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Wow....just wow....so incredibly beautiful ❤️ My favourite are the designs based on traditional Maori patterns *super love these* 😁

I started doing some rocks myself last year, with dot work, but also based on messages people might need to hear when feeling depressed, lonely, hopeless, suicidal etc. I found one of these rocks myself when I was on the verge of death (serious health issues related to how my husband was treating me, not suicide) & finally resolved to leave my husband. I didn't know how or exactly when, but I knew it was going to happen. Finding that stone, which may have been completely insignificant to someone else, is what motivated me to push through what I was dealing with at the time. It was bright yellow in color, anybody else could have found it where I was walking through the forest which was quite busy in terms of walkers & hikers, but they didn't...I did. It was sitting on a stump & simply said YOU ARE LOVED with a beautiful heart on the back. I broke down crying when I found it & did take it home. I often picked it up & looked at it when I was feeling anything BUT loved, which pushed me to start creating beautiful things myself to remind me that there was beauty in me, no matter what was happening in my life. And here I am making soap again, which I have always loved with a passion 😊

After I did leave my husband, I found out who had inspired this entire thing with the rocks with messages of love, worldwide, after her daughter committed suicide in 2014, Deborah DeLisi at The Abundant Love Project > Our Story | Mysite
She made her Stone People Tribe while grieving her daughter's death, feeling alone, and things grew from there. Really an amazing woman who is an artist in so many ways.

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I then started making the stones with messages of love myself, leaving them random places during the past 3 years while people were terrified, angry, depressed, giving them directly to people who I seemingly met out of nowhere, and was gifted things in return which were incredibly meaningful to me every time, which in itself blew my mind. There is no such thing as coincidence :)

Anyways....yeah....your amazingly gorgeous stones reminded me of Deborah & her beautiful project, as well as my own path through life 😊 I will be making these stones with my granddaughter next year when she comes to visit me during school holidays, which I am very much looking forward to.

Thanks so much for sharing your beautiful work ❤️
Thank you for your amazing story @QuasiQuadrant.

I was going through a serious depressive phase before I started painting stones - back in 2017. I struggled to get out of bed in the morning as there was nothing interesting to get out of bed for. Once I started the painting, I looked forward to getting up in the morning to create.

Then, once I'd outgrown the makeshift dotting tools I had been using ( toothpicks, kebab sticks, pencil erasers, etc) I contacted a woman in Canada seeking these dotting tools: DIY MANDALA STONES and lo and behold if she wasn't a New Zealander living in Canada. She took up painting after her daughter died and found some peace in it. Such a co-incidence - my first son had also died. While it had been some 10 years or so prior, it was still a major contributor to my depressive episodes. So painting mandalas had helped both of us to cope through tough times.
 
Thank you for your amazing story @QuasiQuadrant.

I was going through a serious depressive phase before I started painting stones - back in 2017. I struggled to get out of bed in the morning as there was nothing interesting to get out of bed for. Once I started the painting, I looked forward to getting up in the morning to create.

Then, once I'd outgrown the makeshift dotting tools I had been using ( toothpicks, kebab sticks, pencil erasers, etc) I contacted a woman in Canada seeking these dotting tools: DIY MANDALA STONES and lo and behold if she wasn't a New Zealander living in Canada. She took up painting after her daughter died and found some peace in it. Such a co-incidence - my first son had also died. While it had been some 10 years or so prior, it was still a major contributor to my depressive episodes. So painting mandalas had helped both of us to cope through tough times.

❤️ There are no coincidences 😊 That's so awesome, thank you for sharing that! Not so coincidentally 😂 that was about the same time that I was making that big shift in my life as well. I then made the HUGE shift 3 years later. Since then, I keep meeting more & more women who were going through a lot of pain in their lives around the same period of time as me, and you as well, and making some very important choices which led to much more happiness, health & peace for them overall.

I am going to look into this woman & her tools. I can send my granddaughter a set for her birthday & let her know that one of the activities we will be doing over summer holidays is painting the stones - which she will LOVE because she too found a very special painted stone when I visited her last month - to give her some extra things to get excited about. Such an amazing child. It's my biggest wish to encourage her to nurture everything beautiful within her, all of her life, not just as a child. This will help her to get through things which come up for her as a teenager as an adult & have her view them more as speed-bumps than hurdles :)

Thank you again ❤️
 
And, um, @Ephemerella , I can't quite recall when I gave you permission to use my likeness?
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I'll drool right next to you over some Hugh! 🤤🥰🤤
(Swoon) I'm in too!!! 💕

I treasure you people. Time for a group hug...

 
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Why Are You Laughing Jennifer Lopez GIF


I treasure you people. Time for a group hug...


ZANY!!!!! I mourned the end of the Mary Tyler Moore Show! To this day, I talk about that scene! I was just a little kid. We audio tape recorded that episode. For you youngsters, it was a tape cassette in a cassette recorder -- only audio. We held the tape recorder up to the television. We played that recording over and over.

Group hugs to all!
 
This is my other hobby/craft, and ironically, the one that led me into soap-making in a very roundabout way (long story) :)
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What am I looking at? At first I thought it was a decorative box or compact, then I got confused. What are these and what are they used for? I think of peacocks, were you going for a peacock decoration?
 
Thank you KiwiMoose for sharing all this. I was very touched by your story, and mesmerized by what you created out of chaos... There is much more than beauty in these creations... You're such an inspiring person! 💗
 
@KiwiMoose. Exquisite is an understatement for your stone paintings!! I think you could sell the single photo of all them.
Ooo! Great idea ~ prints on card stock (like post cards or note cards), or mini prints that people can create their own collage-like collection! How cool would it be to to have both the painted stone AND the print?! Or, maybe someone can't afford the stone but a cute little print would be doable 😃
 
I have another hobby that has taken over my life. I make Rosettes for Native American Regalia. Here are a few of them.
 

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You are so talented!
Your soaps and dots all just incredible.
I have done a little dotting also and not anywhere close to the beauty you create but it is so relaxing for me and love that it forces me to slow down.
 
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I found this:
Would be quite cool to do a round mould and then cut it into wedges with the mandala pattern on top.


Your mandalas are beautiful. I also think it would be nice as a soap. I found something. The procedure is not described, but the technique is called point to point. They are examples of students who were tasked with making a replica of various art. The first picture is the inspiration and the second picture is the soap. When I saw this, I remembered you and this post. I don't draw mandalas, but my hobby is also drawing.
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Creative soap by Steso :)
 

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