What made me smile and other fairy-light at the end of a tunnel stories!

Bumper post today - I have a video, in it – a confession, a personal story of enlightenment,the creative work it inspired and a tutorial. 

As it so happens - the timing is perfect for this month’s challenge theme: “What makes you smile” at Our Creative Corner, hosted by Jan of  Scrappin' from the attic. 

Jan says “Your June challenge is to create something that will make us smile, it could be a scrapbook or journal page, a canvas, a tag, whatever your imagination dictates.”  

Hop along there to see what my creative and talented Design teamies have created, as well as see what you can win from the sponsor Tando Creative this month.  My piece was this choker and earring set here on the left. 


There is a whole back story to why this project is what “made me smile” and I am so switched on about it that I have put together a little video tutorial on how I made these little glass ampoule charms from reclaimed fairy-lights. 


If you cant watch the video but still want to check out the “photorial” instead – no worries, I got you covered! At the bottom of this post is a full post spread taken from stills from the video.  However I am going to make you work for it and you are going to have to read through my story first to get to it.

There is an exquisite line in a poignant poem from the 12th Century Persian poet Hafiz

"I wish I could show you when you are lonely or in darkness the astonishing light of your own being."

 My big confession is that I temporarily misplaced that familiar and personal certitude over the last couple of months.  Have you ever tripped and fell down that dark hole?  Something throws you off the giddy path you were on, that you were quite giddy about, and then you think that your giddiness had to do the path and the companions on that path? 

I went into a kind of unfamiliar crisis where I forgot that the light-source that powers my being in the world, my engagement with life, the delight with the relationships I have, the passion, love and heart  which I fully entangle with exists because of the light I hold within. 


In that short period of dark-holey-ness, I let myself believe that the light was external and that it had been dimmed quite a bit.  

But enough about that and onto the enlightenment. I have two awesome people in my life that I became fast and furious friends with pretty much from the moment I met them, we hang around together a lot – and we all work together as well.  Lovely Chris, Awesome Nicol and myself were doing our thing one evening when Lovely Chris took this picture of myself and awesome Nicol. This is how the story starts.


It’s a happy picture right?  We both look super thrilled to be doing what we’re doing, we look like we exude an amazing lit up energy.  

Here is the thing though – looking at that picture - would you believe that the day that this picture was taken, was during one of the the most heartbreaking periods ever for me in my life?

I am sure you all have been there before where you have had no choice but to let go of someone that is significant emotionally, spiritually and companion wise to you. That temporary vacuum created by the exit of someone so important to me, who had been such a beautiful part to my life had suddenly thrown me into an acute, anxious panic that the light and love that was there was turned off and that it had darkened with the exit of that significant someone.

So in that great delusion I let my self get lost.  And I admit that I stayed with that for a while, got stuck there.  I forgot who I am and what I bring. I just persisted in that space of self-doubt and judgement.

Nicol asked me the other day:  “When are you going to post those awesome pictures that Chris took?”  That got me thinking about the photos that were taken and I went to have a look.  A strange, and just slightly brilliant thing started happening – the photos started reaching out to me - 
I looked at them and they showed me being undeniably, quintessentially me. 
I thought "Wow, this brilliant picture was taken on a day that I was completely heartbroken and resigned", I still remember with particularly clarity how broken up I felt about the circumstances of that time. 

Chris unintentionally through his candid photo-eye captured a moment that was the best expression of myself in myself.  And this led to an epiphany.  It revealed to me the “astonishing light” inherent, particularly underlined by the fact that I know that it was taken on a rawest and most vulnerable day, and yet this uncontainable light of me burst through. Inspite of the distressing state of the circumstances that I was forced to deal with, I look completely happy, full of the  fullness of life and completely lit up with that moment.  In that presence - I was fully there, lit with pure joy bubbling from within from whatever made me love that moment.

What a liberating moment that was.  I came to recognise the brilliant value of my own light-nature, the ability to embrace each present moment in its own, with heart, love, passion and full engagement of the light that is within me. 

In that point of recognition I began to see my delusion for what it was.  What I thought was lost was not lost at all. The beautiful part was not something external, the beautiful part was what I brought with me to engage in that relationship.  I loved that relationship because of the light that I brought to it for myself, by myself.  And suddenly I thought – “Whoa, because I always have that light, and I bring it to wherever I am and to whatever I engage – I am not the one who lost at all, I found so much more value because I recognise who I am and what I am made of.”  

With that came the avowed realisation that I did not have to invest any more dark energy into that which moved away from my light, all I have to do is continue to invest in my own glow and be present in my own. 

That picture was the ladder that I needed to climb on to return me home to the assurance of illumination. This empowering insight MAKES ME SMILE broader than I ever have before. 


So with that in mind, I sought to develop a piece that would celebrate the insight and serve as some kind of wearable metaphor in that regard. Carrying a pocket-full of fairy-light bulbs is a little impractical…..and weird, plus to hide them would be a waste of their whimsical nature.  So the only solution that would incorporate my vision and intention was to fashion them into charms and turn it into piece of jewellery. 

The reason I decided to use the Fairy-Light bulbs was symbolic - their shape reminded me of a tunnel.  I was trying to convey the concept of light at the end of a tunnel and then there was the fact they were actually light-bulbs.  Light-bulbs switch on with a power source, and if you are wearing light-bulbs, then you are the power source that lights them.  Thirdly, Fairy-light bulbs are just so whimsically pretty and that in itself would have been a good enough reason to use them.  I share my journeyt so that if you are reading this post and the weight of heart-rending circumstances have you feeling a little cornered and in the dark - I want you to know that the light is always in you, switch it back on. 

And if you are still here and want to make your own piece of fairy-light charms – here is a quick photorial.

Well I do hope that my little personal story of recovery and the project that arose out of it inspired or encouraged you today.  Leave a comment if you have your own story to tell or if you just want to say hi.  I would love to hear your thoughts.

Here's a sweet little song to play you out.

When you try your best, but you don't succeed

When you get what you want, but not what you need

When you feel so tired, but you can't sleep

Stuck in reverse

And the tears come streaming down your face

When you lose something you can't replace

When you love someone, but it goes to waste

Could it be worse?

Lights will guide you home

And ignite your bones

And I will try to fix you

And high up above or down below

When you're too in love to let it go

But if you never try you'll never know

Just what you're worth

Lights will guide you home

And ignite your bones

And I will try to fix you

Tears stream down on your face

When you lose something you cannot replace

Tears stream down on your face

And I...

Tears stream down on your face

I promise you I will learn from my mistakes

Tears stream down on your face

And I...

Lights will guide you home

And ignite your bones

And I will try to fix you

Read more: Javier Colon cover of  - Fix You (Coldplay) 

Smokin Hot Sneaky Teaser

Yep, its on!!!!  Watch the video above to get a hint of what I have got going on - going live -7:00 GMT - 19th May, 2015  over at  Our Creative Corner

Its a bumper issue Sponsor Spotlight (with tutorials) for 6 designs that I worked using the AMAZING
Water Effects 1 Collection from Designs By Ryn

You will not believe how awesome this collection is and how much mileage you can get out of it, just by tweaking your technique a little - I'll show you that over there at Our Creative Corner

Go on over there now! I'm excited about it - now you get excited too!
Tincan

Just some love to share

My sister-in-law posted this picture of my brother, my nephew and my dad.

I absolutely love it so much, I find myself tearing up every single time I look at it.  

I am so moved by how my dad's influence of tenderness in the life of his son and his grandson is so preciously evident.

I love how and where the light falls - as if highlighting the  moment, reminding us that its something worth capturing. 

 I don't scrapbook, but I think I might scrap-canvas this beautiful picture of  love shown across 3 generations.

And just because he is such an adorable munchkin - I am just going to randomly add more pictures of this gorgeous kid!!

in the meantime not a real post

Not really a big post but just a few things I have been tinkering with recently.

I created this journal as a gift for a dear friend of mine.  Super fun to do.  Thought I'd share.

Also managed to keep a Mother's Day card relatively clean and simple,  this is very difficult for me because I tend to overdo the chunk on the card.

I been a' testin' and 'sperimentin' with layering techniques - 

that's all for now 

Candice (aka Tincan)

Portrait of Blessings for the May 2015 Challenge at Our Creative Corner

I can hardly believe that it has already been a month since I last updated this blog and that it is time for the next design team installment for the Our Creative Corner challenge. 

Shari is hosting the new challenge “April Showers bring May Flowers” for the month of May and this is what she asked to do:

“This month, the challenge is to create something, a mixed-media project, a journal page, a scrapbook page, a card or tag...Anything, that reflects the Spring rains and/or Spring flowers in your part of the world.”  

If you play along and enter the blog challenge  with your piece of creative work (you can link-up your entry and peruse the rest of the fantastic design team inspiration projects here -> Our Creative Corner) – you could be the recipient of a fantastic prize from our sponsor Designs by Ryn,  click the logo to go over there. 

I am really excited to tell you about this sponsor as well because in a few days time I will be doing a Sponsor Spotlight post over here and at Our Creative Corner for the company and I really can’t wait to showcase Ryn’s beautiful designs. 

Now back to the challenge.  Spring for Zululand (my part of the southern hemispheric world) is all the way over in September and the peak of the rainy season is in January.  So I had to think a little bit about what spring flowers and rain would be like.  Then I got a sneaky little idea and because I am a rebel decided to interpret the theme a little more liberally (hope I dont get kicked off the team for that) and I created this mixed media canvas below that I am boldly naming “Showers of Blessing”.  I attempted to paint the feel of a shower of blessing in a spring colour palette.  I will go into greater detail of how I came to the interpretive concept for this piece and how it relates to the theme in detail later but for now here is my submission.

OUT OF YOUR HANDS

Nothing is under your control. Everything is out of your hands now, as it always was.

So your hands are free, to embrace whatever comes, moment by moment.

Out of your hands, into trust.

- Jeff Foster -

Recently I have made a commitment to myself to facilitate more love, harmony and healing into my being.  In an attempt to do so, I have sought guidance from wherever I can, so I have been reading all kinds of inspirational writings and teachings. My current favourites, or the writings that I have gravitated toward at this period in my life are those of Jeff Foster, an astrophysicist-turned spiritual awakening writer and some works by Geshe Kelsang, whom I became more curious about upon participating in a weekly Mahasiddha Kadampa Meditation group that  meets in my area.


Simultaneously during the process of thinking about a project for Shari’s challenge, that which I was reading, my quest to find balance, in addition to my daily meditation practise which begins by holding a wish to use the meditation as a way to be blessed and to bless others, I began noticing the same "quotes". They were interjecting themselves all over the social media and internet sites that I frequent. It was in the books that I was reading, it was in the stuff that I was watching.   

Gradually I became aware of the possibility that perhaps I was noticing these coincidences of similar ideas not so much for their frequency of appearance but because of a kind of synchronicity, that there was a yearning for the personal meaningfulness of the message contained in the ideas that made me notice them more. 

 I began to think that perhaps I should pay attention because it is something that my soul needs to conceive of, receive and put in action. The key ideas that kept recurring were of gratitude, of sowing what you reap, of being what you want to receive.
 
So the more I tried to think of what to create for Shari’s challenge, the more I kept seeing an image in my head of myself being showered with blessings that I could bring into being by showering the same blessings forth.  And this is really how the concept was born. 

I had created other projects for the theme that would have been more obviously related to the theme of rain and flowers - they featured umbrellas, floral paper arrangements and rain.  I don’t know why it just didnt seem to sit right in my being. I felt completely compelled to create this project instead for the challenge. Eventually, I let myself be directed by what my heart was really wanting me to create and thus here it is.

Heh, who knows – perhaps this is all part of some grander scheme, where someone else reading this blog has a synchronistic moment themselves. I don’t know, all I do know is that I really had to make this project.
Here are few pictures of the project while I was working on it -

 

OUT OF YOUR HANDS
Nothing is under your control. Everything is out of your hands now, as it always was.
So your hands are free, to embrace whatever comes, moment by moment.
Out of your hands, into trust.
- Jeff Foster -

Colour Your World at Our Creative Corner (April 2015 Challenge)

Hi there again.

This month’s challenge at Our Creative Corner is hosted by Laurie and here is what she said:

“For my challenge this month I want you to

Color Your World

For this challenge create a project with the colors of spring time where you live.

Show us what colors renew your soul.”

The sponsor for this month is: Creative Embellishments.

All you have to do is enter your project that fits the Colour Your World Theme and you could win some seriously cool stuff from them.

For the challenge this month, my design team contribution is that “gorjuss” little shaker card above.  I have always loved things that move and sparkle and are interesting to play with so I had to try and make one of these babies.  What a fantastic amount of fun it was to do.

 I started off by cutting a window on piece of card and adhered acetate to the reverse side. I found that it is a little easier to cut your window and adhere the acetate to it first - rather than do the image and sentiment piece first. This is because it is hard to find an appropriately sized die that will cut the window big enough for the image and sentiment.However if you do the window first - you can make sure that your sentiment and image fits in nicely.

  

I then stamped the Santoro Gorjuss girl from the Ladybird Collection on a piece of craft Cardstock Ranger's Sepia Archival Ink and colour-painting her in.I used different mediums.  Firstly - Wax coloured pencils to do the outlines, so that when I introduced the wetter mediums it would prevent it from bleeding. I also used watercolour pencils, distress markers as well Dala White Block Printing Ink for white “Organza” parts of her dress.

I really wanted the “Ladybird Girl” image to pop, so I painted all around here in rich black Block Printing Ink from Dala. 

 Once that was dry, I used a white Pentel gel pen (my favourite type of gel pen)to write in a sentiment. 

I then sprinkled some sequins over the top because I wanted it to look like a shower of flowery confetti. I glued 2 or 3 down. I decided to do that so that even if you are not shaking the card there would still be some bling.

 I then attached some thick double sided adhesive to the back of the window piece and fixed that to the bottom piece with the girl. I washi-taped the borders because I just liked how that looked and also because it helps to hide the “construction” of the shaker card.

The last thing that I did was go over some of the words on the sentiment over on the acetate so that it would highlight them and create a shadowed text effect.

And that really all there was to it. Hope you will give these shaker cards a shot – they are super fun to make and you can put all kinds of crazy bits and pieces in them!

Thanks for stopping by and having a look.  Please play along with this month’s awesome challenge theme.

Candice