Celebrating happiness - letter of the week 13

Photo source
{this is Bucharest, Romania by night}

Christmas is gone! flew away! Vanish! I can't imagine how this time flies and another year is just about to end. I don't want to get melodramatic, but the truth is that I have o idea how a single day goes by, what's to say about a whole year?!

I wanted to do so much, I've done so little. I've always wanted more and more and in return I only got what I've deserved: a little bit of this, a little bit of that and most important, the feeling that I am love. Had to deal with 2 accidents, both domestic, one fall and another one collapse. The feeling that I am not myself anymore.  The fact that I had my smile with me all the time {except the moments when I really felt I had to cry} helped me to see the bright side of every situation. And I say I am a positive thinker, but most of a time I'm pretty much a pessimistic one. Not helpless, not without dreams. I am a believer. I believe in truth and in good deeds. They will come in return one day, so do no harm. Love the others like you love yourself. Help people discover the beauty of life, coz life is really truly beautiful. It's magnificent! In every way! Life is a gift we should treasure.

2012. I grew up. Grow stronger. Learned many lessons, but the most important of all is to love. And when I say to love I mean not to love only your lover, wife/husband, kid/s, friends and family,  but to love ALL human beings. All beings. I've learned that happiness is a journey, not a destination. I've learned that happiness is a matter of perspective and not a given conjuncture.

After 7 years with my lover, friend, husband, my everything as the saying, I've finally embraced happiness and its sweet taste. And is nothing how I imagined. Has nothing to do with money. Nothing to do with material goods or possessions. Happiness lays inside every one of us. We just have to look closer and open our hearts. If not to others, at least be straight to ourselves. And then the happiness will bloom. Your heart will sing, your legs will dance, your body will find its balance. 

We are going to step in 2013 in a few hours. I wish you all have the strength to find your your way in 2013 if you're still in the mist or to follow it on if you know the road!

***Happy new year!

Accessories of a bad girl

Accessories of a bad girl by cristina featuring crystal rings

A golden night

A golden night by cristina featuring sheep shoes

The fabulous Lipstick

My new addiction, the red-glitter lipstick from Yves Roches, the Semi-mat, long-wear lipstick, only that I have the glitter version that looks incredible to wear in the New Year's Eve Party! What do you think? What is your favourite? 

Oh, and what about the apple delight collection in limited edition? I want that candle in my living room, to light the Christmas table when all the family is sitting around!

Sweet Christmas treats are also to take into consideration as a Christmas gift:

30 Days of Pinspiration!

 Pinterest is the place where I find my daily inspiration. It's a place where you can find magnificent inspirational photos that you can save and share with your friends and family. 

And the 30 days of Pininspiration present the most beautiful pin boards on Pinterest! 

I absolutely love this site! Of course, there are a few others like this one, but none of them is so captivating like Pinterest is! If you're not using Pinterest yet, you should definitely grab an username and start creating your boards! It's easy and ...FREE! To get started, click here. It only takes a few minutes to create your account, but will keep you captivated all day long once you start using it! ;-) So be careful! It can become addicted! The best part is that you can install the PIN IT button, a tool that allows you to save whatever image you like from webpages all over the internet! You just have to click on it and a windows will open, allowing you to choose the board you want that PIN to go. Is that easy!

My Pinterest.com Profile

And if you are not following me yet on Pinterest, here is my page

 I have 27 boards, more than 4000 pins and 3500+ likes! 240 people following me and I follow ...2145! My profile is in Spanish, but you can choose among different existing languages.


You can read more about Pinterest here.
I will get back with my favourite boards ever. There are few boards that catch my eye and I would love to share those with you!

Oh, I almost forgot! Only...ONLY 10 days, 11 hours until Christmas! Horay!

New Releases: 8 Hot Ticket Items to Love Now

New Releases: 8 Hot Ticket Items to Love Now by polyvore-editorial featuring a translucent face powder

Another lesson

Struggling to do whatever we want to do, but you don't always get. And your plans are twisted in a blink. Due to my anemia, last week I collapsed and broke my nasal pyramid on the left side. I was under shock at first, a lot of blood all over, my husband was also shocked this happen. One BIG lesson I have to learn from all this: always care about your health. I knew I am anemic, BUT NEVER EVER thought that I'm gonna collapse! But it happen! And luckily, I was sitting down on the couch edge when happened and not on the feet! Because otherwise I could hurt myself more and broke my head or something...

Anyway, I had the occasion to see how a beaten woman looks like and - more important, how one feels! Because after this, I took my husband (or he took me) to the neurology, and then to CCT and then to EEG. The rest of the patients were looking and wondering what happened with me, because I had some scratches on my face, from the moment I "met" our living room carpet. It feels terrible having people staring at you like that. On my paper was blank on white saying: CCT - cranial-cerebral trauma. Kinda harsh, isn't it? But even when you broke your nose, that is how they call it. Overall, I'm OK, Saint God! My nose will be as new in a couple of weeks, first week I was looking like one of those woman who have been abused, but now I got my face back. I never imagined that a little crack on the side of my nose can do so much harm and can make me look so bad!


OK, that's it! Take care if you know you have problems and do some checks from time to time, even when YOU THINK you're OK. 

Back to my quiet world, the Christmas is coming, people! What do you want for Christmas? I know I want more crafts (besides being healthy!!!) and let my imagination go wild next year! Here is one of my sewing projects!

Are we all IT experts?

Aren't there any other jobs available? Are we all living in an on-line environment? I can be very well an IT expert, but I wouldn't be happy working in an office all day long with my eyes in a computer screen and with a bunch of papers to do.

The golden beautiful nude

The golden beautiful nude by cristinaLove featuring snakeskin handbags

Leopard print shirt
dancewearsolutions.com

Trench coat
$145 - morgandetoi.com

Comptoir Des Cotonniers short pleated skirt
$300 - comptoirdescotonniers.co.uk

Rag & bone black heel boots
ssense.com

Warehouse snakeskin handbag
$41 - warehouse.co.uk

Nicole Romano post earrings
charmandchain.com

Disney Couture chain necklace
$57 - theiconic.com.au

River Island skull bracelet
$24 - riverisland.com

Lipstick Queen matte lipstick
barneys.com

Acceptance - really hard business

YES. I believe it’s a big deal nowadays to accept things, especially if they are not as you expect them to be. Here is a piece of advice when you don’t know what to do to cope with life and situations. 

Found this on internal acceptance movement’s blog, you can take a peek and find more inspiration ;-)

When we feel urges to use destructive behaviors, we feel like we don’t have any choice other than to give in because fighting the urges seems impossible, and thus pointless.

But there are lots of coping skills and self-care activities we can do to help the urges pass and aid us in coping with uncomfortable emotions and situations. 

1. Journal

Get out how you are feeling. Write the thoughts circling in your head. Your words don’t have to be coherent, and they don’t even have to be sentences. The purpose of journaling is simply to shift the chaos in your head to a piece of paper, where you can look back on it when you are in a better place and understand what caused you to feel the way you do. It’s doesn’t matter if you write well. All that matters is that you write. 

2. Listen to your favorite music.

3. Watch a movie/tv

4. Light a candle and meditate.

5. Make a collage from old magazines and photographs.

6. Scream into a pillow.

7. Rip paper

8. Throw ice

9. Call a friend to distract yourself or vent.

Make a 911 List of phone numbers that you can refer to when you need support or have an urge to use any kind of unhealthy behavior. Make a deal with yourself that you have to call every single person on the list before engaging in the behavior.

Even if the person doesn’t answer, you have to leave them a message and tell them what you have an urge to do. This way, you are accountable. Chances are that at least one person will answer and offer you the support you need to fight your urge.

You can also vent to the person in the message you leave. Just saying out loud how we feel, even if someone isn’t on the receiving end, can be extremely helpful. 

10. Take a nap

Read on…there are 26 coping skills!

The Love Bird

I got better now after feeling terrible these days, with a bad cold with high temperature and running nose, and sneezing...

I can tell you I draw this bird thinking of freedom, the emotion that sets your mind free and you put yourself at ease. The feeling is incredible, isn't it?

Love Bird, my inspiration

The Love Bird come into my life a few years ago, but little I knew at that time. I knew nothing much about it. I knew nothing about the beauty of life and I guess when I'll look back after some years I'll think the same about me now. But I understand now that it's more about what you feel, than what you think. The mind versus intuition. Intuition is something that kept me from doing stupid things and taking even more stupid actions. And I'm grateful that I've listened to that inner voice telling me all those "crazy, non-sense" words, because at that time they seemed crap for me, but got the direction after awhile.

If you haven't seen yet more photos on Pinterest, then click here!

Great Pema Chödron's quotes

From QueenCreative

I found this article with some incredible quotes on learning about your own self and how to treat yourself and respect yourself. I had to share it with you and keep it close in my blog for later reading. I begin to love QueenCreative's blog and I'm keeping a close eye to what's going on her bogging platform. You should check her website.

I didn't know about Pema Chödron until now. It's great to discover inspirational people who make the difference between feeling lost and feeling fulfilled.

Patience With Yourself (click to open source)

Some wonderful quotes from the Buddhist nun, Pema Chödron. She was born inNew York City, went to Miss Porter’s School in Connecticut, and then to Berkley. Miss Porter’s (now called, simply Porter’s Farmington) has a long list of famous alumnae, including Gloria Vanderbilt, Gene Tierney, Lilly Pulitzer, Letitia Baldridge,  Jacqueline Kennedy, and Dierdre Blomfield-Brown, now known as Pema Chodron.

Learning how to be kind to ourselves, learning how to respect ourselves, is important. The reason it’s important is that, fundamentally, when we look into our own hearts and begin to discover what is confused and what is brilliant, what is bitter and what is sweet, it isn’t just ourselves that we’re discovering. We’re discovering the universe.

*   *   *   *  *

We can drop the fundamental hope that there is a better “me” who one day will emerge. We can’t just jump over ourselves as if we were not there.

*    *   *   *

People get into a heavy-duty sin and guilt trip, feeling that if things are going wrong, that means that they did something bad and they are being punished. That’s not the idea at all. The idea of karma is that you continually get the teachings that you need to open your heart. To the degree that you didn’t understand in the past how to stop protecting your soft spot, how to stop armoring your heart, you’re given this gift of teachings in the form of your life, to give you everything you need to open further.

*    *     *    *

Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.

*   *    *    *

—Quinn McDonald is writing a book about inner heroes and inner critics. She’s wondering what they are saying about her.

Horay! Today it's my birthday!

I've been expecting this for a long time. Actually dreamed about it. If I ever I forgot about it, there was always something to remind me about it!

When I was 18 I've received as a birthday gift a bottle of perfume. Was my first perfume ever, so maybe I'm sentimental and that's why I like it so much, but ever since then there was something missing. Of course, I had other scents and some were really close to this one, BUT was not THIS ONE.
Today I've received my bottle of cologne with the vanilla scent inside. Vanilla Fields, to be precisely! yeey! I was jumping with happiness with this bottle in one hand and with the package in the other. Then I've tried on my hand and here's the joy: it smells THE SAME as I remember it more than 10 years ago! I had to order it on-line, because here you cannot find it in stores. I read the reviews left on the product site, and some of the people were saying there this perfume can be found at the gas stations! No way, Jose! Not here, anyway! I guess the person was from United States, because he was talking like there's no way he would buy this perfume on-line. The fact is that I never ordered perfumes on-line, but this was the ONLY place where I've found it - and because I wanted this SO MUCH, I said I should give it a try! I even thought that I'll wait almost a month for the product to arrive from USA in Europe, but the truth is that I got this in 12 days! yeey again! ;-)

I love the scent of vanilla, and even if it's a cologne and doesn't last that much, I am happy I can have this on my skin and wear it everyday! Once I've tested and saw that I'm not allergic to this, I couldn't be more happy! I was afraid that I may be allergic, because I've been through this with hair dye, body lotion and other stuff, so I was a little worried about this, but Saint God it's OK!

Today wasn't really my birthday, but I've ordered this perfume on my birthday as a b/d present! But anyway, I consider every day is a new day that I can make MY DAY!

Hugs,
Love

It's a matter of perspective - letter of the week 12

This is with the money. Now you have it, now you don't! They vanish incredible fast! We constantly strive for money: always not having enough! I've come to this conclusion when I've realised that all the problems have this as a beginning point: no money, not nothing! And the more you think you don't have any money, the far you are from having any! I'm writing this become I've come through an article that remind me that money are always enough IF you know how to place yourself in the equation: it's either you think and know you have them, or you don't have them at all. And never will! And you have nothing to lose if you try this! I love healyourlife articles!

Here is an article written by Marie Claire Carlyle, who wrote: 

"Positive affirmations: A relatively easy way to help you change how you think and feel about your situation is to change what you say about your situation. This is where the use of affirmations can be helpful. An affirmation is a simple positive statement that is repeated on a regular basis until the mind adopts it as a new belief. Some people like to keep copies of their favorite affirmations in places where they can see them regularly, for example inside a kitchen cupboard or written in secret code on the steering wheel of their car."

I've give it a try and actually realized that this affirmations really help me a lot! But in the daily rush, I forgot to mention them everyday and eventually stopped doing it at all. What a mistake! I should continue with this and never stop.
She also says:

"If you want to change your situation, start changing your thoughts about it now!"

And that's sooooo right! I was so frustrated earlier, than I cause myself a headache! A terrible one! And that's only because I only had bad thoughts and fuzzy negative imagines running through my head. What was I thinking? The whole situation started when talking with my mum about some expenses we'll have to cover soon because caused by a situation we CANNOT control. And instead of thinking bright and focus on solving the things, they got even worse.

Here are some of the daily affirmation that I love using. My favourite one is "I love myself" and "I am Love". Soon you'll start using these affirmations, you'll instantly feel better. I can assure you!

These are examples for wealth. You can adjust them for any other situation.

"Examples of affirmations for becoming a Money Magnet include the following:

I am (now) a Money Magnet! 

I’m always finding money.  I attract money wherever I go. I am happy, healthy, and wealthy.  I love my life. I have all that I need and more.  I deserve lots of money.  I love money and all that it allows me to do.  I respect money and money respects me. I make money easily.  I value what I do.  I offer enormous value.  I am happy to receive my full worth. "

interiordeziner: Trust Your Instincts

HI there everyone!

It's so good to be back, I've missed this space of mine that seems to transform every day to a larger group of people sending emails and comments. Thank you!

Tonight I've found this post, with the reason why you should go for it and follow your instincts when it comes to interior design. Here is the post, I hope you like it! Lee Brown is an exceptional woman, with THE thing for  interior design!

Trust Your Instincts (click for original post!)

The reason I write this blog is to give you insights on being a designer. In the ecourses I offer, I give you direction to understand and learn the principles of design. Anyone can learn these, but to be truly able to take these lessons and move up a level you need to be able to think and feel like a designer.
All I want to talk about today is to trust your instincts. If you have finished all the education, you will have the fundamentals to be able to make good decisions, even if you don't feel you have the confidence to do so yet. I just want to help you along and guide you to achieving confidence.
Some Tips
PractiseEven if you don't have any paying projects - invent some. If you visit a friends home, take a mental picture and then do a mock proposal to redesign a room. Use your own home, try writing a client brief and creating a scheme for it. See how many different client briefs you can do and you will be amazed on how you treat the same space according to your different client's needs. The only thing this will cost you is your time, but it will give you the confinence to start trusting your understanding of using a brief and putting together a scheme for it. When you write the brief, here are some ideas on what type of design the client may want - a comfortable and cosy home, a pristine design icon, a user friendly family environment, an entertainer's paradise. I guarantee you will enjoy this process and you will feel proud that you can create interesting and different looks for the same space.

Trust Your InstinctsI can't stress this enough. Once you start to become fluent with putting schemes together you will be amazed how quickly you can do it. I can always tell a potentially good designer as they are...

How to Make Rose Beads from your Wedding Flowers

I found this fascinating blog entry I wanted to have it on my 'list idea' so I can try it someday!
So here it is: how to make those roses yours forever!
Simply visit this blog and you'll get the instructions! Just be aware the post is long, so you have to be patient about it. ;-)

Ring, ring, ring. No, not THAT ring ;-)

I've always loved this kind of rings with lots of stones shinning in the light, BUT I wanted one made with my own hands so ..here it is!

The image is not very good, I did not use flash because the colours change if there's too much light.