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Offer ends on Friday the 20th.

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What's on my bedside table and books to read this summer

I love books. I love reading. I love being in the fantasy world and switch off for a while. Books work better for me than movies, I never "lived" a movie while I actually "live" a book, if that make any sense at all. 

I love collecting books. I've got plenty of them and it still is not enough for me. And I never sell a book or exchange it for another one. I get the idea though and I think it's really sweet. But my books are mine and it would feel weird of saying good-bye to them as it feels that we shared something together. A book really becomes a friend to me and you don't get rid of your friends.

I have many books I haven't even read yet or read half of it and left it and now I don't remember where I finished (or what it actually was about) and have to start from the beginning. So I decided that this summer, starting from tonight, I will read the books I never had time to read. And to be sure I'll do that I moved them to my bedside table. 

So now on my bedside table I have: 

- 10 books I want to read, 

- an alarm clock I accidently stole from my previous landlord. It was in the room we used to rent and I just packed it up with everything else when we were moving.. if you're reading this Mr. Duncan then just know that I am really sorry  (no, not really as I totally love the clock)

- two dwarfs from my shop - they remind me of how lucky I am to be able to follow my dreams

- gameboy - Mr. Hubby still believes he can beat me on Mario Bros but I'm simply the best so he has no chances. I don't tell him that though. Only when I want to tease him. Which is always

 

How is it that I never know what to write in my posts and then when I start they become so super long? I really wanted to make it short.. Anyway, I won't bore you any more (if any of you actually got to this point). Here's the list of books I'm gonna read. If you are interested of course :)

1. The Man Who Planted Trees by Jean Giono - this story is so short it won't take me longer than 30 minutes to read it yet I still haven't done so.. 
2. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov - I read this book about 4 times already. It's my favourite one of all times so I will read it again.
3. Arthur and George by Julian Barnes - I only bought this book because I really liked the cover. Yes, I do that quite often.
4. Self by Yann Martel - bought that one as I really liked Life of Pi 
5. Couscous with Pauline by Tina Johnston - written by my friend and I even have it signed! 
6. Tomorrow, Insha'allah by Tina Johnston - already read it once couple of years ago and loved it! Want to read it again as Couscous with Pauline is a continuation so need to be in the picture :) You can buy the books here
7. Life of Pi by Yann Martel - already read half of it, then left it (lack of time again!) and now I don't know where I finished..
8. Rio Anaconda by Wojciech Cejrowski - it's probably the wittiest, funniest and saddest travel book written (already started so I know). I don't think it's been translated to English yet, but if you know Polish then I strongly recommend it!
9. Atonement by Ian McEwan - started that one countless times and never went through the second chapter.. Don't ask me why
10. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell - I think there was a movie made and Mr. Hubby wanted to see it. I made him wait until I read the book first.. (there are three more movies he wants to see but waits for me to read the book)

What are you going to read this summer?     

Ombre lamp project

So I painted my lampshade over the weekend and now I really can't decide whether I like it or not. I'm pretty satisfied with the result but on the other hand it was supposed to look better, so I'm a bit disappointed too. Anyway, if you want to give it a try, here's how I did it.

1. In two bowls mix white paint with chosen colors. If you already have the colors you want to use jump to step 3.
2. You will need to make two shades of the same color, one dark and one light. Make 1/3 more than you need.
3. In third bowl combine 1/3 of the dark shade with 1/3 of the light shade to create "middle" shade. 
4. Paint. I found that the easiest way is to divide the object-to-be-painted into sections, one for each shade, then paint each section starting from its top. When you get to the point where the two shades meet, use a dry brush to blend them together - just go up and down with your brush, something like doing "x" with it until they blend nicely and you no longer see where they met (or until you are satisfied with the result. I achieved neither of that..). Repeat the process for all the sections.

I used a dry brush, then a sponge, then a cloth and finished it off with my fingers. The lampshade I painted was made with thin paper and because of that, and because it was a bit awkward to hold and paint it (and because it had wires all over, and it was round, and it was my first project) I didn't really blend it very well. But hey, Mr Hubby totally loves it so it's all good!

TIPS:

1. You can choose any colors you like, they don't have to be shades of one color as you will blend them together with your "middle" color.
2. You can use the technique to ombre paint pretty much everything, even walls.
3. In case of painting large objects I'd recommend adding an extra section between two sections that you are going to paint, for example for three shades you would need five sections. Use the blank sections to blend the colors together - in that case you will have equally divided colors as you will pretty much create two extra shades when blending the ones you already have. Hope that makes sense. *I haven't use this technique yet so I'm not sure if that would work well.*
4. The easiest way to ombre paint a round lampshade is to paint spray it. Just simply spray it from the top and it will nicely leave you with an ombre effect. I didn't have the spray in the color I wanted.  

If you have any questions or suggestions on how to improve this project, please leave a comment below. Thank you!

P.S. As you may or may not noticed I haven't put any photos of my finished lamp. I simply haven't taken any yet and was hoping to do that this morning but it's raining outside and it's really dark in my room now, so I didn't manage to take a good shot. Will do so asap! :) 

Clearance Sale

If you're a fan of beautifully designed, colorful, funky and happy home decorations then this sale is definitely for you. We have all our Rice stock reduced - up to half price! - and you really can get yourself a bargain here. 

Rice Dk is a Danish company with a heart - they strongly believe in work ethics and the phrase "No one can help everyone, but everyone can help someone". It is the first Scandinavian company to achieve a SA8000 certification, which in short means that they are deeply engaged in no child labour, fair wages and better working conditions. We absolutely love them and we know that you will love them too!

Click on any of the photos and you will be taken directly to our shop. Please note that we only have set shipping costs for European countries, but we do ship worldwide. Just e-mail us your shopping list and we will send you an estimated shipping costs. We know it's a little bit of a pain.. We are working on improving that but for now it just has to stay as it is (trust us, we hate that as much as you do). Happy shopping!!

P.S. For any questions just leave a comment below or e-mail us on admin@keekodesigns.com 

Photo taking practice

I was practicing taking photos this morning (as they say - practice makes perfect) and I think I'm making some progress. Well, at least I'm satisfied with them, especially when compared to the very first photos I took.

1. Paper lampshade that soon will be renewed.  2. The Chip' n 'Dale clock that we have no idea where we took it from plus our retro wedding invitation and a little heart Mr Hubby made for me.  3. My collection of cacti in mushroom candle holders from House Doctor. The little ones with our names were used as place cards (and favors) at our first wedding - yes, we had two. Cos we like celebrating.  4. The most beautiful wedding present we got from my godmother. Painted on glass specially for us!

Personal development, self-coaching and getting unstuck

I love planning. Planning is my obsession and probably the only thing I do on regular basis. In fact I plan pretty much everything, and by everything I really mean everything. I write all my plans down in my planner (one of the 6 that I have) and... yep, that's where it ends - on a piece of paper as I never follow up with my plans. Don't get me wrong, I really want to do everything that I planned but somehow I become overwhelmed by the amount of things/projects that I need or want to do and I end up doing none of them. I will start one then move to another one without finishing the first one, then realise that there is another thing I really should be doing right now and.. Well, you see where it goes. I would get frustrated and angry with myself, get into a panic mode, try to do everything at once which is never a good idea and end up crying and telling myself I'm worthless and I will never achieve anything. And then I'll start comparing myself to successful people, cry even more, then become passive and get even angrier with myself. Then I will force myself to stay positive, start planning from the beginning and the whole process repeats itself. And let me tell you, this is what I hate most about myself (I really love myself, I just hate some things I do).

Actually I should have written the above in the past tense as for the first time in my life I found the way to stay on track, have things done and move closer to the life I want. I honestly do not want to bore you with all the process how I manage to get everything under control (oh how amazing that feels!) but if you struggle with similar problem you really MUST read this article (or if you just want to improve some areas of your life)

Anyway, now that I learned how to follow up with my plans I honestly feel happier, more optimistic (hey, I can do anything!) and satisfied. And I no longer am angry with myself :) I will write more about self-coaching (yes, yes, I got into "improve myself" mode) and getting unstuck some other time - I didn't think this will be such a long post!

 

Oh, we went for a romantic weekend away with Mr Hubby and it was amazing! We went to the prettiest little town I've ever seen and I fell in love with that place! One day I will buy a tiny little house there. I'll show you the photos next time as they still need to be edited (if I actually find any worth showing) and tell you more about the place. These are some other photos form the trip which are sort of ok as they are (oh ok, I did edit them a little..) I was pretty happy about them  -taking into consideration I really don't know how to take good photos..  

Current obsessions

Recently I am a very busy girl. Today I got up at 5:30 (yeah, ok, I realise that for some of you this is a normal time to get up but for me it still is like a middle of the night) and got to work. And I still will be working and trying to get on top of everything until late evening. It's been a long time since I felt this motivated and eager to work. I blame winter for that and those extra short days. It must have been some mad person that came up with all this time change that makes winter days so short. My body is still not used to this and I've been around for some time now. I probably should emigrate for the winter season somewhere warm (you see, I don't really like hot weather either, warm would be just fine).

But enough of moaning. So yes, I'm having a very productive day. Made some progress with my new camera (I'm thinking of giving it a name actually, any ideas?): I read 53 pages of the manual, took about 50 "abstract art" photos, know how to set the time and date (yes, very useful), wiped it way too many times and found it a perfect place/bag/home. I must admit that I was very naive thinking that taking photos would be a piece of cake. No, it is not. But I'm making (some) progress.

Leon the Very Wise Dog

Lola the Cat That Can't Meow

Meet my pets: Leon and Lola. There are two more, Piri and Rafael, but they just run away when they see me slowly approaching them with my camera. So now it is filled with photos of random objects, running pets and Mr. Hubby. Mr. Hubby is the only one that sits still for me. Ish.

Happy evening everyone! Once I'm done here I'm going for a well-deserved, cold beer. With my camera obviously :)