How to be rich without money

Today I got this message in my inbox from The Universe:

I’d say the biggest decisions of your life, Hanna, were not your career, your marital status, or your home… they were choosing to love as often as you have.

And that’s a lot!

I was told by my friend Lena to join the notes from the universe email list and I get one of these each weekday now and have for about two weeks. I kind of like them though sometimes they make me more sad than happy. But they are very well written and feels very personal, the Universe knows me. So subscribe to the Universe if you need some inspiration in your life! It’s free and we like that, right?

Talking about inspiration, see the fabric above? It’s one of my absolute favorites and I wish I had meters and meters of this one and similar but I don’t. This is a small pillow I thrifted last week. The colors are, if you ask me, rich and beautiful. I love this fabric!

And here are some other things that have inspired and made me rich lately;

Books and magazines in the mail!

Wow, so much inspiration in this pile I don’t know where to start! Marie Claire was a gift from Helene. If you haven’t read Marie Claire Idees I think you should. Or, hehe, if you don’t read French like I don’t, I think you should get it anyway (!) and view the pictures. I don’t mind that I can’t read it because there are just so much yummy stuff in it that my mouth waters up! I always find myself getting about 1000 ideas from this mag. My mom has already made the angels from page 98!

The Kyuuto!-book with English patterns for amigurumis is from Jenn of Indie Fixx. It’s by Tomoko Takamori. I think it is very sweet. It’s the kind of book I would’ve never bought for my self because I’ve made so many amigurumi friends without using a pattern, but now that I won the book I’m really enjoying it. It contains easy patterns and if you can single crochet I think you can learn how to create shapes and animals easily from this book. I’ve started one cutie but don’t know when it will be finished. I recommend this book if you haven’t tried to crochet little ones yet.

View some pages here!

The Sock Monkey Dreams book is a surprise gift from Jayne of Magimooker blog, who told me that she wanted to send me a gift because:

…you inspire me so often to enjoy the simple things in life and the creative spirit we are all blessed with.

Isn’t that sweet? I don’t feel worthy but I do love this book, and so does Wendela, my sock monkey:

We’ve only read through the first couple of pages but it is a fun read with absolutely adorable pictures of vintage sock monkeys in all kinds of environments and settings. So, it’s a very funny little book!

More inspiration: Listening to music, like Dolly Parton’s My coat of many colors, where she sings:

…one is only poor
Only if they choose to be
Now I know we had no money
But I was rich as I could be
In my coat of many colors
My momma made for me

[whole song

• here
  ]

Love that song so much even though this too almost makes me cry! :-)

A pink mouse that my dad bought for me. It’s so cute!

Mom is making a quilt with some of the most colorful fabrics in her stash. I love all of these, and just looking down at her fabric trash had me snap a photo to savor.

Inspiration from the internet and books I wish for:

This week I also read a review at the blog DIY Planner about a new book called Doodling for papercrafts by Maelynn Cheung (find her scrap blog here). I know how to doodle, but I’d love to have a look at this book too, wouldn’t you? I mean, it just is amazing what you can make books about! A whole book about doodling? Can you be taught how to doodle? Can you write about it? Amazing! I totally love this new world of books about everything and anything – it’s an amazing concept and I wish I had come up with it! I get about 10 book ideas each week, when will a publisher ask for them? Maybe when I take the time to write some of them down? Haha.

Listned to a great Craft Cast interview today with Susan Lenart Kazmer. She is new artist to me and when you click her name you can see some of her work. It’s amazing! Her new book is called Making Connections and it’s now on my growing wish list. It just sounds like so much fun and the images of Susan’s art is amazing! I’m not even into making jewelery but I think this book looks very interesting and wish I could have a look at it. Right now.