A bit of catching up

Winter is an interesting time. Everything slows down, or hibernates even! I am reminded of this everyday when I go for a walk in my vege garden (I like to do a daily check!). Since the cold weather has set in, growth pace has halved and we haven't got as much as I was planning out of the garden. By the time autumn came, we were still harvesting our summer crops and by the time I got our beds ready for winter, well, it was winter! Good lesson for next year!
Winter has got me into the same slow pace as well, and I am far behind everything, including this blog.
So first catch up, the mini card challenge. I am three cards behind, eeek, I was dreading this since I started the challenge. I did make the cards though, and the camera finally turned up, so here they are!


Week 16's prompt was: "Get someone else to contribute". I asked my best friend of all times, my soul sister, who happens to live in Germany and just got married. I was very very sad I missed out on the wedding.
She made a collage, which we used to do a lot when we were teenagers. This one is about me (!) and how she sees me now. I quote: the wood for my vintage side, the chinese screen, my ethnicity. I make babies (well, one so far!), I am an artist (glad someone sees me that way!!!) and a talented musician and I plant my own veges. Thanks for your contribution sister!

Week 17: "Your bedroom". This is the card that has taken me the longest to make! It was a cold evening, and I spent it between the couch by the fire and my cold workshop. Bedroom have always been important to me, perhaps the most important room of the house. When I was a teenager especially, since that was the only room in the house that was really "me". The card represents my bed, because when it comes down to it, that is what a bedroom is for, and to me it was like the womb, my safe place, cosy and warm. When I was younger I could spend hours in bed, even days (no joke!). I could probably still spend all day reading in bed if I didn't have a little wriggle worm. The colors represent my favorite colors at the time: purple and white. Those were the colors of my basketball team, and I was obsessed with it! My whole room was two tone: purple carpet (yes), purple and white wall paper, purple and white bed sheets... What a geek!
I wrote under the blanket what the bed represented to me, and on the little "me" doll (Josh calls it my voodoo doll) what I aspired to in those days.

Week 18: "Nature". We got given a swan plant last summer, which Monarch butterflies love, so we got lots and lots of caterpillars. Unfortunately most of them got eaten by wasps and praying mantis, but we managed to get some pupal cases from somewhere else and hung them on our plant. Hoe exciting to see the monarchs emerge! I took some photos of it, so I made a collage of these photos for this week's card!

mini art journal challenge: week 12

This week's prompt: "I believe".
So, being an optimistic (most of the time anyway!), I like to believe in a lot of things.
I remember when I was a kid, I wanted a cat so badly, for six months (maybe more) that is all I'd wish for. I'd even made one of those special wish bracelets and wore it so when it would wear out I could wish for a cat (it took ages, at some stage I was ready to give it a hand by filing it a bit). Well, it happened. We were traveling in Guadeloupe, in the French West indies, and in the street waiting for a bus, there was this cute friendly tortoise kitten . My brother and I started playing with it and patting it. The owner turned up and told us if we wanted to we could keep it. I was over the moon! We took it back to France, hidden in a bag on the plane (at the time it was an easy thing to do). Unfortunately it disappeared  a few months later, probably snatched by someone since it was so friendly and cute.
Yes, that's how much I like to believe.
My greatest belief though would have to be "the little things": thoughts, attention, goals... I don't like to be told when to tell someone I love them (like mother's day, valentine's days, father's day), the only one i stick to is birthdays, and even then, I'm useless at remembering them. For me, you show love whenever you feel like, and I tend to buy something as a present for someone if I see something that reminds me of them, not just a few weeks before xmas (which is great to avoid xmas rush). I chose to stay at home with my son because I believe what is important is our little routine everyday, my presence, a little walk on the beach, a little story when we wake up, a little kiss whenever I feel like it. And I have a strong belief that anyone can help shape a better planet, little by little. By watching what we buy, having a compost in the garden, recycling what we can (Fresh cream bottles with a few holes at the bottom make great bubbles in the bath water!), even just thinking about what we can do to reduce our impact. When I decided to start pioupioukids, I wanted to follow the same philosophy and produce as little waste as I can, be conscious about where I buy my supplies. So far I'm more than happy with what I've managed, even if I'll never make millions. But I am so much happier doing this than earning big bucks in the film industry. It is possible, it is worth doing a little something, it makes a difference.

Background is a picture taken from a magazine (water drops), letters cut out from a picture of a poster, the colorful flower is taken from Tahi's wall decoration!