My Sunday Photo || {The Ordinary Moments}

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mummy daddy me...

My Sunday Photo || {The Ordinary Moments}

I am linking:

mummy daddy me...

My Sunday Photo || {The Ordinary Moments}

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Mummy daddy me....

Reupholstering my chairs....

In the midst of finishing my thesis, for which I have less than 6 months left... I started an old endeavour of mine. Reupholstering my old chairs...!

And let me say that this will take a lot more time than antecipated. As usual... For starters, for me, this certainly will  will not be a weekend project, so I have no idea how some bloggers claim that this is so easy or it takes less than an afternoon to do one... well, I have no idea how you manage that, as I haven't even  finished one, so for the four chairs I have to repholster, I have no idea how long it will take...

I barely managed to remove the old fabric from one in one day... Well but at least I did paint it! 

I am working on my piping skills now. And since I wont be reupholstering as it was (I want my chairs to look more 'fancier'), I am adding some piping to them. So I had to self thought myself in piping!

And why have I decided to do this now? Well, its the same old thing, with more stress, more work to do and less time,...crafts and DIY projects to the rescue. I need to release some steam and stress and these projects help me do it. It is something that gives me pleasure and I thoroughly enjoy, and I am doing it to improve our little home... Also, my parents will be visiting us soon and I want my house to look more tidier. These chairs were looking so  dated, they were defenitely needing some makeover.

I am self-thoughting on the reuphosltering art, I downloaded and printed a book that explains the whole process, and adding to that I searched for some videos on youtube that show bits of it. I also observed tons of chairs, and how they were reupholstered (and any excuse works to stop by Laura Ashley store...). I also used this blog post as a guide.

This projects involved both sewing and painting.... So its much more complex than my first attempt when I repholstered my office chair.

But I things is much more enjoyable! And after I might just reupholster my office chair again...

As you can easily imagine, I still have a long way to go! I basically decided where my new piping should go. At least I already removed the old chair fabric, and cut the models from the new fabric. And no, its not the green that the picture shows... thats just an experience before doing it on the chosen fabric!

Here are some photos showing the work done so far:

I still have a long way to go...!

 

My Sunday Photo || {The Ordinary Moments}

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Is Europe loosing its humanity?

Maybe it is.... However,  today was was center stage to a call to action which made me hope that there is some compassion left. It did take a horrifying photo to move people. It did take the preventable death of a tiny child on a Turkish beach. It did take the death of his older brother. It took the death of their mother as well. And the hundred other deaths on loris. And so much more horrible deaths that were happening since this refugee crise started months ago.

I started to write this post a while back, because I was appalled with the insensitivity of the UK government, and its inertia to act on this matter.  I was also horrified when reading the news of more dead migrants found suffocated in a lorry, and by the news of more migrants drowning at sea. And then today emerged the horrible image that would bring tears to every parent. That broke my heart. That is still making me shed same tears while writing these words. I don't know anyone who could bear such sight.

But more than being horrified by the news were the comments that followed. I won’t even comment Katie Hopkins words.  How can we call ourselves humans when we are so quick to disregard the horror these people are facing. We are forgetting that they are risking, and indeed giving their lives away for a chance of escaping the horrors of a devastating war. People are more worried about keeping their lifestyle, worrying about a country’s budget and comparing numbers of which country is actively accepting more asylum requests. Germany claims for a quota to be enforced in Europe.  But all heavy work is carried by Italy and an already overloaded Greece. 

I am appalled at these governments worrying about enforcing borders rather than actively helping this people.

Numbers, policies, budget, none of this matters.

People do.  

Helping people matter.  These are people, much more than just numbers and statistics. These are people, deserving a minimum of decency, dignity and respect. But above all, humanity. They deserve a minimum of help at a chance of a better life. Of having, indeed a life! And in the end this is their right! Refugees have the right to seek asylum!

Media is splashed with headlines that point out the amount of lives lost at sea and what comes out of this, rather than having people saved, are policies to be enforced on preventing illegal emigration.  And again, comments show that people are more worried of preventing net migration. Which is a completely different issue altogether!

Adam Taylor, quite rightly so, draws the attention to thedifference between migrant and refugee.  As this is indeed a refugee problem, not at all a migrant one. I don’t understand why BBC still talks about migrants when Europe at the moment is dealing with refugees. Even so, I would stand by the need of saving and helping anyone, being either migrant or refugee.  A piece of paper supporting your refugee status doesn't mean anything at all. In my opinion, anyone running away from their country to save their life, is a refugee. Wikipedia supports this idea.... In the end, definitions don't matter at all when we are saving lives. But we do have to keep in mind and be very clear that the bodies found belong to refugees, seeking asylum, dying whilst attempting to escape a country plagued by war.

Being empathic, showing compassion, showing humanity towards these people is urgent. We urgently need to address this, stop discussing politics and actively send help.  

Germans are coming together, and so many volunteers are helping these refugees. And UK volunteers are beginning to do the same. Not all hope is gone. There’s still humanity around. I am hopeful that UK government will soon show some humanity too.
However, I am still deeply saddened that it took a child’s preventable death horrifying the media for this turn of action. It took one more family to die whilst trying to escape war.  As if it was not enough all the deaths that happened in the past. And unfortunately will still happen.

 

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Our Saturday

Once again we are able to keep up with this nice routine!

Repeating the previous scones recipe, we had a tasty batch of scones for breakfast... 

Someone was pretty happy with that!

And so was mummy!

We then went out, afterwards for our regular walk. Once again we had the company of our precious wooden friend, the little cow! This is definitely a favourite toy of his, we never dreamed to go for a walk without it....

He was given this little cow as a birthday gift last year. I don't remember who it was who gave him this, but whoever it was, spot on for his birthday gift! This little cow soon conquered his little heart, and it was a great help for his first steps.... He loves to walk it around! 

You can see this a favourite of his, as it is so worn out already.... !

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My Monday Making: My ATC card is ready!

I finished my ATC!

It was a long work and since lately I found myself without any time to spare I was afraid that I wouldn't finish on time, but here it is completely finished and ready to be mailed:

I was inspired by Miro's painting Catalan Landscape. I absolutely love Miro's bold colour choices and his surrealistic vision.  I hope that my swap partner loves it too! Here are some more details:

Before I decided for this piece, I had some other choices:

But in the end I thought that this picture was looking more fun!

I will soon discover if my swap thought the same... 

What were you up this weekend?

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My Sunday Photo || {The Ordinary Moments}

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one dad 3 girls

mummy daddy and me makes three

Our Saturday!

I am so pleased with our little weekend routine! We now have an established weekend routine... Our Saturday mornings start with some baking... Followed by a delicious breakfast, fruit of our previous hard work! We then head out to a walk by the near park... Feed the swans and the ducks is a mandatory stop... and then we walk and enjoy the sightseeing, which is just beautiful. River Itchen is just stunning really. On Sunday we go to the city centre and enjoy the local playground. This routine is working so well for us, we are able to have such enjoyable family time! So, lets describe our Saturday then...:

We started by baking pancakes...! Again the little one had so much fun helping me out! 

He had a blast using the whisk! The end result was just delicious....:

Just yummie!

I already posted a while back a picture of little one and his walking cow... He absolutely loves to walk the little cow! He is so happy and cute while at it... Hw waves bey bey to every walker by, and they just laugh out loud and wave back at him... We spent hours just walking the little cow...:

We did somehow managed to draw his attention to the river and swans... And then we fed the swans, he loved it too!

How was your Saturday?

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DIY Photo Canvas Montage

I can hardly believe that today is Friday already! This week slipped through my fingers...

It s so easy for time to fly by when you have always so much to do. Time is never enough!

I have to work out my life/work balance, because at the moment I feel that I am failing both. This week is not a good example though, as I am a bit under the weather...

That said, it did not prevented me for letting out a bit of creativity though... Although I told that I was thinking about doing some painting, today I will be sharing a completely different project: DIY photo collage on canvas... Don't ask... I know, I was planning to do some acrylic painting, and ended up doing something entirely different. Im my defence, I already had all the materials at home, so it actually saved me so money, instead of heading to an art store and bankrupting myself on doing so...

This project is quite easy to do, especially if you have all materials in hand. Its just a matter of arranging the photos on a way that you like! 

There are many youtube videos explaining the process now (like this one), so just I will be briefly describing the process.  

So here's what I used:

Black acrylic paint, pencil, rule, sponge, paint brush, large canvas, Modge Podge, and of course, photos! 

I measured the photos and draft roughly the places where they would be places. Painted black all around the canvas and gaps between those places:

As you can see, the black painting doesn't need to the perfect, however I was making sure that the gaps between the photos were completely filled with black paint.

Now, using modge podge I glued the photos onto the canvas, and then using modge podge again, I covered both photos and canvas:

I was not that careful while adding the modge podge onto the canvas, but I wasn't worried, as this spots would clear after completely dry. You can see on the photos that I have large spots of Modge Podge ( the quite large white spots)....

Afterwards, you can see the final product, a glossy canvas, and Modge  Podge will also add a little gloss on the black paint, quite cool...

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