This is my second post for today. The first one is here.
Hi everyone!
This post is written to support an ongoing "Talk Positively About Someone" campaign in Norway, hosted by the Nordsalten Hobbyklubb Blog. In Norwegian we have a relatively new word,
Fremsnakk - which is the opposite of
Baksnakk, which means slander, or literally translated "Back Talk" - to speak negatively about someone behind their back. So the opposite of that is to talk positively about someone, and let people know :-)
It's a very sad story why this campaign came about, after a Norwegian crafter blogged about her having been bullied in the crafting community. I know, shocking! I don't know that many crafters in Norway and I haven't witnessed any of the bullying and slander - all I know is this one person speaking up about it, and one person being bullied is one too many.
We all have a story, we all struggle
with something or the other - some of us just hide it better than
others, and that's OK too. Just as long as we know that we have no rights to
judge a book by its cover.
People are so much more than what we can see.
If someone slanders, do you listen?
Or are you wise like the second owl?
Below is the stamp I used. I stamped the images on watercolour paper, cut the images apart, and used the first and second owl, plus pieces of the branch. The images were coloured in using Zig watercolour makers. I made the texts on my computer.
This zentangle stamp was designed by Melina Dahl in Sweden for Rubber Dance and it's a a tweak on The Three Wise Monkeys, who saw no evil, heard no evil, and spoke no evil. To me that includes "don't slander"; it means that if I hear any slander, I try to shut my ears to it (hear no evil), and I certainly don't spread any slander (speak no evil). It also means that I try my best to "close my eyes" to any negative sides of a person, and rather open my eyes to their positive sides - we all have
many of those :-)
Besides - what you might not like about someone, is perhaps the very reason why I like that person, and vice versa. I like people who are straight forward and brutally honest, whereas other people might find them rude. I might be drawn to people with a peculiar sense of humour, you might find them silly or weird. We might also have a very different taste when it comes to arts and crafts; what I like might not be your cup of tea - and the other way around. And that's OK! As long as we remember this:
Now, let's get back to the main reason for this post - my support the campaign called Fremsnakk, i.e. "to talk positively about someone". I know I can get better at giving compliments and telling people why I love this or that about them or something they do or have made. I might think to myself that I really like her or what she says/does/makes...., but people aren't mind readers, so let's all get better at giving one another compliments! :-) Not just in comments we leave on blogs (which is very nice, too!), but also in person - face to face, it being friends or strangers.
So - today I want to Fremsnakke a Norwegian crafter who I had the pleasure of meeting last year. We had emailed back and forth after I had joined one of her crafters' groups on Facebook, and she also appeared as a Guest Designer on my company's blog, (
see her post here). She is extremely talented, very sweet, has an awesome sense of humour, and she has that straight forwardness people from Northern Norway is known for, which I really like.
So who's that girl? Her name is Jorunn Langås Andreassen and her blog is here. Go have a look! I don't know if there is anything this woman can't make - she makes everything from tags, ATC's and cards to scrapbook pages and 3D decorations. Here is just a tiny selection of things Jorunn has made:
And last, but not least - this greeting inside a card:
Bottom text is in Norwegian and reads:
You are worthy
because you are you
Always remember that!!
♥ ♥
♥
Thanks for stopping by today
Now it's your turn to give compliments to someone,
either face to face or in writing.
Words matter. Speak well of one another,
and of yourself
♥
