A little bit of inspiration...

When we hear words that inspire us, we frantically jot them down in our phones, write them on sticky notes, and scribble them in our journals. We find especially in these winter days, the power of a couple of words spoken in truth, is enough to get us through a blah moment.

Here's a few wise words that have inspired us lately:

"Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something they feel a little guilty, because they didn't really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after awhile. That's because they were able to connect experiences they've had and synthesize new things." Steve Jobs

"What good is the warmth of summer without the cold of winter to give it sweetness" John Steinbeck

"Everybody born comes from the Creator trailing wisps of glory. We come from the Creator with creativity. I think that each one of us is born with creativity." Dr Maya Angelou 

"I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says: 'Go to sleep darlings, until the summer comes again'." Lewis Carroll

"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep." Scott Adams 

"When we are angry or depressed in our creativity, we have misplaced our power. We have allowed someone else to determine our worth and then we are angry at being undervalued." Julia Cameron 

"Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk by the fire: it is the time for home." Edith Sitwell

"Creativity is more than just being plain different. Anybody can be weird, that's easy. What's hard is being as simple as Bach. Making the simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity." Charles Mingus 

"Creativity is piercing the mundane to find the marvelous." Bill Moyers 

"We must never stop dreaming. Dreams provide nourishment for the soul, just as a good meal does for the body." Paulo Cohelo 

"God is really another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant and the cat. He has no real style. He just goes on trying other things." Pablo Picasso

"The saints were not superhuman. They were people who loved God in their hearts, and shared this joy with others." Pope Francis




 

Messy Hair Monday

It's Monday ladies, and for us that means a last minute frantic search for a great hairstyle. Thankfully Miss Leah is always on the scout for new hairstyles that are easy and classy. She found today's twisty ponytail in a recent magazine. Leah figured out how to make it in less than ten minutes! Yahoo! We think a great hairstyle has the potential to make any day wonderful. Especially one that doesn't take us super long or cause us a hair meltdown. We are so grateful for our lovely Leah and her creative hair skills.  Isn't a twisty ponytail the perfect way to start a Monday?

Leah's Twisty Ponytail 

Step 1. While hair is loose, pick up an inch of hair, right above your left ear. Twist that piece.

Step 2. With your other hand, pick up hair underneath the twist and add it to the twisted piece, picking up hair like a French braid. Continue picking up and twisting hair across the head, all the way to the right ear lobe.































Step 3: Once you have reached the right ear, secure with an elastic. There is going to be one piece of hair leftover by your right ear, that isn't in the twist. Pick up that strand and wrap it twice around the elastic and bobbypin it in place.































Step 4: If there are any hairs that fall out, bobby pin them discreetly. Not sure how? Check out our post: Bobby Pins and Bronzer

A Friday Ritual

One photo without explanation. A moment captured- a time to be still, to breathe and remember.

Happy Friday!

Winter Reading 2014

This Christmas, much to our book loving delight, a book trend happened in our gift exchanges. We all gave each other different novels and art books! There are still a few long Winter days ahead of us, with plenty of time to curl up with our new reads. What about you? What are you reading these cold days? Share with us!

The New Additions to the Crazy Daisy Library

Feel free to click the links and add these books to your own stash :)

Longbourn by Jo Baker



Leah gave me this novel for Christmas, and it was a great read. It is the story of the servants 'downstairs' of the Bennet family in Pride & Prejudice. A story set within a story, Longbourne presents the difficulties of the servant life, and their own journey to find love. I know alot of die hard P&P fans weren't too fond of this novel, but I liked it on it's own. Plus it has such a pretty cover and lovely pages!

Little Felted Animals by Marie-Noelle Horvath




Charlotte surprised me with this needle felting book and I LOVE it! Pages and pages of the tiniest and cutest needle felted creatures. I love the creative pictures, and the clear diagrams make it easy to shape these lovely small friends. I am in the midst of a little grey bunny, and it has been so much fun.

Style Me Vintage by Belinda Hay



I found this fun book on Amazon while searching hair books, and new by the pretty pattern of the cover, I had to buy it for Leah. It is full of great hair ideas, inspired by popular looks of the past. It explains how to do finger waves, buffonts and those perfect big curls.

Alabama Studio Style by Natalie Chanin




Charlotte gave this amazing book to our Mama and we can't wait to see what projects she is going to create. The author is the founder and creative director of Alabama Chanin, an acclaimed fashion and lifestyle company that supports local artisans. Alabama Chanin works with local artists to create handmade organic cotton-jersey clothing. There are over 20 projects in this great books, plus stencils and reusable sewing patterns.

Inside the Creative Studio by Cate Coulacos Prato

Our brother and sister in law gave Charlotte this inspiring book about different art studios. It gives the reader a peek to other Artist's lives, and how they important it is to create a beautiful space to make art. It is full of great ideas of how to store wool, fabric, paints etc. It's a very pretty book with plenty of photographs of other studios.

An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth by Chris Hadfield



I gave this novel to our little brother, as I am always looking for new titles to quench his thirst for something to read. He is an avid reader and has just started becoming interested in biographies. Chris Hadfield gives a very descriptive account of his journey to becoming an astronaut, complete with many pictures. If you are looking for a book for a boy/man to read, this is a good one.

Printing by Hand by Lena Corwin




Our Mama gave Charlotte this beautiful book and all of us have ohhed and ahhed over the lovely projects. We can't wait to see what Charlotte is going to come up with, and to offer our assistance if needed. This book is a guide to printing with handmade stamps, stencils and silk screens. Now we just have to carve away plenty of time to get started and print away!










 

DIY Sugar Scrub

Winter in our part of  Canada means cold weather and dry lips, dry hair, dry skin, dry everything! We try to find different moisturizers, lotions, oils to combat all that winter throws at us, but sometimes it's just SO hard. This year, we came across a great way to exfoliate our lips: a sugar lip scrub! How often do you get sick of the white stuff on your lips? The dryness that just won't go away? We do and before Christmas we entered Lush ( our favourite store for bath goodness) and we came across a sugar lip scrub. It tasted delicious, but seemed a bit pricey for such a little jar. After talking it over and looking it up online, decided to make it our own. It's SO easy, and makes the perfect gift! The best part is that all the ingredients can be found in your kitchen!

What's a lip scrub? It's a super way to exfoliate those dried up lips and help keep them moist during the Winter. We recommend dabbing a bit of sugar scrub on your lips, rub them together, and then moisturize with lip balm.

We made:
Maple Almond Sugar Scrub





























Ingredients needed:

Organic Coconut Oil
Brown Sugar  ( you can use white sugar, it's just a softer exfoliator)
Pure Maple Syrup
Almond Extract































How to make it:

The ratio for oil to sugar is 1:1. We used 1 cup of Coconut oil and 1 cup of brown sugar, because we want to give a few away. Measure sugar and oil and add to a mixing bowl. Add maple syrup and almond extract to taste. We used 1 tbsp of maple syrup and 1 tsp of almond extract. Once all ingredients are in the mixing bowl, gently combine. Be careful not to overmix as the sugar will dissolve and the scrub won't be effective. Separate your scrub into jars or little containers (like we did) and refrigerate until ready to use or give away.
































Voila Finished!

Charlotte's Cowl

In the fall we attended Fiber Fest in the gorgeous town of Arnprior. While perusing through the stands of fleece, buttons and wool, Charlotte and I came across  Riverside Studio. Huge bats of coloured fleece, hand dyed merino in greys, mustard yellows, cobalt blues, beckoned our fingers (and my visa card) to touch.

I wanted to knit Charlotte something for Christmas, as she always makes the most elaborate Christmas gifts for us girlies. (which she did again this and we will show soon!) Charlotte fell in love with this very pretty hand dyed blue merino wool. I wasn't sure what to do with it, and so brought it one night to wind up at our knitting group. Our talented Knitting Queen came to my rescue and  found the perfect pattern for it: Dew Drop Cowl































































Charlotte wanted hers to be much thicker, so I repeated the lace pattern until it was the right width. The Dew Drop Cowl is a very easy lace pattern and is perfect for the dyed merino wool.

Happy New Year!

Happy 2014 Friends!

We hope you all had a lovely holiday, full of merry making and lots of love. We took our Christmas tree down (tear) and can't believe that it's all behind us now, and in it's place a  brand new year. 

The three of us were busy this holiday season taking part in Rise Up Ottawa, a Catholic Conference for young adults. Rise Up is hosted by Catholic Christian Outreach and takes places at different cities all across Canada. This year it was held in our lovely Ottawa and all of us Timinski's were able to go. A few highlights for us were:

 

-having Audrey Assad lead us in worship

-listening to Sister Miriam explain how we are all princesses and princes of the King : ) 

-celebrating mass with 850 other young adults, priests, sisters and lay men and women in our home Cathedral

-hosting friends from Detroit's Wayne State over for dinner Sunday night 

-being present at all the events with our sisters, brother,  brother-in-law, sister-in law and future nieces/nephews! It was super special for all of us to be together. 

-listening to an awesome talk on the live feed given by our talented brother and sister-in-law! You can watch it here, we are so proud of you both! 

We are grateful for the retreat and had a wonderful time, but now our bodies are asking for another one..we came back from it all with a post Christmas cold. : ( insert a hundred sad faces here 

 

So to beat our colds we are combating them lots of rest and liquids. Our favourite these past few days has been: Hot Apple Cider! We love it so much! The warm apple taste, the sweet cinnamon, the pretty cups, it just makes us feel a teesny bit better. A pretty cup of warm cider and  our Mama's quilts, are the perfect remedy for a Sunday afternoon snooze. Our Mama and I (Renee) spiked ours with a bit of Grand Marnier, which really helps a sore throat right? ;) 

 

Here's our recipe for Mulled Cider, but we like heated up store bought cider just as much too : ) 

Timinski's Mulled Cider 

Ingredients 

10 cups  fresh cider 

3 cinnamon sticks 

6 whole cloves 

3 strips orange peels 

How to make it: 

Mix all ingredients in a pot over medium heat and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer uncovered for 20 minutes. Using a strainer, pour the cider into clean saucepan.

Enjoy!