My first blog feature :)

Another milestone in my otherwise mundane creative pursuit. Butterfly in the Attic
http://butterflyintheattic.blogspot.com/2013/11/forty-winks-gift-guide-upcycled-on-etsy.html
featured my pillow gift set! I'm very excited!

Thank you Butterfly in the Attic at---
https://www.etsy.com/shop/ButterflyInTheAttic?ref=pr_shop_more

To visit my Etsy shop ---
https://www.etsy.com/shop/rosalynvintage?ref=si_shop

for handmade, ethically sourced holiday gifts--shop at www.ETSY.com

Thank you :)

www.etsy.com/shop/rosalynvintage

For your holiday shopping and gift  giving---please don't forget to take a look at my Etsy shop for a unique, handmade creations.

Why Create and Upcycle?

I had been fine-crafting silk eye pillows, other pillows and origami crafts for three years now. I also upcycled or repurposed fabrics, bottles and dishware just this year. I sell or feature 60 percent of my creations at my Etsy shop named rosalynvintage and 40 percent I give as gift to friends and family.

Why Create?

I had always been antsy and creative--something will catch my imagination and always wondered how much fun would that be. But I had never found the time in my early 30's to nurture my creative endeavor. My energy was focused on achieving professional growth and relationship stability.

One December night I just decided I will make time and started creating my shadowboxes-memory boxes. I know its going to be fun but I had never gauge how much satisfying, calming and engrossing it is.

Now I understand why some experts uses art as therapy. It is definitely so much cheaper than a shrink, as expansive as travelling to places and as challenging as learning a new language. By creating pillows and crafting scarves I also learned how to use a sewing machine, create patterns, start an online store, register a small business, take or make good pictures and use relevant social medias. I had corresponded with people in continental U.S. and as far as New Zealand and London. I follow and being followed by artisans, crafters and Etsians all over the world.

Most of all, I had stopped focusing on people that are causing me problems and had stopped expecting from or hanging out with people that only makes me frustrated. However, being busy with my craft also made me less tolerant to other's inefficiency and other's self-created crisis. I had been more direct to the point and had called a spade a spade in most circumstance with friends and family. Ugh, and they don't really like that. It is sad how we can all be trapped by the need to cover up real issues with food, designer clothes, children, faux-success, air of affluence and religiosity --just to make it all nice--rather than facing our own, genuine process. And it can be very scary too when you look at these people and see that, that is all what is going for them, if they take away the expensive clothes, if children moves away and if success crumbles--they are left with an empty shell. I see these and had learned to just shut my mouth, just mind my own business (that's the thing) and occasionally blog about it.

Why Upcycle?

Call me nostalgic. I am infinitely curious about the history of my vintage finds and how it had spent its function in one place. Thrift stores with a cause to help the unemployed and the environment always draws me in and had been a good place to browse for these forgotten pieces. I usually hunt for silk scarves, silk kimonos and silk neckties. Too often I'll also find craft supplies like bags of buttons, bolts of cotton fabrics, box of unused threads and crafting papers. I usually find pre-loved items, almost in good condition or slightly used with a good energy in it. Then at home, I'll make a space for these new finds, clean it further physically and energetically then use it for my ongoing crafts. Sometimes I'll wait for months for the right timing and inspiration to use this materials. A renewed or salvaged material is reward itself in my crafting. Having it found a new home is always a dream come true.

My youngest sister and I had been checking on each other's stash of supplies and we always ask each other if we are using it or "hoarding" it. There is a fine line and its always good to have someone watching out for your back.

Upcycling had been part of me even before this vernacular went mainstream. As a kid I would use old magazine's glossy ads for my paper doll's clothes and cut colored pages to use in my art projects instead of buying a colored paper. I would also tack old milk boxes into the wall and use it as display holder for pencils and crayons. This drove my dad nuts though. When a school project on recycling came up while I was in fifth grade, my mom taught me how to dye fabrics and that begun mine and my brother's obsession on dyeing jeans and t-shirts in our high school years. We even tie-dyed several t-shirts in early 90's while we listened to Aerosmith.

Nowadays my adventure with upcycling always starts with "Oh, can I reuse this and make it more functional?" Mostly in the pragmatic line of thinking but once in a while I get really inspired and surprises myself.

Holiday Lavender Aromatherapy Gift Set--Silk Eye Pillow and Neck Pillow available at www.etsy.com/shop/rosalynvintage

1000 views of rosalynvintage shop at etsy

Today rosalynvintage shop had one thousand clicks and views, a small feat in the whole scheme of small business-hobby but I greatly appreciate it and count it as a milestone.
Thank you to all the clicks and views :)

Why Lavender Silk Pillows?

French lavender fields have been fascinating me for a while, so much so that I started planting lavender around the mountain house. I hope to visit those fields one day but for now its all just a dream. But oh I love the lavender scent. And I thought of having that dream and scent transformed into a tangible, functional and luxurious piece that can be enjoyed in the now.
Hence, the lavender silk pilows. It started with one and my husband who had difficulty sleeping in one position used it, gave me feedback and asked for specific measurements not only to be used as neck pillows but also as body shims, bolster and shoulder stabilizer. Then a friend asked me to custom made lavender silk pillows for her to give as gifts on Holidays of 2011.
Then from that I continued collecting vintage silk scarf, cravat and vintage silk kimono fabrics as well as practice using a sewing machine. I also sourced the best   dried lavender flowers and high quality flaxseeds. I experimented on different size and weight of lavender silk pillows. By October this year I'm ready to re-open my rosalynvintage shop at etsy  http://www.etsy.com/shop/rosalynvintage?ref=si_shop with my created lavender silk pillows on sale. It carries, lavender eye silk pillows, lavender neck pillows, lavender body pillows and lavender drawer sachets.

 Lavender Silk Body Pillow

Lavender Silk Neck Pillow

 Lavender and Rose Drawer Sachets

 Lavender Silk Eye Pillow

Making this craft and sharing it out is very therapeutic from an artist/healer perspective. It is in a way a form of an art/craft therapy as well as my humble share in stimulating the economy. I am proud to say I am a small start up business. Currently I have one Creative Assistant, Melissa who comes once a week, twice a month. We are having fun most of the time while we sush out product labels and packaging, social media usage and fabric choices.

I hope that my pillows will bring a smile and will be of help to anyone who purchase to use it or recieves it as a gift. Its as functional and as luxurious as it is as affordable. After all, it is inspired by a field of dreamy lavender silk flowers that evoke luxurious escape to a faraway place in one breath now.

Leave It As Is

A Little Tip:

So I tried Dynamic view of Blogger for a few days, whew...I'm warning you guys; don't do it to yourself...save yourself from the spike of cortisol (the stress hormone.) First off, it was a hassle to sign back in because there was no sign in or log in button at the new format. I have to be creative to get back in.
Second, the dynamic view has a flipcard where the content viewer of your blog has a choice to select if they want to see your blog in a Magazine style, etc. which is hello? why would you like to subject your viewer/reader to that? Third issue, is actually not about my Blogger account but also under google, I have another blog that I maintain for a dear family member's cybermemorial and an awareness hub, I clicked on g+ to share the hub's content to broader audience but that was a mistake because now this family member's name replaced my name at my gmail account-confusing my family & friends why they are recieving an email from our dearest departed brother and then when they open it, its from me--well that was awkward and disrespectful so deleted the g+ link/access and hopefully all goes back to the way it should be.
Lesson learned, if its not broken don't fix it--I was trying to be up to the pace but now my visceral fat have mutated.

why rosalynvintage?

rosalynvintage is the name of my re-opened shop at etsy.com, a community of artist and a creative marketplace with amazing handmade & vintage products. I am a member since 2010 and have been researching and playing with my arts & crafts all these time. Last June I started making my lavender pillows again and decided to set up shop at etsy after a warm reception and encouragement from my family and friends. Here are some photo of my featured items.

I must confess, I love silk and lavender. I dream of having a lavender fields one day. I think vintage silk are fab, may it be a vintage silk kimono, vintage silk scarf or cravat or a vintage neckties; they are all fun to create lavender pillows from. They have amazing prints and patterns. It could get pricey but still way much better than those overpriced, commercialized new silk in the fabric store. I would like to imagine that my silk fabrics  finds from the thrift stores are well loved pieces and greatly cared for by its previous owner. They could have gone places or to family gatherings with this pieces and now that I have them I can transform it again to its new purpose and glory.

I offer free shipping for local orders (San Francisco) area. Custom made order are welcome, discount is available for orders of 5 pillows or more. If you have questions, ask me here or via my shop or email me at rosalynvintage@gmail.com, I would be happy to hear from you. 

Thank You Adrienne Rich

                                Adrienne Rich 1929-2012 photo by Corbis

Your influential prose and poetry had profoundly helped me express the creative turmoil from my teenage years to current adult life. For years of my academic life I wrote poems every night, as  form of therapy. All in free verse, as I abhorred the rhymes that mocks my predictable route; school-home-school-home. My poems were dismissed as lackadaisical, undisciplined. I did not care at all. Then one day in the library I found your book, Twenty-One Love Poems and my sister found another book of yours, Contradictions; these brought me comfort and assurance that poems can be as comfortable and fearless as yours. I never looked back.

As an adult, I always comes back to your numerous books of poetry to reconnect to that collective expressions of universal experience by your voice and words. Every time, it is a personal grounding experience and an exploration of possibilities in multiverse. In my daily life as therapist, artist, career & family woman the whirl of tasks and obligations had disintegrated my poetic ability to few words of expletives, leaving me drained and tired. But I know, if I pick up your book and read a poem or two, the day finds a deeper meaning and the morrows shines a hope of civility.

You will be missed and here, in this obscured spot and humble existence; I just want to say how grateful I am you wrote those poems, you powered through your life and you taught me courage through your works.

XVII
" No one's fated or doomed to love anyone.
The accidents happen, we're not heroines,
they happen in our lives, like car crashes,
books that change us, neighborhoods
we move into and come to love..."

    - Excerpt from Adrienne Rich's Twenty-One Love Poems 
                                            

Acknowledgments:
Photo of Ms. Rich by Corbis from www.autostraddle.com
Excerpt of Twenty-One Love Poems XVII ; Adrienne Rich's Poetry & Prose, Gelpi et al, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, c 1993 p.84

Artistic Expression-Fashion

I hate shopping but I love creating and designing, when I go to a boutique or clothing store, I do not want to waste my time trying on countless clothes or wasting my time in the racks and dressing room. I know my size, I know what I want and I do check with the current trends if its going to be a worthy investment. I try to stay with the classic pieces and if I see something that calls me by my name I try it on, if the price is reasonable and if it fits well, I buy it. Otherwise, I'm content with doing fashion artistic expression at my site at Polyvore.com


For more detail or if you care, see my design sets at 
http://serenehappiness.polyvore.com 


Please leave a comment or click heart if you like it or if you have time to spare. Again this is a fun indulgence that I just want to share. 

Found: Deals on Goodies

Its cold, allergy & flu season again. I got the flu and was looking for homeopathic remedies for cough and found this deals from Boiron
Printable Coupons:
Oscillococcinum Save $1.00
Just fill up the form when you click
http://www.oscillo.com/special-offers/



Chestal (Cough Homeopathic Relief) Save $1.00
Just fill up the form when you click
http://www.chestal.com/special-offers/

Additional finds from Boiron, love it, this product helps me a lot with bruising, swelling (from bumping on corners of treatment table, parallel bars tubes and wheelchair handles) and muscle aches (from ambitious yoga moves, Pilates screamer stretch or daily PTA works) 
Arnicare Save $1.00
http://www.arnicare.com/special-offers/


Enjoy the deals. It sure is fun whenever I find deals/promo on stuff that I actually uses.

Memory Shadow Box Art; A Study in Blue

Still exploring the blue scheme.

Still looking for the right frame.

Memory Shadow Box Art; You Got Me in Yellow

Version of Yellow

 Inspired by Il Filamento

Exhibit at Fillmore

Something about Mundane

Insignificant daily things

That is transformed 

When given the right

Attention & Space

making this have given

me my piece of Zen.

Living By The Ocean Beach

The Ocean Beach is just twenty blocks away, a traffic light stilted 10 minutes drive...then its there. After years of living in the cramped spaces of Manila I always dreamed of living by the sea but the ocean is a good enough compromise. I was thinking of the tropical sea anyway, halfway across the world when I have not met the love of my life yet. So here, after nearly seven years of San Francisco living, the ocean is a comforting thought. Just barely out of sight to be out of mind, always a surprise when the day is perfect clear and I can see it from the bluff at Moraga or the nearby park at 25th Ave & Ortega. On rare carefree weekends, we will drag ourselves for an afternoon to hang by the beach, like say last afternoon of 2009. I know we should do it often but you know how it is.

Monterey Bay

The charm of the sea never ceases on me. Just a look is enough. The forbidding cold of its touch always keep me at bay. Its beauty and mystery that lingers in my memory long after I visits. Its power and rhythm which surprises me, now and then, and whenever I comes back  to Monterey bay.

They are Fun & Adorable

They are always having fun and teaching me about vegetarian fun & healthy options. They are the Peas family. To check what they are cooking and photographing (same time) click this link. 
http://peasandthankyou.com/

Drifting Back

I know I should check in more often...its just that keyboard is not that friendly with my shoulder anymore. Early sign of  rotator cuff injury...infraspinatus & supraspinatus tendonosis...it started as tendonitis 5 years ago. Actually went to have PT on my shoulder (was interesting to see the inside of PT practice as the receiving end.)
Then I went to do my usual stuff but always had recurrent shoulder issues, like when I'm not careful with my sun salutation, or when doing original monkey at the cadillac machine, or when stripping/sanding the weather beaten bench under the pine tree. Until one day it hurts to take off my shirt, hurts to blow dry my hair when I remember to.
So after an MRI (no fun for a slightly claustrophobic like me) and two visits to my new orthopedic doctor ( surprised to meet a really fun doctor who have really funny jokes and delivery of diagnosis-prognosis) and a cortisone shot...I'm waiting for better shoulder mobility and less painful arc of motion at my right shoulder while doing some Codman exercises here and there. 
Will see.

Full Circle with Healthy Food and French Cooking

I know this is too cheesy for those who used to know me and I don't even pay much attention to these aspect in my life until I got married. Yeah, modern woman like me, faces the stove with the dilemma that plaque the servantless American women way back to the era of  "Little House in the Prairie." I thought I can cook and like all beginnings of naive experiences, I actually thought there won't be a fuzz about "What's for dinner?" question in my future.

Well, I blame nobody and nothing about this. Not even those who used to tease and pressure me to eat a bit more to gain a bit weight. Not even my five-year stint at Healthy Options where I got to learn about foods, supplements wholistic lifestyle. Not even moving here in California nor being married. Not even food network. Not even Julie and Julia. Not even any circumstance that can be link into this issue. I blame it all to time. Like aging it is a forceful influence. That and wanting a slice of a chocolate cake with chocolate almond icing one rainy afternoon in San Francisco and realizing that I have to bake it to have it.

I should have taken a photo of that cake. It would have been fun, since I assumed icing is no sweat. Wrong.
But it was a yummy cake.

Busy as Bee

Its been a long while. Super busy. Glad to be back at my old facillity. Hah...super relieved I won't be dealing with mornings of dread to face a half crazy half nazi power hungry I am right you are wrong joke of a wannabee rehab manager. Whew!

Now I can focus on doing my job and working with the professionals. Innovating and learning all the time to evolve in this profession. Currently been training to be a certified Pilates Teacher, halfway through the modules. Still lots of practice hours and observations ahead, not to mention the practicals and practice teaching. I'm getting there. I can always use a strong core, for sure.

Also, I've been into memory art or shadowbox art world. It is amazing. Finished one last November maybe. Will post a bout it more next time. Anyway its much kinder to my shoulder/neck injury than keyboarding.

Hope all of you are doing well. Try not to forget fun. Until next time.

END WAR NOW!

I'm joining the campaign to end war in Afghanistan,Pakistan & Iraq now and forget all together bombing Iran!

The pressure is on for peace negotiations, humanitarian approach and community building instead of primeval, expensive and bloody solutions!

Let us focus instead in building schools and affordable education,alleviating poverty via women empowerment & population control solutions and environmental protection. 

I know I am dreaming but nevertheless just want to put this out there in the collective consciousness of the universe.

Just want to share also a war song composed by one of my fave artist back home. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGPI8O19gCA

Peace!

Therapy and Wellness

My top Wellness Resource


1.www.innerrewards.com
      Love this site. Friends, contact me if you are interested to join me here so I can send you a personal invitation, you won't regret it...wonderful community and lots of good stuff to learn.

2. http://www.healthyoptions.com.ph/news_digest.php.healthyoptions.com.ph/newsdigest
      My first love, I learned most of what I know now about Complimentary and Alternative Medicine firsthand at this company

3.http://www.sportsmedshop.com/
       What can I say, the website is a bit outdated but we constantly work on it. Visit the shop personally and you might find something you'll need from Exercise balls, Yoga Mats, Pilates rings, Braces and Orthotics.
      
4.www.deliciousliving.com
        Free at my fave natural health food store. See the site to experience delicious tips on healthy living.

5.http://www.apta.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home
        One of my professional resources. Lots of info about Physical Therapy profession. October is National Physical Therapy Month, if your curious about the current trends in Physical Therapy just click on the link above.

:)