic with my chunky chain/leather jewels (left side of the picture) or daring, provocative and fearless with the slim chain&leather combination (right side of the picture). The middle section contains my logo, the different materials I use and a scenery picture to add a touch of green.

LoveLea's vibe board 1 

LoveLea's vibe board 2

Vibe board 2 above is circa the same but has as background a color similar to my logo's color.

LoveLea's mood board 3

And vibe board 3 has the classy style and punk style pell-mell.

Synchronicity abundance

In the past week lots of synchronicities has happened. Could be induced by my higher spiritual involvement in this time of the year; who isn't making 2018's balance and deciding  on what to do and how to be in 2019?

Dark colored rooms

I love Pinterest and I use it daily. Home decor is a favorite subject but lately this topic didn't give me the satisfaction it used to do. You know why? because all the interiors Pinterest showed me were white; I saw one dull, bland page with scattered a bit of beige, soft pink, pale blue or pine wood accents. How boring, tedious, how flat!


Till I discovered by chance pages and pages of strong colored, dark colored rooms! How exciting, how energizing, how adventurous, lively, stimulating!

Last Saturday we celebrated our 44th wedding anniversary in a newly opened restaurant in town and guess what: the old stately home had the most beautiful dark, black, inspiring walls!  A painting exhibition added color to the whole. This was a nice surprise, a bonus, an extra dimension added to our celebration; at least to me! My husband is more matter-of-fact on interiors of restaurants.

The Lounge at Tienen, Belgium

Fish skins

The Sunday before Xmas, my daughter and family came over. At one moment, out of the blue, to us anyhow, my grand daughter asked: "Does Oma make the leather herself?". We explained that this was a whole process and that I bought scraps of leather. And the next day, idem on Pinterest, I accidentally arrived on a page where a pin catched my eye: This woman is turning fish into shoe leather! How interesting! I found her business on the internet and I might order 1 hide to find out about the texture, the strength, the look, the vibe, in short: can fish leather be turned into jewels.

Quote

A couple days ago, it occurred to me that I hadn't been inspired to make a quote in a long time. The next day, I visited my daughters FB-page where and saw her Dalai Lama quote: Love is the absence of judgement! in a flash this came into my mind: if this is true than "self-love is the absence of self-judgement"! Wow, nice find! isn't it and true! by next week I shall find a nice picture and make a helpful quote.



Lots of nice little things happened this past week, 2 events involving my daughter, I observed! In the coming week I want to finish my looking back at 2018 and distill my path for 2019.
 
I hope you have a nice start to 2019! and have decided where you want to be at the end of this year. Write it down on a slip of paper or make it a little work of art and put it any place where you can be reminded of the path you decide to follow.

See you next week!

XMas mood pictures and more texture pictures for my mood board. Pro or contra winter time?

Isn't Xmas the most wonderful and suitable and convenient time for mood pictures? or happy family pictures? I am not being ironic, I am merely making observations.

I have some mood pictures for you: my grand children with the dog, my daughter and her family, me with the grand children and my husband with the grand children; we took the pictures during their pre-Xmas visit last Sunday.

The grand children with the dog.

It seems to me that pets are getting more and more human traits with time: the dog Filou is posing! Read more about Filou here. At the summer house, we cared for a stray dog and she was afraid when I pointed my camera, left us tail between legs!

My daughter with her family.

My husband with the grand children,
 XMas 2018

Me with the grand children.

Off this 2 pictures you could deduce that my grand daughter is not happy sitting on my lap. It is not the case, we get along grand! She was low spirited that day because of a brooding ear infection. She is much better now.

Texture pictures for my mood board

And here is the second part of pictures for my mood board. The photo below features the materials I use concisely: 2 types of chain and leather and an organza bag for storing your necklace.

LoveLea's mood board & texture picture.
 

And here a close up of my bigger leather scraps.

My leather scraps
 

and some more textures: the coldness of the metal balanced with the wool of the sheepskin and the soft feeling of the leather.

Another texture picture

all pictures about textures!

Winter hours

I don't know about you, but I wish they never introduced summer and winter hours. The theory about saving energy doesn't make sense and it is bad for health. When my children ware small, they started this nonsense; the children needed at least a month to get used to  the new summer or winter hours; their whole biological clock was mixed up.

I used to wake up at 8. am sharp but since the last time-change  I am waking up either late, around 9. am or too early, 6.30.  Anyway, getting up as early as 6.30 has it advantages; it gives you a chance to see the sun rise and take nice pictures. Does the transit from summer to winter time upset you? Tell us about it.

Sunrise seen from my work shop window.

What a joy to see the sky in all its morning glory. My day can't go wrong!

I might have my mood board finished by next week; it will be a tight race since we are having visitors this Friday, 3 children and 5 adults who will stay the night and New Year's eve is almost there.....

I hope you all had a lovely and happy Christmas and I wish you a splendid New Year's eve celebration. May all your dreams come through in 2019.

See you next year!

Photo shoot with my daughter for my mood board!

Last weekend I visited my daughter and her family. They like a cool house, between 16 en 18°, my husband loves a hothouse, 22 à 24° and stayed at home. I had everybody for myself and all attention on me. Sometimes it is o.k. to leave your spouse behind.

How good it feels to hug my grand children, to feel their tiny bodies in my arms, play games with them, feel that you count in their life. And babbling with my daughter while doing the dishes or hanging up the laundry together and close the day, watching a movie with my daughter and son-in-law.

On Friday we walked the dog while picking up my grand daughter from school, on Saturday we celebrated my son-in-law's birthday with their friends and on Sunday we took pictures.

I announced in my last post that I am working full speed on manifesting a shop that will sell my jewelry by 19 January 2019. By that time I want a collage ready that shows off my products in a favorable way. Jewels look best on a model. I had asked my daughter before if I could use her lovely and groomed hands but she didn't feel like it. In a last attempt, I told my daughter that I had some jewels with me if she felt like modelling.

On Saturday night lying in bed and going over the day, I had given up all hope of having a photo shoot. But! on Sunday at the breakfast table, my daughter said: did you read my mail? I hadn't so she said: well, I decided to do help you with the photo shoot!

Self-help books always say that you shouldn't try too much; if you did everything you can possibly do, then let go. And the books are right, here was the proof: I had given up all idea of having a photo shoot, saying: I have to do it by myself and now: here it is.

Breakfast over, my daughter renewed her mail polish, rubbed lotion on her hands; it is incredible how each tiny unwanted detail shows up in an image. We choose some outfits, tried out different poses and light positions, decided which outfit would go with what bracelet or necklace and started shooting, my son-in-law and I. Wow, this shooting is no small stuff, it was exhausting and for the model and for the shooters; we didn't last more than 1 hour.

Have a preview of the mood pictures I have in mind for my mood board; I want to suggest 2 vibes: chic elegance and badass punk.

LoveLea's glam bracelet and punk bracelet
 in red leather&metal;
 courtesy of F Vaessen

Here I have the two styles in 1 picture. I like the image but maybe it is a bit too nice.

Punk style jewels

The three following pictures are of my punk line:

LoveLea's punk style black  choker

LoveLea's punk style black choker and bracelet

The bracelet and the choker are not a set, but can be worn together. And below is a cow hide bracelet in punk style.

LoveLea's punk style cow hide bracelet;
courtesy of F Vaessen

or I might choose a picture in B/W:

LoveLea's punk style cow hide bracelet
 in black/white

Chic, glam and elegant jewels

This glamorous, elegant and chic line is a favorite of me; the chunky chain and the more sensual leather are a good team. Have a look at a bracelet with tassels and a necklace in the same version.

LoveLea's glam dark brown leather&metal bracelet, 
courtesy of F Vaessen

LoveLea's glam white leather&metal necklace,
 courtesy of F Vaessen

Another glam leather&metal necklace in a different version. This image has a chic and elegant feel:

LoveLea's glam navy  leather&metal necklace.

Well, this is it for this week. I still have to take pictures of my workplace; or I might show some  impressive tools on my mood board and/or a picture of my (mini) leather stock.

What do YOU think of my pictures? Do they show the vibe I have in mind: chic elegance and punk? Tell me about it, please.

Next week, I'll show you some pictures of my work shop, tools and my stack of leather. See you.

I have to admit

that at this moment a whole lot is growing over my head! 

My FB- shop didn't bring the results I expected and wanted thus changed my policy. Didn't Einstein so eloquently says: Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

At this moment I am studying Made Urban's "How to Sell Handmade beyond Friends & Family" book. Well, studying is really not an adequate description, I am wrestling myself through the exercises! I understand the material, but applying what I read, imaging an ideal customer with her values and personality to find my niche market, formulating an USP, and many more, is giving me a hard time!

Before I discovered Made Urban's e-book, I read almost everything about entrepreneurship my eye came upon, but all content was about services and selling courses or digital products,... whereas I am in leather jewelry! On top of that, all this young 6-figures business women say: you can't do it by yourself! you need help! buy my course or join my community or the like. I snorted and thought: you only want people to join your master class.

How wrong I was! What would I not give to have somebody next to me holding my hand and explaining in depth how I can apply all this to my own business. I'm experiencing this at first hand now that I'm plowing through my study book.

Some time before I discovered Made Urban, I read a post on FB about The Law of Attraction. I commented that I didn't believe in that law anymore and that it didn't work. The poster advised me to read: "Manifesting Made Easy...." by Jen Mazer, it would open my mind. Yes, this book is really an eye opener. I recommend this book to everybody interested in manifesting their dreams. Reading is not all you do, every chapter has a "How to Apply" section. And I am very diligently applying the theory.

So I am reading and applying this 2 books at the same time. The dream I want to manifest is that a store sells my jewelry so that I only have to engage myself with the designing and creating process. One action that helps you manifest is to choose a date you want your dream to become true and mark in your agenda. The date I choose and wrote down in my agenda is approaching rapidly: 19th of January 2019.

Studying the 2 books, blogging, social media is overwhelming, I feel drowned, lightly panicking that I won't be ready by January 2019. Hence for the time being, I'll reduce my  blogging and social media presence to concentrate on manifesting my big dream.

At this laptop I do most of my writing
 while having a cup of coffee.

I'm cloistered easily 6 hours a day to this laptop, reading, studying, writing, e-mailing. And I have my coffee, first thing in the morning in one of my favorite cups, specially made for the exposition in Amsterdam, some 10 years ago, about the connection between the Netherlands and the Court of the Russian Tsars. Behind my cup you can see my laminated feather to remind me that I am not by myself and that Universe is watching over me.


At the moment it is not yet clear to me what I'll post next week. Maybe you like to be surprised? 

See you next week!

Make cute little gifts for your beloved ones. Watch out for signs from above to keep you going. Green tomatoes turning red.

Cute gifts for your beloved ones.

Every 2 years, the first weekend of February we come together. We are my brothers and sisters with each their children and grandchildren. I am not the only one with grandchildren any more, we have a 6 month old baby boy.. We find a place big enough for 35 people and spend the weekend together. We explore the area on foot, take turns cooking and doing the dishes and in the evenings we play games. The small children love to be with peers and the bigger "children" talk with aunts and uncles mostly about motorcycles and music! It feels really good to be part of a big family.

Up to now, I've made or bought little presents for the ladies in the family but this year I decided to give at least my 3 brothers a present: so far I have made 3 cute money pouches. Beside my brothers I have 2 brothers-in-law, a bunch of nephews, my nieces have boyfriends and there is my son and my son-in-law. That is a lot of people! My husband doesn't want one. I haven't decided yet for who I"ll make a pouch. I have 6 weeks left and if I can make a pouch for every guy, all the better.

LoveLea's 3 cute leather money pouches.

LoveLea's navy leather skull head 
money pouch

I might make a tuto for the pouches within 2 weeks.

A sign from above or a synchronicity tale!

One week after Halloween, I went with my daughter and grand daughter shopping and wandering around to a city a 30 minutes ride away. There is a popular shop that sells all kinds of carnival stuff and spoofs and they had a huge collections skulls, skeletons etc. Since the selling of my skull bracelets didn't go the way I liked, I decided to give this shop a try. I am talking about these bracelets.

LoveLea's 2 skull sliding knot bracelet

And here is a red eyed skull!

LoveLea's red eyed skull bracelet

Back home I immediately went to work, ordered some more leather lace and made a variety of bracelets and necklaces in size S, M and L, put them in plastic grip bags, tagged them and made a price list.  During this preparations I visualized people liking and buying my jewelry and telling others about it.

I decided to go on Friday and took 2 collections with me. There is a store that sells handmade and very unusual jewelry and they might be interested in my vintage button collection.

Lovelea's vintage button bracelets

Lovelea's red vintage button bracelet.

And this is not only my favorite bracelet, it has been liked a lot on Pinterest and Facebook! I call it my mystery bracelet!

Lovelea's mystery bracelet.

I took the train, a mere 12 min ride and went straight to the shop. Only the weekly Friday market was held temporary in the main street. People take their time to look at the stands and talk to friends and acquaintances in the middle of the street so it took me a while to get through the crowd.

I continued my way but this time my road across a market place was blocked and closed for passersby because of XMas preparations.  I had to take the surrounding narrow streets full of vans delivering what they had to deliver. Meandering through the narrow streets and vans I had a vision that I was wandering through a narrow pipe, as an esophagus, something like Alice in wonderland and I said to myself: you'll get where you want to go even if it may take a while.

Finally I reached the shop and showed my jewelry. The girl in charge liked my products only she was afraid my products were to expensive for their customers who are mostly students on a tight budget. However she took my price list and business cards and I left a pair of earrings to show to her boss. I asked her about the other shop I had in mind; sadly it had closed. She gave me directions for a shop selling hippy clothes so they might be interested in leather jewelry.

I found the hippy shop easily and when I told the shop owner that I had some leather jewelry to show, he shouted "no" at me. I said: you don't want to have a look, he again shouted no. It wasn't even early in the morning. OMG, what a humiliating experience! I made the intention, right at that moment to never treat sales people as I had been treated.

I didn't allow this second set back to damper my spirits and went a couple shops back to Dandy's&Diva's where I had seen Steampunk mannequins in the window display. I couldn't make out what kind of shop it was but still went inside. The girl in charge, dressed and coiffed in punk style, clearly the owner of this hairdresser salon, was very nice and friendly and genuinely liked my products but wasn't sure if she could sell them and would think it over and let me know. It"s not a yes, but everything is still possible!

All my business done, I bought a sandwich, more out of nostalgia ( I was a student for 4 years in this city) than of hunger and took the train back home. Looking at the passing lovely landscape, I kept telling myself: something better is waiting for you; I didn't want to slump in a negative spiral. But I had an even better message in store!

Back home, I went to work and when I looked up, there was a beautiful and clear rainbow in the sky! Yes: this was a sign from above that I am being watched over, cared for! Remember: butterflies,  feathers, rainbows, special music, a song or words are signs from above. But you have to be alert and attentive, mindful!

Am I not a lucky person!

Green tomatoes turning red

I was stuck with lots of green tomatoes when the weather turned cold; some of them I fermented into relish and another part I put into a box with 2 apples. It seems that apples sent out a gas to warn the others: hey it's time to get ripe. Other fruits can benefit from this gas and I put the tomatoes nicely spread so they won't touch each other in a box together with 2 apples. Almost all of them have turned red and are ready to eat. I am a color freak, don't they look nice and see how many shades of red there are.

Green tomatoes turning red
 with the help of apples

That's it for this week! I will be busy the next weeks and it might take me 2 weeks to get a tuto ready about the making of the pouches, still in time for anybody who wants to make a cute XMas present.

See you!