Tarot Card - Ace of Wands, Ace of Fire

Posted on Tuesday, October 27, 2015





  Do you know the moment you just started something new? The moment when you had the right idea, made the right choice, had a sparkling thought that you immediately put into action? That's our dear Ace of Wands!

  Wands are all about action. But, although, some people like to only associate feelings and emotions only with the suit of Cups/Hearts, I don't agree. Wands are all about feelings too. Emotions, because without emotions there is no action, emotions are what drive us. The word emotion comes from the Latin emotionare which means to put in motion.

  So when you get a Ace of Wands you can ask yourself questions like these:

- What am I starting?

- What opportunity is being offered to me? What opportunity can I create for myself?

- What gives me a thrill just to think about it?

- What makes me feel passionate?

- What small step can I take today in the direction of my dreams?

  Here's a little poem of mine to get the feeling:

Little, little, little dragon
just born into the world
you soon will fly
across the sky
so I'll feed you with these
dreams of mine
My heart is yours
Yours is divine
I'll feed you with these
dreams of mine


  Bye, blessings and joy!
  Rita

I FIND IT BEAUTIFUL #3 October's Magic!

Posted on Sunday, October 25, 2015

                    1.     Prickly Pear + Hibiscus White Tea



                                     



   

2.box covered Cotton fabric flowers 1910 French vintage fabric art deco tissues 

   3. Shiny Gold Unicorn Horn Headband, Gold, Spiral Unicorn Horn, Cosplay, Pony, Halloween, Soft, Photo Prop, Unicorn Horn 
4.
https://www.etsy.com/pt/listing/174825046/knit-slouchy-beanie-knit-hat-in-grunge?ref=shop_home_active_16    5. La Luna Card 2014



7.READY TO SHIP! Egg cups, candle holders, candle stick, dinning, stoneware eggcup, ceramics and pottery, candle holder, candles, home decor                6.simple_matters_boyle

8. Rustic Wicker Chair for your Fairy Garden

9. STARS on MY HANDS original painting blue ink minimal simple original
                                                                        
10. SACRED SMUDGE STICK

Here are some of my favorite things for October. And yes, I've included my own painting, what can I do? I find it beautiful!

1. Seasonal Tea by Kings Road Apothecary 2. Beautiful antique french covered box from Vintage de France 3. Because EVERYBODY needs a Shiny Unicorn Horn! by Enchanted Paisley 4. Beany by Cose di Isa 5. The so special Luna Card by Essimar 6. Ceramic Candle Holders by Living Earth Ceramics 7. This lovely book by Erin Boyle (I've already pre-ordered it!) 8. A Wicker Chair for the FAIRY in your house from FAIRY GARDENS 9. "Stars in my hands", a painting by me, that you can find at Miss Antique 10. A beautiful smudge stick from MEUS

Here you are! TEN beautiful things for the almost ending month number TEN of the year. (Most end it in grand! :) )

If you've missed it, I've shared a simple tarot reading, for the lovely fall we're living, in a mini book, that you can download here.






                             










 



Our truest life

Posted on Friday, October 9, 2015


"Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake"
Thoreau

 

Original Painting Acrylic Sea Shell and Flowers Signed Floral 

"The world is but a canvas to our imagination"
Thoreau

 

Painting by me, you can see it here.

Stop the noise

Posted on Thursday, October 8, 2015



Stop the noise. For a second. For a second remember how wonderful is to hold a baby in your arms. The next second remember how great it tastes a homemade meal. Remember that along our lives we come across with strangers and that so many times strangers smile at each other never meeting again. Remember that you too, have been the stranger who smiled at someone. How wonderful life is. Remember that wherever you go, your heart is there with you. 

 Last year, I was in my bed crying. Crying because my sister was no longer with us. With me. There was nothing I wanted to do, just cry. I was crying and telling my boyfriend all the things that I missed, all stories of love and things we used to do and have done. He looked me in the eyes and said: "Don't you notice that even when you're crying when you talking about your sister and telling your stories, even crying you are smiling?".

It was true. I was crying and smiling at the same time.



 I've discovered that life is not what we are doing, not what is happening, maybe not even what we are feeling. Life is what is under all the noise, under the thunder-storm. It's something we don't even have to care to take care of, is something we can't manipulate, it's a force that guides us while we are smiling and crying at the same time, or in better days when we are replying a message and checking the bank account and the meal on the stove. It's just something, so powerful that we don't have to do nothing. It's just always happening. Just live.  Be present from time to time (I don't believe we can be present all the time, we are not perfect). And just notice that sometimes we are smiling when we are crying. And under all the noise, we are living a life full of surprises. And meaning.

Be open. Trust. Share. Accept. Stopping the noise, I've discovered is to just be.

My sister Joana had this wonderful sense of irony. Sometimes  Most of the times we think of irony as something bad. But it can be a gift. There is so much irony in life, in how we always think things will be and how they turn out. So, for today, I'll stop and surrender. 




Happy Autumn! Here's a gift for the days ahead

Posted on Thursday, September 24, 2015

“I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.” 
Anne of Green Gables 
 
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8BUh_ShRkUrVVI4UVZ3a05salE
  


Autumn has begun! It's an exciting time. In some cultures it was when a new year started, and although not all of us have Summer vacations followed by the return to school or work, the truth is we all can feel in the air the sense of new beginnings. The french call it "la rentrée". I love Autumn, and at least here, this year we are being blessed with wonderful Autumn weather.


I've made a little e-book called "TAROT FOR AUTUMN". It's a mini-guide for one card reading. You don't have to know anything about tarot to use it. You do need a deck. I'm sorry that those of you who live in the Southern Hemisphere may not find it very helpful. You can still use it and swap the word Autumn for Spring but there is an Autumn feeling in the mini-book.


 I hope you enjoy it! To open/download it, just click on the image above. It is a pdf document. You can use/read it directly from your device or print it and write directly on it.


Happy Autumn! I wish you a blessed season!
 

Fall Natural Pouch Handmade DIY

Posted on Wednesday, September 16, 2015


 This is a very simple bag with zipper to store your jewelry or to carry in your bag, or anything you feel like, that you can make to start this Fall in a beautiful way. It is so simple that I don't have a tutorial, just a few lines :)


Take a piece of cotton or linen (it has to be a natural fabric because you are going to dye it naturally). In a pan put some water to boil. Roll up your piece of fabric and tie it with some string (anyway you want). Put some turmeric into the water and dive your fabric in there. Leave it there for some minutes. You can add some vinegar to the water too to prevent color fading. Take the fabric, put it under tap water and put it outside to dry.

Then, when it's dried just cut out two squares where the sides are the same length as the zipper you are using. Choose a zig zag stitch in your machine. And sew the zipper to fabric with the upper facing...upper :) The stitch will be visible from the outside but I think it gives it a natural very charming look. Is it rustic? Is it coastal? I don't know. It's just simple, lovely and perfect to store things in the fall!


Days in Pictures

Posted on Friday, September 11, 2015

#1 A fish smiling - detail of painting over antique wood from my grand-grandparent's ceilings

 

 #2 An old, closed for decades, hotel over the beach. May I have it, please and serve "The Pearl" by John Steinbeck at dinner and Guacamole at breakfast and everything we wish for? 


 #3 The beach. Always the beach.

 #4 While returning a farm mouse, that appeared at our house, to the wild I've found this delicate specimen of Centaury flower.


#5 Home made pizza. The dough was the quickiest dough I have ever made, it turned out very rustic but truly yummy.


The ingredients: Ruccula, Figs, Smoked Salmon, Biological Gouda Cheese and Oregano. Instead of the tomato base, I've made a green base with boiled and mashed green bean and saffron. I recommend my invention :)


 #6 A shelf in the process of a makeover for fall. I made that precise color myself. It is one of my favorite colors, but it was the first time I've made it instead of buying it at the paint store. I've discovered it's not a blue as I thought it was, it mainly purple. Yep, that took a lot of purple to make. Surprised, I thought purple wasn't one of my colors.




3 things around the world:

A blog just about flowers that is now on my favorites
Apparently everyone already knows about this blog, but not me. I kept reading the archives for "Life in a tiny apartment" 


 
 


I Find it Beautiful - Edition #2 End of Summer

Posted on Thursday, September 3, 2015

NEW BEGINNINGS GIFT BOX      Large Ceramic Vase - Large Pottery Vase - Pottery Planter    
Mountain Blossom furoshiki. Japanese eco wrapping textile/scarf, handmade in Japan


              On sale 20% New!  wide slides Pink leather sandals lace up chunky heels handmade ADIKILAV  find your place - postcard

   White porcelain spoon with green dots       

(From Top Left) 1. NEW BEGINNINGS GIFT BOX by MEUS 2. Large Ceramic Vase by SUSAN SIMONINI 3. Mountain Blossom Furoshiki by THE LINK COLLECTIVE 4. Pink Sandals by ADIKILAV 4. Find Your Place Postcard by NASTIASLEPTSOVA 5. White porcelain spoon with green dots (perfect for icecream!) by PIECES OF PORCELAIN 6. One of a Kind Turquoise and Gold Ring by MINERALOGY DESIGN

That time I've applied to THE KITCHN

Posted on Friday, August 28, 2015


   When I was a kid I used to spend my entire Summer vacations at my grandmother's farm in Ribatejo, in the country side in Portugal, where people raise bulls and horses and used to carry their food outside in cabbage leaves. It was a magical and powerful experience for me, my sisters and my cousins.

   I remember waking up with the sun rising with my grandmother Virginia, with her red cotton scarf wrapping her hair, telling us "today is the day, I can't wait for tomorrow because you soon will be old and must learn it now". I couldn't understand how I was soon going to be old since I was five or six, but now I know she was right. Some things you can't leave for tomorrow. You have to give it a day to learn. It was bread making day.
   We all gathered in the large wood table near the kitchen open fireplace, where women from my family cooked food in large iron pans directly on the fire, and we all mixed the flour, the water and the grains of salt.

   When we are so little, we are so small that our faces are so near the food we eat, we are no near the table,
near the bowl of salad our mother is making, the feast cake on the counter waiting for the time someone will blow the candles that every unique smell gets registered in that part of us that is one third mind, one third stomach, one third heart. Until today I bend myself to fully inspire what I'm cooking, because just like with tasting it, it will assure me that I am cooking something that will nurture both the stomachs and soul of my dear ones.
   
   And so it was the dough. Fulfilling and nurturing, promising that everything good can be created with our
hands. Tiny hands. We then put the soft white dough to rest, in large yellow pottery bowls painted with blue flowers, that kind of pottery that is so fresh even in the hottest day of summer, covered with old clean linen to rest. "The dough grows" my grandmother said, "but it must be left alone, covered, in a quiet, fresh place" she completed, while passing softly her hands on the bowl, like we do with a child, as saying "you'll be wonderful my dear". When white linens have stains there is a quick remedy: some soap rubbed over the stain and leave it outside in the sun, when you come back there is no stain waiting for you. It's call "corar" in Portuguese. So they were old linens, but there is no stain in them, my grandmother wouldn't allow it.
   I remember the aroma of the dough : intense, profound and clean, when we left it to rest in the dark and grow. It was about to transform. Cooking as love, takes time. Than we made small breads (mine smaller than everyone else) for my grandmother to put in the outside wood stove with a huge wood shovel. It was a beautiful Summer day, and for me, bread still reminds me of the scent of the vines surrounding us, wild daisies and the olives we were eating at the same time. Olives that have been cut and immersed in olive oil, garlic, parsley, thyme and oregano for one day. Good things take time. But they are also simple. Usually so simple.

   For me writing and talking about food, is telling the recipes that will gather people around a table, that will
create memories, that will unify everything around you. Because when food is good every detail around you,
the flowers on the table, the joke someone told, the taste of the wine, everything leaves a memory. And suddenly you are living.
   
   I don't have any cooking training. All I know was learned around the country table, among amazing women
that in that time would make men stop at the doorstep (the door was always open) and ask "what's cooking?" and then come in. That was Mediterranean, countryside, Portuguese cooking. My mother, back home, taught me French cuisine: soufflés, coq au vin, Charlotte. In my early twenties, when I first met love, I dived myself in learning Indian and Italian food, because love needs food. I don't have cooking education but I'm proud to say my chicken saffron risotto made my mother smile when my father died and my shrimp coconut curry make friends that have come for dinner stay talking until the sunrise. If I could write for Kitchn under your direction, I would be so happy and grateful for sharing recipes with stories, food with seasonal folklore tales, plates with funny tales. Food that is simple but so amazingly satisfying, food that makes a house and a life.

   I have good photography skills, it is an art I've been self-taught myself for a while, I've studied Cinema
Direction and although I don't have online resources to show you (except for a blog that had no commercial
intentions, it was just a way to register some of me and my boyfriend's memories), I've written all my life,  and among other things, have been published in a Portuguese newspaper and had screenplay written by me chosen to be funded by the
Portuguese Cinema Art Fund (ICA). I've also studied English for eight years at school. I've been to Spain, France, England, Holland,Switzerland, Monaco and Italy. I've ate and learned a lot in each one of these places. I also took a short Journalism Writing course years ago which I've ended with the best grade, I've
engaged in Antiques and Vintage selling in 2010. I'm very comfortable with the skills needed for this position:
marketing experience, online photography requirements to catch the eye, how to style a photography, Google analytics and online conversation. I would love to write for Kitchn and be creative with so many different things.

   I love: food, photography, style editing and writing.

   Thank you so much for reading my words. By the way, just to end the story: the bread turned out wonderful. And my grandmother was right, time passes quickly by us, we should be cooking.



   Last year, on the last day, I've discovered that The Kitchn, the culinary website we all so much love was looking for someone to cook and write for them. The deadline was just a little less two hours (which you know that in reality passes by very fast) when I found out about it, so I quickly made food, photograph it and wrote a letter plus three ideas (that I don't share here, sorry they are too good :)!) for articles to publish.

   The food in the pictures wasn't good, didn't tasted that good honestly but I was in a hurry. The pictures taken with a less than desirable camera were terrible. And English is not my mother language so I decided to use one of those websites that edit texts and correct grammar. The problem was I was running late, so I didn't notice that instead of helping, for example, it replaced "sweet" for "sweat" which is not the kind of word you want to see in a short essay about food. 

   I have done my own editing now, because if there any mistakes, that will be my own, and decided to share it here. And maybe one of these days, share a food story and a recipe...

   Have a nice day.

Fairy House

Posted on Friday, August 21, 2015




 I am an avid collector of everything natural. Usually things found on the ground, flowers, twigs, seashells, you name it, I'll probably brought it home. I always wanted to build a fairy house, or at least a little corner in case one of them needs gets lost and needs to spend the night at my house. We would drink tea, eat walnut biscuits and probably talk ourselves over about our romantic troubles and all kind of matters of the heart.






So two days ago when I saw this interview with the amazing fairy castle's creators Mike and Debbie Schramer and their gorgeous book that I hope to order soon, I couldn't resist and go in search of more natural treasures. Last night I started a little fairy bedroom and her tree swing and today I've finished a couple of details (her pine cone chair, among other things that are a must-have for a fairy I suppose). I've played around with the decoration so don't find it strange that the furniture is in different places!











I imagine the fairy who chooses this house to be very carefree. The small yellow pillow is pure cotton dyed with only saffron (I can make a post on that later, it's so simple) and is stuffed with fluffy moss since a fairy needs to have a good beauty sleep. She gathers a lot of thing humans forget in the woods, but only the beautiful ones (no plastic allowed!) like small pieces of lace, mother of pearl buttons. First I've made her bed just with moss and petals but then I thought any fairy would love a small wool blanket (which was small patch my mother made years ago that I've always found so sweet). There is a small hanger and a pink dress. A wood sink for water. The best seeds I've found. It was so delightful, so wonderful to make this that I can't recommend it enough. Start gathering natural treasures now, since in this time of the year there are so many things falling down from the trees. You'll be so happy for doing this and surely...the fairy who visits you will be too!









Edited: With the little help of fairies, this Fairy Abode has entered The Fairy Gardens Contest. This is exciting!