Fun life lessons for children. First benefit of being 65. Faux fur and leather. New Quote: food for your soul!

Life lessons or Stuff for sale

Last Friday my husband and I went to my daughter's place for the weekend. It was good to see them and to learn about the grand children new schools. They have been to school for a week by now.

My grand daughter of almost 9 loves horses; she has been riding for a couple of months and now she wants a horse. She is saving money to get her own horse. Counting her savings she realized her horse was still a long way; to speed up things, she contrived to sell her old stuff on the street. Her mom recently sorted out her clothes and shoes, plenty of stuff to sell.

She dragged a small table outside, displayed 3 pair of used shoes, some T's, a paper saying for sale and that was it. I suggested a chair would be comfortable, so 2 small chairs were brought down and outside. She wanted me in it because she is not yet very good in subtracting big numbers, I was a good asset.

My grand children selling stuff

Her older brother joined us, yelling: stuff for sale. In the distance we saw a bicycler approaching  and yes! he didn't turn left but continued his road. My grand son had stopped yelling, my grand daughter went white with embarassment, almost froze and I hissed: think of your  horse; that helped. The cyclist was going to ignore us when my grandson yelled again: stuff for sale. He stopped, turned back, had a look and said smiling: those shoes are too small for me and went on. I suggested: maybe you should enlarge your shop's choice! That was the sign to sell different stuff. My daughter had a couple of things she wanted to get rid off and this was the moment!

20 Minutes with nobody passing by, my granddaughter sighed: this is difficult! Yes, it is difficult: we all want big things to happen with the least of effort. This selling "game" confronts them with an unknown aspect of life and this is  excellent:

• it gets them from behind their screens
• it teaches that if you want something, you have to do something to get it
• it shows that what looks easy, can be quite hard
• it takes them out of their comfort zone
• into a real life situation

Sadly they didn't sell anything. I hope they'll try again. Next opportunity, I'll teach them the value of making an intention!

My first benefit of being 65!

 On Saturday night we, the two of us: my daughter and me, went to the movies (Book Club, hilarious); queuing for tickets I saw that they had reductions for seniors! This is the first time my age is saving me money! I was surprised how good this felt, indescribable! It is also the first time I thought about it; well, I didn't think about it but I was reminded of it! I should pay more attention. It IS a neat idea: the fact of BEING 65 will bring me all kinds of benefits, suffice it to think about it.

Like for Lyne Slator, her age works in her favor. Of course she had a rich life before she was an accidental icon and without that she wouldn't be the icon she is now. It is very stimulating to discover that life can take a turn like this when you are 65. I never thought that being retired would be the end of my life, to me it was a kind of slowly rolling to my end. This new icons open up a whole new world, give me a new perspective, excite me to a higher level.

Faux fur and leather

3 or 4 years ago, I bought a scrap of jersey faux fur. I had destined it to be a bag or tote in my head. Countless times I had the scrap in my hands, looking at the piece for inspiration, but nothing happened, no spark, no light bulb went on! Last Tuesday I pampered myself with some magazines. And what's in fashion for the coming season: leopard prints!!! Wow, just what I needed to get started.

A couple hours ago, I went upstairs to my studio, found the scrap. I don't want to use the whole scrap for 1 tote and will combine it with leather. I found 2 pieces of nice and sturdy leather that stays up; I don't like slouchy bags; they look nice enough but not a bit practical when searching for something in your bag. I have to wait for daylight to be certain about the color.

I opened my design notebook and brainstormed my bag: how will I stitch leather and jersey together??? what size? the length of the handles? the inside of the bag... and so on. My bag is realizing at least in my head and on paper. The most difficult part of a project is the start.

LoveLea's faux fur and leather waiting to be "tooled"

I choose the black leather; it is a very nice leather and goes nicely with the faux fur; you have to be careful with leopard prints; they easily take a vulgar look!

A new Quote!

So you wont leave your hands empty, I wrote a new quote; hover over the picture to pin the quote to your pinterest account. It is a Self-Help quote and it germinated out of my own experience! Here it comes:

LoveLea's quote

In the next post, I ll keep you informed about my bag's progress, among other things.

See you next week!

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Babyshower! Why I like boring household chores. Organize your purse and a no sew leather envelop tuto.

Babyshower

In my first post of July 2018, about my 65th birthday celebration, I told you about my highly pregnant niece. She delivered begin July and we feted her baby boy last Sunday. It was a gorgeous gathering: they hired an old but modernized pastor house for the day, midst a big garden, with giant trees in the back of the garden for the bigger kids to play, the weather was perfect, the sweets were tasty and coffee and drinks in abundance.  The baby slept throughout the whole event, just woke up to be fed and was then hold by all the mothers who wanted a tiny baby in their arms once again. And we became acquainted with her husband's family and they have a great grandmother!

Around the church, as was the custom, were the graves of the villagers. We had to get past the graves to get to the house. As my husband said: life and dead are one next to the other. Isn't it that when an older person dies, a couple months later, there is a new born.  We lost my mother in May and the 5th of October my grand daughter was born!

The family at the baby shower

Why I like boring household chores

To me, doing the wash up, ironing, cleaning and the like are boring chores. They don't need a lot of attention and worst of all, you know that maybe one hour later, all your work won't be visible any more but you still have to do it. I don't mind cooking because you can be creative, use your fantasy! There is only 1 way you can iron a shirt and that's it.

You may say: I listen to music and it's not boring any more. I used to do that too until I discovered: you can THINK while you do this jobs! Before I retired I was a teacher and most of my lessons I prepared in my head while doing household chores. Whenever I have a problem to solve, I use this time to find a solution, any kind of a solution from what's for dinner the next days to what kind of closure could I use for this necklace... I don't like all this chores, but they have a double utility: the chore AND the free thinking  and pondering time.

Organize your purse

Summer almost over means schools are open again. Everywhere you see satchel ads and pencil cases. It gives me an organize fever. If you like big handbags, an organizer is a must. I've made some handy organizing items out of leather for myself. This way I find my stuff easily, a small leather card case that fits about 10 cards; 10 is enough, after all, you don't dole out your business cards and I carry earphones in my bag.

LoveLea's leather business card cases

Lovelea's leather card case.

When I do my errands by bike, I use a pouch bag and in my pouch bag I use a leather envelop to protect small papers whenever I need to carry them; this leather envelop protects any papers or other stuff that I take with me. The envelop is a no sew and easy to make.

LoveLea's black leather envelop!

How to make a no sew leather envelop case

Make your pattern

Take a paper envelop the size you want and carefully open up the envelop: here is your pattern. Make sure you choose an envelop that is not too big for your leather scrap.

Tracing and cutting the pattern

Check your leather scrap for beauty flaws.  Place the opened up paper envelop on the wrong side of your leather scrap; if the wrong side has too much fibers, use the right side. Trace very carefully around the envelop with an erasable pen. Check out before use of the pen if it erases without leaving a trace. I use spittle to erase the ink.

Equally carefully cut out your envelop;  I used fiskar scissors. Now comes the most tricky part: close your envelop by bending 3 sides to the middle, the corners are overlapping each other, and crush the sides lightly. I did this with a non-metal hammer and protected the leather with a cloth. It is tricky because 3 corners have to meet precisely in the middle. Check with your paper envelop which corners have to meet.

To close the envelop

According to the way you want to close your envelop, punch a whole through the 3 layers of the gathered corners to use your metal button stud. It comes in 2 parts: the part with the screw comes underneath, inside the envelop, and the round ball-like part comes on top; your leather sits in between the 2 parts of the stud button. On the 4th corner of your envelop, make a slit to get your button through. Carefully consider where to make the slit. According to the size of the button, decide about the length of your slit, 1 or 2 mm more than the circumference of the button.

Or instead of  making a slit in the corner, make 2 horizontal wholes a bit higher up (have a look at the picture), make a loop out of sturdy elastic, the color you want and paste a piece of leather to the inside to hold your elastic in place.

If you choose very supple leather, your envelop might stay close without any button by stuffing the flap into the envelop.

What's the epitome of abundance?

Right: a bunch of grapes!  and I have this epitome right in my city garden, something to be grateful for.

Grapes in my city garden

That's it for this week; I hope you enjoyed the tuto; if you have questions, ask them by mail.

See you next week! the tomatoes might be ripe, ready to eat by then.

Revamp your old stuff! Take a break from your kids! More tassel bracelets!

Don't throw away, revamp

I am a hoarder, I can't throw away, I keep almost everything, one day you'll use it. I may have an item for several years and when I  throw it away, I assure you, within a week I am in a situation that I could have used the thrown away item.

I saved a  cotton blanket that my mother in law was discarding because it had holes in it. It was of  good quality with a nice pattern and a couple of wholes doesn't frighten me. I have had this piece for years and a month ago I had use for it. It was my daughters birthday and I invited her for the weekend because of the rock festival. I needed 4 blankets because of the hot weather, but had only 3. This is the moment  my old blanket comes into the picture.

One of the holes in my cotton blanket

The picture above gives you an idea what the blanket looked like with an odd 8 more holes; the pattern and quality are visible.

 How to easily cover the holes.

With my erasable pen, I traced a shape around the whole, mostly squares, a couple triangles. I measured the tracing, cut a patch of the same size and shape out of a nice contrasting cloth  and sewed it on with a fairly tight zigzag.

The hole covered with a patch, wrong side

I messed this one up a little bit but this doesn't matter. Anyway  I want a reversible blanket so I will cover this patch with another patch on the reversed side. I choose 2 fabrics with red in it and used red thread to sew them on, this way the stitches will be less obvious on both sides.

Blanket with patches on 1 side

One side is finished, all the wholes are covered. Remains the other side. This was a lot easier and  quicker done: no deciding how big the patch should be, triangle or square. The only thing to do was to measure and cut out the new patch, pin it to the exact place and sew the patch on.

Taking pictures

There is a lot of wind lately and it was impossible to take pictures outside. I tried inside, laying the blanket flat on a bed, but I didn't like the result. I was trying to figure out how to get good pictures of the finished product as the grand children were staying with us for a couple of days. I asked them to sit for me with the finished blanked; they agreed but didn't want to show their faces. Both of them just grabbed a stuffed animal and held it before their face. Isn't that cute how they solved the problem! no how are we doing to do this..

Grandchildren showing off my finished blanket.

You need a break from your kids

as much as you love your children, you still need a break from your kids sometimes. You need to spent time with your spouse, just the 2 of you. My daughter needed such a break and that's why she left their 2 kids with us. With this arrangement they are happy and we, the grand parents are happy. The grand children mentioned a couple of times they missed their parents or the dog or their favorite games but we compensated this with riding their scooter in the neighborhoods  skateboard playground, baking cookies, decorating their own pizza (with chocolate!), playing mikado, uno and master mind.

Cookies made with grandma

Making (chocolate!)pizza with grandpa

New type of bracelet

Again, rummaging through my things, I found a set of components for jewelry making like chains, brooch settings, metal parts. Decades ago, my husband made jewelry for a while. A couple of metal lace looking medallions took my attention. I put them aside and as I did for my vintage buttons bracelet, applied  my proven working method. The dark green leather looked striking contrasted to the almost white metal of the medallions.

LoveLea's green leather bracelet
 with metal medallions&tassels.

LoveLea's green leather
 bracelet close up.

And I continue creating bracelets with vintage buttons; I had put aside a big button but with an odd reddish color and didn't quite know what to do with it. I came up using the vintage button, not as an embellishment but as an essential  part of the bracelet: I used the button as a button and created a leather loop, made a bit frivolous with wooden beads, vintage mother of pearl buttons and other vintage material.

LoveLea's dark green leather bracelet
with red vintage button.

LoveLea's dark green leather bracelet
 with red vintage button.

Slowly but steadily my vintage button bracelets collection is growing.

If you want more explanation about my revamp project, email me.

That's it for this week! Hope to see you next week, dear reader.

How to get more energy! Leather jewelry + vintage buttons; what my oracle told me!

What I do to get more energy

I don't know about you, but hot weather kills me; we are having temperatures between 25 &35° since June! I get up early in the morning, between 6 & 7, open all the windows so the cool weather can enter the house, close everything after 8 o'clock. I am able to blog, pin my pins, visit facebook and do some studying till 10. Then we have breakfast, I clean up  the kitchen, do some small chores, an hour of designing and creating and by 14.00 I am off to my siesta. 1 Hour, sometimes 1.5 hours later  I get up refreshed and feeling alive again, feeling energized ready to attack the remaining of the day.

Sometimes I don't make it to my siesta and then music is my remedy. Listening to music makes me feel alive and vibrate intensely, especially Pachelbell's canon is my go to. Upon hearing this exquisite music, I feel ecstasy! rapture. It empowers me, gives me energy like a big shot of caffeine  but without the bad side effects. Another composer that gives me wings is G. Fr. Haendel! His whole oeuvre never fails to move and touch me and I continue my day lightly and purposeful.

So, what is energizing you? what do you need to continue your day, your week, your life? Hit the comment button at the end of the post and tell us.

Leather jewels with vintage buttons.

The week before I told you about my mothers box with vintage buttons, I went through my own and very small stash and 3 of them appealed to me. Coincidentally,, they are the biggest buttons of all, the biggest measuring 4.2 cm!

Choosing the buttons 

is the first step. Which button is puling me? If nothing comes out, I expose the buttons somewhere I can see them. When I feel ready, I have a second look and mostly something appeals to me; I take this items out and put aside. Then comes finding a matching piece of leather; the color has to be right and the quality of the leather: rigid as for the dark green cuff  to support the huge button or more supple like the other 2 bracelets.

The narrow leather bracelet with the red vintage button is my favorite, looks a bit like a sixties watch! Wear this with an all black outfit, in summer or winter, it will always look good.

The wide dark green leather bracelet, almost a cuff is also a favorite; the color appears to be black but it really is dark green. The button is huge, as I said before: 4,2 cm! I attached it with a strap of leather that peeps out from under the button. To wear for a more festive occasion!

LoveLea's dark green leather bracelet with big vintage button

And the 3rd one in navy blue leather with a square vintage button would do well in the French Riviera Style. Tassels are still widely applied and enjoyed. This bracelet won't outdate easily.

LoveLea's navy leather bracelet,
white vintage button& leather tassels

More poolwear!

I continue creating more bracelets and necklaces in the pool wear style. I wasn't planning on showing this creations but I"ll show one of them anyway. The leather I used is a very dark purple and I can't catch the right color in my picture. The only solution is to state that the color is purple. But! you know intellectual property, I wouldn't want to plagiarize so I came up with this:

Lovelea's purple leather/metal chain
 pool wear bracelet.

What my plant oracle tells me!

Years ago I couldn't resist buying a plant oracle set of cards in my favorite bookshop. The chosen plants belong to "the magic flora of the druids". I confess that I have a penchant for everything old, historical, magic, mystery, druids, shaman. On Sunday I felt like using my cards, not to have a look at my future, but to get insight in stuff that is bothering me.

I took my set out of the box and 1 card, the Stachys officinalis, was on top but reversed. I turned it the good way, put it on top of the stash, cut the cards, mixed them and spread  them. 1 Card was sticking out and I felt magnetized to that card, it literally pulled me! Sometimes I have this pulling feeling but never had it this strong. I pulled the card and when I turned the card, it was the very Stachys officinalis. I was flabbergasted, pfff pretty amazing, something out of a book or a film was actually happening to me! This card is about driving out negativity! How about that, right on top! Now I know what to focus on; it is a good start to choose my path and forge my "plan de campagne".

Are you familiar with cards? Do you use cards? I would like to know more about this subject first hand.

By next week my revamp project will be ready and I'll show you the finished product and explain briefly how I did it.

Thanks for reading. See you next week!

The event of the year (in my town), Pro's of having a dog, How I excorcise inspiration; My revamped quote!

The event of the year

Last Friday it was my daughter's birthday and it was the first day of Suikerrock, a 3 day rock festival in our city. I thought super: I invite my daughter over and we can all go together. I haven't been to a such a happening in ages.

Birthday Girl!

I emailed her the program and she was pleasantly surprised about the groups that were coming. She liked the bands on Friday but wasn't happy about the idea going with the kids; she would come but with her husband. I was on the verge of ordering the tickets for the main stage, as my husband says: I don't want to go! OMG, there bursts my dream. But I am a bull terrier and I  found the solution: me and my husband could take the children to the minor stages while my daughter and husband went to the main stage. And that was OK.

On Friday morning I had some shopping to do; I got all excited when I saw the stages getting erected, the food trucks finding their spaces, booths getting erected, the crew giving directions and answering questions, I could feel the tension! I couldn't wait till the evening.

The Suikerrock Stage, Tienen, Belgium.

Around 7 pm, we accompanied my daughter and husband to the main stage; my grand daughter bursted out in tears: she wanted to stay with her mammy. After a lot of talking and explaining, reasoning and arguing, she agreed to come with us, albeit with tears in her eyes and a sad face.

To our great relief, we saw almost immediately a stand selling candyfloss and all sadness and tears were gone. My grandson wanted one too and so we wandered around, listened to the acoustic performers and to the DJ's but none of us got very excited so we went home around 9 pm.

Pro's of having a dog!

If you want to know the coldest spot in your home, let a long hairy dog loose in your house on a hot day and it will find it for you. My daughter didn't find a place to house Filou, their Labradoodle so he came along. The poor beast has problems with the heat, having a curly, furry coat. The only place he stayed in was the corridor, right besides the entrance to the closet under the stairs. The floor is paved with deliciously cold tiles.

He's a clever dog and once helped my son in law out of a problem. He was walking the dog in the woods when he fell unconscious. Filou ran away and barked at some strollers who luckily understood that the dog was telling them something; they followed Filou, found my son in law and called an ambulance: a happy end thanks to Filou!

How I exorcise inspiration!

I have my newly made storage arrangement (I'll have some pictures of it when it is completely done)  I store my scraps in transparent boxes; when I am looking for a certain color or a piece of leather, I rummage my boxes; as a specific piece of leather catches my eye and talks to me, I put it aside. On my worktable, I have different baskets and 1 of them is for this purpose, for future projects but yet undefined.

 This week I wasn't very inspired: the attic, my work space is very hot and isn't very inviting; I have been neglecting my chores lately and had some urgent one's to finish. When I did find time, I went through my project basket and my eye got caught at an oddly shaped piece of cowhide; the shape reminded me of something but I couldn't get my finger on it; then it downed: looks like an amulet.

An amulet is a kind of pouch, thus I needed a back. I traced the form on a piece of dark brown leather, cut it out and glued it to the cowhide, considered how to attach the cord efficiently and here is the result!

LoveLea's cowhide amulet,
front 

LoveLea's cowhide amulet,rear

You can stuff your amulet with small items,, like a piece of paper, a secret note, a magic stone, a keepsake, anything small and rather flat.

New style of products.

I made the leather bracelet below a while ago: I had stringed the banners to a rigid metal bracelet but the closure didn't hold well; now I stringed them to a invisible elastic: the vibrant colors contrasted with the white pearls looks stunning, just right for a teenage wrist wearing denim shorts and any (lace) top or in boho style with a white fluffy dress.

Revamped quote!

I was without laptop for 6 days!!! I got it back one day left before publishing. I am trying out the free version of Canva; what looks super easy in the tuto's, makes me sweat and pulling my hair out of my head! I made 1 graphic for this blog post and wanted to resize it for FB and Instagram, but the resize feature is not in the free version. I restarted from scratch and I want to pull more hair out of my head; I'll leave it be for a couple hours or days and retry when I have no dead line! But here is my quote, revamped.

LoveLea's don't merely look quote.

If you liked my quote, hover over the image, go ahead and Pin it to your Pinterest board!

Vintage buttons!

My mother had a whole shoe box full of all kinds of buttons! When we were a kid and ill, as a pastime she let us go through the box, touch the buttons, fondle the buttons, sort them out, imaginig it on a dress. OMG, we were happy with so little!  Was it the buttons? or was it the fact that we could touch something that was ordinary out of reach? I don't know but the fact is: I LOVE vintage buttons. Although I haven't a lot of them,  I still want to turn them into jewels! Wait for next week and watch what I'll be designing and creating!


See you next week, dear reader!

About my eccentric taste, discovering leather scraps and my quote for you..

What is this post about?

It's about some new bracelets I made but also

LoveLea's brown leather minimalist bracelets

About shopping with my daughter and showing off my personal new leather jewelry. 

2 Weeks ago I went shopping with my daughter. We had a super day: we hadn't been doing something just the 2 of us for a long time, so the fact of being both of us together, away from household problems, without my daughters lovely children, no husbands was thrilling. We tried on & bought  diverse tops in small boutiques, had lunch at our favorite restaurant, had a bit of flea market and went to the nearby bra shop. AND it was the perfect time to wear my new acquisitions:

I got myself a present in January: I saw a large/long cuff in black leather on Etsy and fell in love with it.  I ordered it and showed the cuff to my daughter. She liked the cuff but remarked: how are you going to wear it? I planned on wearing it very simple: a pair of jeans, a white tee and 1 long tassel earring, a creation of mine: the cuff on my right wrist and the earring in my left ear to keep everything in balance.

Me with my new cuff and long tassel earring in leather

Our shopping day was the perfect moment to get my things in the open; I got several flattering remarks from boutiques owners and quite a few appraising looks.

I like out of the ordinary things and stuff, extravagant things. When I was 16, my sister and I each had a black maxi rain coat in oilcloth; we lived in a small town and the whole town was gaping and staring at us, surely gossiping!! We didn't mind because we loved our coats. My mother liked out of the ordinary things but in a subtle way: subdued colors but extravagant patterns! It was all so subtle, I didn't even get it until later, becoming a teen and seeing pictures of her.

It wasn't always fun having a mother who liked "different, special" clothes. We got laughed at by the classmates even a teacher said: you have to be different all the time. But I am grateful that my mom learned us to daring to be different, to be not mainstream.

My grandmother on my fathers side refused to settle for the black and dark colors a widow had to wear in those times, instead she choose bright colors. She read somewhere that during the Middle Ages  (maybe it was another era), people painted their houses in colors and the next day she ordered her house to be painted in a lovely pink. Very shocking at that time.

Yes, I have strong women in my ancestry.

Discovering leather scraps

Last April we left the summerhouse and returned to Belgium. And in Belgium we moved to a bigger house; well not that bigger but to a house with an attic that I am sharing with my husband who is a musician. We use it as a workshop/studio.

In 2 months of time, we moved the belongings of 2 houses! I am still sorting out my stuff. I am still finding things I don't recall possessing. I found a bunch of pieces of brown, thick and a bit stiff leather. What a bonus! It fell like finding a small treasure. My fingers yearned to manipulate this nice leather, I immediately went to work.

Since the leather is so nice, I decided to let speak the leather and created three minimalist bracelets and 1 a bit more elaborate (see image on top).

In the narrow bracelet to the left, I made tiny incisions to break the surface a little bit; they'll show up with wearing. The bracelet to the right shows off the leather nicely because of the width of the bracelet. If you like inornate, subtle jewels, those is for you!

                           

LoveLea's brown leather
minimalist narrow bracelet.

LoveLea's brown leather
minimalist wide braclet.

Pinterest!

I love  Pinterest, it is my savior in time of distress. At one time, a lot of leather flower making tuto's were thrown in front of me; I kept ignoring them but they still came in front of me and I decided to try out some flowers; practice and patience failing me, I gave up, things should make headway! I made an abstract flower with the core out of a vintage evil-eye glass bead. The button and loop are from the same leather as the flower. Wear it with a denim outfit and you have a statement!

Detail of leather flower with vintage bead

LoveLea's black leather cuff
with black leather flower.

And here is a narrow bracelet that would become a teenage girl in a boho outfit, well: brown leather with glass beads:

LoveLea's brown leather narrow bracelet
with green glass beads.

My quote for you:

A couple days ago, something between a thought and a feeling, experience came to my mind. I molded it into a nice phrase, a quote. I had  planned on pasting the text to a befitting image but the lamp behind my screen failed and my laptop is in repair. All my pictures are on that laptop; I am not getting angry, I see this event as a warning that I should back up my pictures. Anyway, this doesn't prevent me from sharing my quote:

Don't merely look at a breath taking view of nature.

Feel it, absorb the view, allow it into your heart,

Until you vibrate and pulsate

Until you're one with nature, the Universe. 

That's all for this week

I don't know where you live, but here where I live, we have a heat wave since 2 weeks. I function alright till 25°; above this my functionality diminishes and above 30°, I am K.O. To counter this, I get up early in the morning, open all the windows to refresh the house and do some tasks while it is cool in the house. Around 2 pm I take a good nap and then I feel refreshed enough to perform small tasks until the evening brings some relief and solace. I am all for a siesta! Viva la siesta.

See you next week!

3 Glam & chic leather necklaces! After 40 years back on a horse! Win facing your fear!

Glam and chic: leather/chunky-chain necklaces!

I love the combination of leather and chunky chains! It inspires me and more ideas keep popping up in my head. About 3 weeks ago,  I needed more chains and went to my shop, Veritas. My blood drained and I felt a big panic coming up: no chains in the usual place!!! I asked a shop assistant and she showed me the front of the shop: there they were in a big box and on sale!!!  Good that I went that day: I had wanted to go a couple days earlier but was prevented. I came on the right day,  just in time! I bought all what was left: 2 spools of meters and meters of chunky chain and 3 spools of smaller chains! 

This is what I call a windfall! in which everybody has its part: the shop is rid of stuff that isn't selling, I have my chains for a good price and I can sell my creations for a good price! Honesty is the best policy! 

LoveLea's glam leather pool wear necklace

Last week, I felt like making  necklaces: I measured my neck, estimated how much of chain and how much of leather would be required, cut out the strips and made the necklace or choker, as you wish: it was a bit tight around my neck;  I forgot to take in count the thickness of the chain; so the cerulean blue one is for somebody with a small neck, the white one fits me as a glove.

White is easy to match and will look gorgeous with your tan; the cerulean blue necklace will look good with or without tan.

LoveLea's glam white leather necklace

LoveLea's glam cerulean leather necklace

A long piece/strip of black leather has been laying around for quite some time: my eye was drawn to it: bingo, the strip had the right width, maybe a bit long. I started weaving the leather strip through a 20 cm of chain, tried it on: perfect and very chic! I attached the snap buttons and here is a very chic black leather chunky-chain necklace. The metal has a pink shine and this makes it  less bling, more chic!

LoveLea's black leather chunky chain necklace/choker

The necklace measures 41,5 cm.

LoveLea's black leather chunky chain necklace/choker

All my creations are available at my FB-shop: https://www.facebook.com/denyshildemaria.lovelea 

Horseback riding!

My daughter's youngest, 8 years old, is horseback riding since  a couple of months. And she just loves it. She is a quiet girl but when horses and riding come in the picture, she opens up. That made my daughter curious about riding and she made a reservation for last Sunday and there we went, all 5 of us. My husband fell of a horse when he was young and didn't want to experience this again.

The instructor saddled the horses and gave my granddaughter little tasks to do, very clever of her. We were all a bit nervous since neither my son-in-law nor my grand son were ever on a horse back. My daughter rode a couple of times and I rode 40 years back!

Grand daughter carrying her saddle;
courtesy of Lis Vaessen

The whole of Saturday and the Sunday morning my grand daughter had been worrying about the horse she would be riding. She asked the instructor which horse she could ride and she asked: which horse you want? she said Sue and the instructor said: Sue it will be. My grandson mounted Splash, Sue's friend.

Grand daughter on horseback;
courtesy of Lis vaessen.

Grand son on horse back;
courtesy of Lis Vaessen.

The instructor gave the most concise instructions: how to turn left and right, kick your horse to go! and the rules: don't let your horse eat, don't leave a gap between the horses and Wayne should go last because he kicks!!!! Wayne was my horse. I was secretly relieved that I hadn't to ride a horse, labelled as biting, but the instructor gave me a kicking horse.  We went off leisurely to the adjacent national park.

All went well; I felt grand and young on a horse again, took me way back to my teenage years! I enjoyed my horse, the ride, being in the open and the environment. We even saw a heron, fishing in a pond. My grandson (who was just in front of me) just loved it: his horse went left when he pulled left on the reins and right and Splash went on as he kicked him, easy peasy. After 30 min of walking, the instructor started a trot; all of us went bouncing (me included) and jouncing, hitting the saddle, our insides shaken and shouting, crying out the most bizar and weird sounds; especially my grandson shrieked and roared from fear and pleasure. We trotted for maybe 2 minutes?

After some more trotting attempts, something went wrong: on a narrow and sandy path, Splash went through his front knees, got up and there went my grandson, landing on his head and then on his back between the horses' legs! Splash got up, wanted to bolt but was stuck by the other horses, turned around and then my grandson got hold of his horse. I had been shouting: get up, catch your horse so he would get up and back on his horse again. We had yet to go back to the stable! The instructor came to untangle the reins and helped my grandson on his horse again. And that was it for trotting! I would have liked to exercise the trot some more but in this circumstances.... Returning to the stables, my grandson declared: never on a horse again, his fear of tumbling bigger than his initial pleasure.

Fear, our ally.

This takes us to another subject: fear. Fear is a good thing, a sign we can work with! Yes! why? Because it shows us what is slowing us down or worse, hindering our growth. Your fear tells you: this is an issue you have to work on.

Dissect your fear: what is the trigger, what are the circumstances, what am I fearing? Is this the real reason or am I fooling myself? Most of the time, the fear is in your head: when you do what you fear, when done, you think: was that it? Did I fear this?

Fear confronts you with yourself: you think you are courageous but in front of your fear, you find out how big your courage is! Very deflating, a big eye opener, very confronting. But when you conquer you fear, you know it is possible and then nothing can stand in your way!

A nightly visitor

Two nights ago, the king of the night payed us a visit; he stayed the whole night. In the morning I prodded him so he would open his wings. I had seen his nice colors the night before. He flew up and tried to get out by the window. I didn't help him until a got some nice pictures! Then I took him in the hollow of my 2 hands and released him outside.

My King of the Night

I call him King because of his waistcoat with 4 buttons; admire his royal red colors!

That was it. Hope to see you next week with more news and pictures!

See you!