A happy couple - wishes for a lovely weekend!

A happy couple - wishes for a lovely weekend!, originally uploaded by ivy style33.

Sometimes opposites or contradictions can be best friends...so long as they complement each other....

...bright & dark
...pink & grey
...dots & stripes
...curves & lines
...light & shadows
...low & high
...day & night
...feminine & masculine
...geometry & poetry
...mind & heart
...and so many more, endless pairs of opposites to name...

...all particapting in the dance of life...can form a beautiful wholeness, so long as they accept & respect each others existence....working with and for each other.
...so long as they are both true & authentic, they can complement each other, resulting in a unity based on healthy oneness.

Not the alsmost usual mosaic (so far!-> update: here it is) to wish you all a wonderful weekend, but a diptych instead.
Enjoy all the aspects of life!

Knocking on heaven' s door...

Knocking on heaven' s door..., originally uploaded by ivy style33.

Goodmorning all :)

An official thank you for the welcoming of my Photography series yesterday. I was really delighted by  the warm response! So today, I'll be presenting you here a small sample of my rather big collection of doors, that I've been photographing through out the years...even when digital was a far, far away dream.

The doors - and probably a window or two - participating in this mosaic have been photographed mostly since the very beginning of this year. They were found in various places, starting from our own neighbourhood, to Munich, to Madrid, to Mallorca, to Strassbourg, to Amsterdam (set of pictures is under construction at the moment)

One day, after many, many more trips to come and to experience, I'd like to group them together - including all the ones from other past trips, too - and probably publish something. I find doors to be not only very appealing to me due to their unique architecture and colours, but also to hold a very special symbolic meaning.

Our paths of lives, for example, go always through imaginary doors. Sometimes we open ones to find pure bliss, others to learn a lesson or to find ourselves among others that are to benefit from our own gained knowledge.
There are others that are bright open, but we never actually choose to go through them, either because of a wrong timing or as a result of choice - very often a wise one. Like when we close for good behind us and not ever again decide to go through doors, that led us to unnessary pain or to a way of life that was not suitable to our wishes and standards.

In addition there are these doors, we stand before them with awe and would love to knock, so that their opening reveals an equal incredible interior...probably these are the ones, that need the more stregth and integrity to be opened, as we human beings tend to sometimes be afraid of our own happiness and our own successes.

And finally there are these doors we are sometimes so persistent in opening and keep on endlessly knocking ,despite the fact that there is no actual response....even after many trials...then most probably we are wishing for something the wrong way, we are probably seeking for easy success, without having the required background for that.

A wise decision would be to reconsider both the door we are aiming at and our readiness to enter it.
There are no easy ways, but we are the ones who can make our ways easy...good news is we can prepare ourselves by recognising both our weaknesses and strenghts and arm oureselves both with faith in our abilities and some humbleness, too.

How about you?...are you probaply in the mood for some sharing today?..which are the doors that you have firmly closed behind you in your lives and which are the ones you wish to open?

I'll be signing off for the day and return later tonight, so by then I'm wishing you all to have the best days ever possible for each one of you!

Give away!

Give away!, originally uploaded by ivy style33.

Hello once again : )
Here I am as promised!...see?...I did not disappear ;-)
The give away I mentioned earlier this morning has started and is running since about an hour over at City of Dionne's blog. Dionne and I have been organising it together for quite some time!
She keeps a lovely blog, filled with beautiful pictures she takes herself, as much as delightful illusrtations! So, pay her a visit, enter the contest and have lots of fun!

Here are some details:

-> There'll be one lucky winner, to be announced on Sunday.
-> There are three items offered from my Etsy shop, so that the winner can have a
choice, I thought that would be nice, right? :)
-> All you have to do is go here and leave a comment by saying: a) what makes you feel at peace and b) which one of the three items you would like to win
-> 1) The five hearts mobile from handcut pieces of vintage leather &
contemporary wallpaper
-> 2) The set of six mini cards, decorated also with the same pieces of leather in icy
white, grey & earthy yellow
-> 3) The handmade, vintage, ceramic vase in shades of beige & grey, decorated
with golden stripes , which originates from Germany and is numbered on its
bottom.

So, schnelle, schnelle, schnelle! - as we say for "quick" here in Germany, do go and enter!
I hope you enjoy and of course good luck for winning!

The other two products, that will not be chosen on the first place, will be availiable on a give away organised shortly here. I will keep you informed!

Happy (belated) new week and....

...welcoming you to Photography... Through Ivy's eyes.

Dear all, I must firstly apologise for my...disappearing act, as I meant to wish you all here a delightful weekend, by posting this collage of Various Forms of Love.

 Obligations though on Friday morning, plus preparing for a short trip on this long weekend allowed for no time to do it.

I hope you all had a nice weekend and the beginning of this week has already found you refreshed and positive!

In this post, I'm sharing bits of yesterday's favorite moments, which marked both the beginning of the week and the last day of our almost four day trip to the Netherlands. By doing this, I'm also introducing and welcoming you to Photography...Through Ivy's eyes, which is exactly what it says it is: pictures taken by me, expressing the way I see the world. I have already being doing so since quite a long time, but this time it is official, therefore the addition of my label.

...just a few words about that:

Being mostly an amateur photographer, who uses at the moment a 5 megapixel Konica Minolta camera and has modest skills on processing, my pictures attemp to moslty represent reality, as seen of course through my perspective. 

The main focus is on composition, depending on the way a capture is made, as it is naturally found in the environment. I do love to style also, but am moslty amazed by the beauty that exists out there in the world.

I think that when I'm surrounded by beauty, I'm in a constant natural high!

So, to go back to the pictures of my photography series, they are hardly processed, with the exception of a usual increase in contrast, rarely in brightness and a slight emphasis on colours by increasing saturation. I use no filters either on the camera lens or during processing.

All the importance lies in the way the world is percieved and captured, through creating a pictrure. Cropping is a very important factor, which works well with my natural love for geometry!

But mostly the pictures are framed when clicking.

So, after all these introductional blah, blah, which I sincerely wish has not put you to sleep, how about some details of our trip to the Netherlands and more of them connected to pictures of this post?....such as this one?

Yes?...that's nice :)....cause I'm all in the mood for - selective - sharing!

So, our road trip to the Netherlands begun on late Friday afternoon, destination Amsterdam. Eventhough this was the third time I visit this city in a year, since last spring, it never, ever bores me!

As far as I'm concerned, I could be living there permanently, for reasons  that will be stated in a different post, accompanied by pictures of course!

 As the weather was dreamy sunny and pleasantly warm, all the time was spent strolling around the incredible streets by the canals, being breathtaken by the beauty of the old houses, the architectural elements, the incredible interior design - as people are totally relaxed and hardly hung curtains or blinds on  their windows, plus they leave their front doors open quite often, while they are enjoying a coffee & reading their newspapers on the little balconies or even the road's pavement!

After two nights and two days, on Sunday evening, we drove direction Rotterdam, just about 60 km away, in order to take a quick look at the more industrial & modern architecture, but mostly in order to spend the night in a spacious and retro furnitured cabin of "De Rotterdam", an old 50's ship, renovated and transformed into a hotel.

An evening walk to the Erasmus Bridge offered a spectacular view of the architecure by night, captured by my partner's patient skill - and qualified camera -  on night photography.

As the city doesn't exactly offer lovely corners to explore while walking, next morning, after a quick tour by car, we headed to The Hague, for breakfast and a walk in a park, where deers lived, having it as their residence.

And now we come to the highlight of the day, presented through the pictures of this post,

Katwijk!

...or a coastal suburb a few kilometers from The Hague, situated in the south  of  The Netherlands, with small beautiful brick houses, lined by the beach, all with verandas and decorated with wonderful taste. An alternative summer destination for us - other than Greece of course, where I originate from.

Except from walking around, feeling the lovely breeze on our skin, while the sun was kissing us and smelling this incredible sea freshness and while of course taking pictures, relaxed time was spent at one of the cafes situated exaclty on the beach, where and around which the pictures of this post were taken.

I can still taste the warm brownie with the soft, white ice cream on top (sorry no pictures!) and the tea of red fruit....Having been brought up in a coastal suburb of Athens and having spent some 33 years of my life living by the sea, whenever I get near it, it is as if all worries just vanish and all thoughts can be effortlessly organised....and then just simply actions take place.

So, I hope you have enjoyed this small trip with me and should you have done so, thank you very much for being a visitor and taking the ride.

There are quite a few things running at the moment, one of which is a give away organised in cooperation with Dionne from City of  Dionne - details are to come later today - and the continuation of it, another give away, which will take place here and on flickr, in order to celebrate the 100.000 of my stream, achieved some two weeks ago.

I'll be posting pictures of this trip to the Netherlands organised in groups throughout the week. I hope to achieve a satisfying level until next week, when we fly direction Greece for almost two weeks of summer vacation.

So, this is again a period that the title of this blog supports iteslf, as I'm a currently a rather busy bee!

Enjoy a great day! I'll be back later with detalis about the give away...see you then :)

A stamp of love

A stamp of love, originally uploaded by ivy style33.

....two of my passions combined together and binded with...love!
...interior decoration and especially love for white, serene & simple interiors combined with my love for handwriting - something I, again, owe to my mother - only that here technology rather than human hands are responsible for the writing.

Captured in a picture, representing my ever increasing love for photography...

So, love & light! How can one separate love from light?
As love always carries a bright feeling...

Goodmorning love...

Goodmorning love..., originally uploaded by ivy style33.

....coz you can judge a good morning from its early beginning...the Greeks used to say - these days when they were less busy with protesting and complaining instead of concentrating on work - that: "I kali mera ap' to prwi fenetai"...or "A good day can be seen from its morning", the word morning standing here for an early beginning....there's not much philosophy in it...but a lot of practical truth...

...provide your organism with good nutrition to handle with the day ahead and do it in the best possible manner....referring both to the environment & table setting, but also to the people we are sharing our mornings with.

I think a lot of relationships are judged in the morning....and it is so rewarding to realise that you are begining your day with a person you mostly want to be with...and in case the realisation goes the other direction, then change would most probably be a solution....leading us to a more fullfilled way of living.

Look around you....

Look around you - love can be everywhere, originally uploaded by ivy style33.

Look around you - love can be everywhere, but of course also
Look inside you - love is hiding there!

...some years ago I realised that living with love is a priority in my life. This doesn't necessarily involve only a romantic approach in to seeing things and it definetely doesn't always mean, that life is seen through pink glasses all the time!

But what does it involve?

It involves living with the truth, living healthy and with sanity.

It invloves living with an understanding both for the self and others.

It involves being fair...oh! so hard in this competitive world!

It involves having the best of intentions, but also being able to move away

from situations, when they prove to be a simple repetance of things wrong.

It involves encouraging others to be the best they can, but also letting it go, when there is a feeling of extreme resistance from the opposite side.

It involves looking inside ourselves for answers, before we point our fingers to others for our misfortunes.

It involves being grateful for the gift of life.

It involves appreciating whatever we might have.

It involves bringing our existences to their highest possible point by

doing the best we can for ourselves and others.

I guess it also involves being authentic, by taking the time to discover ourselves and allow inspiration to come from within....

...again rather hard when inspiration lies everywhere around us, to keep the balance...to look inside in order to offer a  true part of ourselves....

Welcome  to my Diary of Love....where pictures and words will melt in each other, for the only purpose of reminding us the priceless value of love.

It might sound simple, but sometimes real love is a tough path to follow.

Coz loving life means to embrace both the good & the bad, both the bright & the dark...accepting their dual existance and simply making clear choices.