Happy world book day!

World Book Day!

I love books. I always did. And I always will do.
They accompained me through good and bad days, through all phases in my life, I can't remember a single time in my life when I did not read.
I love reading in bed, when it's raining outside. I love reading outside in the garden or on the upper deck of a London bus.
I love book stores and the smell of books.
Karl Lagerfeld is about to create a perfume with the smell of books!

Books can change a life. Books make the difference.

I am very happy to live in a country where books are lovely made, good quality and not too expensive.

So if you want to exchange a paperback with some-one in another country, why not signing up for the "paperback swap". Please send me an e-mail to lawendula@googlemail.com.


Please click on pic to see credits! Thanks.

I am sad (and angry)

I am sad and angry!
In recent times there is too much trouble with people signing up for projects and then never show up again, so that others send something out and will never get anything back.
Although most of you are doing a very great job, these "black sheep" spoil everything.

And one of those has now ruined the collage box #2 project. She keeps the box since weeks, she is not sending it on and she does not answer to any e-mails. (But she is blogging!) She does not send out anything to her swap partner too.
And there is nothing I can do!

All for all this I do, I am called a liar! Me! I can't believe it, it really takes my breath away. I will not write an answer to that. And of course it's completely unfair, because I have to do all this in a foreign language.

It's much work and much time I spend with doing these swaps and round robins. I am doing it, because I believe in the magic of networks and communication. But something went wrong somewhere. And that makes me really sad.

For all those of you who are in Collage box #2 and will not receive it now, I will start a new one in fall 2011. I will inform you via e-mail, when it gets started.

Thanks to all of you who've sent me kind words via e-mail and who understand this.

Parts of my life (2)

Parts of my life (1)

The ephemera quap

For all those of you, who want a fine, quick, tiny swap in between, I now proudly present:

The ephemera quick swap= quap.



It’s for all those who love the bits and bites of stuff for journaling, scrapbooking, collaging or mixed media arts.

Please sign in NOW (due day will be soon, April, 15)

And this is how it goes:
The first one on the list will receive an envelope full of ephemera from me. She or he now fills up an (normal letter!) envelope with ephemera herself and sends it on to the next one on the list and so on.

Depending on how many will sign up, I may devide the whole thing in three groups (according to the place you live in):
Europe
USA
Australia (&world)

Please sign up with your mailing adress via e-mail to lawendula@googlemail.com

Hope you have fun! Any questions? Feel free to ask!
Please consider: only the small envelope (up to 8 inches long and 4 ½ high), not a big one!

PS: You can of course join the other paper swaps too!

Paper Swap News

So the gates have closed for the April Swap, thank you everyone who has come to play along.
E-mails with all informations are on the way!


And we're heading for a new swap in May, a special one: the paperback swap.
It can be your favorite novel, a book with poems or just any other book you like and you want to share with someone. It also can be your own book, if you have published one. (Zines are also possible)
It does not have to be a new one, but it has to be in a good condition.
Please write a few words, why you like this book.

You can sign up now, it will start on May, 2 2011.
If you do, please let me know, if you want to receive a paper back only in English or if you may like one in another language. If possible, I will consider this.

You can sign in now: lawendula@googlemail.com

And for all participants of the March Swap "The Scavenger hunt": Please give me feedback, send me pictures of the exchanged items or your blogposting about it.
I really want to know, how was it going? Was it hard to do? Was it fun?

The flow of creativity

I am ever so thankful for all the teasures from paper swaps.
I love to browse through my paper stacks from all over the world and use bits and bites here and there in my collages.



My daughter and I had a crafty sunday yesterday, our studio was filled with sun and creativity and that's a wonderful feeling.



Svea now makes her collages with more consciousness. This piece is called "the mother" and she refers to the fact, that I am sometimes a little bit over-protecting, that's why she calls me "mother of sorrows".


I love what one can do with tea, ink and old letterpress stamps.



I am still doing a "wtj" ("wreck this journal"). This is #8. To work in a wtj just gives me the feeling to play, to take it easy, to loose myself in a creativity flow without censoring.





Talking about paper swap: last call for the April swap, who wants to join?! Just send me an e-mail!

Shades of brown, signs of decay

Did some photographing in my garden today, I love all these shades of brown, light green and papergrey there are.













Decay everywhere, but who cares. Perfection is boring. Wabi Sabi is inspiring.

A book to become ONE with

About a week ago I found a picture on Flickr, showing a book.
I did not know the book, but in some strange way I had the feeling, I must found out, what it is about.
I could only read „One- living and loving it“ and I googled it.
So I found out, it’s an Australian book and unfortunately not available in Germany. I asked amazon.de, but no way to buy it from here.
My bibliophil instinct told me, that I MUST have it, although I did not really know, what it’s about. Well, internet is a great thing, if you want to find out what it’s all about and so I looked for the author: Victoria Alexander, found her blog and left her a message.
And she was e-mailing me straight back. Very nice!
Later that day, I really was amazed by another e-mail, coming from Scott White, the sales director of Murdoch publishing in Sydney (where „One“ has been published), he told me, that I will be able to order „One“ soon from amazon.uk and we had a lovely e-mail chat about this and that during that day.
And once again, I thought: „How nice Australian people are!“ (Everybody says so and they are right.)
And yesterday was the day: I’ve got my copy of „One“ and it really took my breath away.

This is the most beautiful book, I have ever seen! It talks to all senses, it’s a real tactile blowoff, an eye candy, speaking in a voice that comes from the heart, it has lovely little secrets (like that little bag at the end or some hidden messages in envelopes inside), it has an unusual design (e.g. pages with a wavy cut), lovely layered pictures etc.. The more I browsed through, the more I became pleased with my purchase.



And the topic? It’s about being „one“, being one with yourself, finding out who you really are, not letting anybody tell you, that you are an unfinished half without a partner at your side. It’s also about the world and its people being one. In fact that’s what I always feel about the internet, this was invented to connect people, to make this planet a lovely neighbourhood, to become „one“.
This book has also given me a break from watching the shocking news about the Japanese earthquake and worrying about having another Tschernobyl in the world. And I am grateful for that.

So I want to say thank you Victoria, you really have done a great job and I love the way you put the pictures together and the way you are writing.
And I want to say thank you Scott for leading me to purchase it, Murdoch publishing made this a real gem! And I hope, one day it will be translated into German, because we Germans are great book lovers and I know this will be a real success here.

On moor, sheep, wool and yarn

Northern Germany, Friesland and Ostfriesland has got lovely moor areas.


And a lovely local sheep breed: Ostfriesisches Milchschaf.


With a lovely wool.


I added linen, colored merino and gotland sheep wool to it. Doesn't it look like a painting?
I made this homespun yarn out of it.


It's now available at my Etsy shop. Please take a look.


Photo of the sheep by EwigLernender.

Paper Swap in April

You can sign in now: lawendula@googlemail.com

I hope YOU will be in!

A lack of color isn't a lack of beauty

My garden today.