Sunflowers can bring light on the gloomiest days.
One kind word can warm three winter months.
Japanese proverb
HAPPINESSCARDS #29
Category Archives: Photography
F.Y.I.
Do you or anyone you know get purple bruises on your hands and arms when you knock into something? If not you, maybe you’ve noticed them on a parent or grandparent. I’ve had, what are called bruises, show up with the slightest bump and have asked several health professionals what to do about them. No one seems to know, but now I do. And I want to pass the information on to as many sufferers as possible.
I discovered that if I slather on Arnica lotion immediately after a bump or scrape on my limbs the blood withdraws from the surface and no bruise forms. Like most others with this condition I often find the purplish spots without being aware of contact with anything, but when I’m paying attention I feel an itchy, tingly feeling when a bruise is forming. When I notice that I make haste to the lotion, and it usually works to prevent the discoloration. You can buy Arnica lotion at health food stores and anywhere that homeopathic remedies are sold.
HAPPINESS CARDS #28
These flowers are often grown for dried flowers. I found them at the Farmers Market.
Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.
Oscar Wilde
HAPPINESS CARDS #27
I took this photo of a beautiful iris after a light rain. The accompanying quote is one of my favorites.
Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken. Oscar Wilde
HAPPINESS CARD #26
Sometimes leaves can be as eye-catching as flowers.
You can give without loving, but you cannot love without giving.
Robert Louis Stevenson
HAPPINESS CARD #25
The light was just right when I happened upon these leaves of a banana tree at the botanical gardens. That winter the plant froze, and I was happy to have recorded their beauty a few months earlier. The quotation I added to the back is one of my favorites, too.
Spread happiness everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier. Mother Teresa
HAPPINESS CARD #24
The Matilija Poppy or Romneya is a beautiful, drought-tolerant plant that blooms profusely in the summer in California.
A kind heart is a fountain of gladness making everything in its vicinity freshen into smiles. Washington Irving
HAPPINESS CARD #23
I’m lucky enough to live in an area where fuchsias do well. They like cool, damp summers.
Your vision will become clear only when you look in your heart. Who looks outside dreams. Who looks inside awakens.
Carl Jung
HAPPINESS CARD #22
A close-up shot of a dahlia here.
Do unto others as you would have them do to you.
Jesus
LOOK WHAT I WOKE UP TO FIND… an article in the Ukiah Daily Journal about me.
Happiness Cards still blooming
Long time photographer and Mendocino County resident Connie Fledderjohann is wrapping up a second year in the business of creating “Happiness Cards,” a line of simple cards with photos of nature on one side and quotes aimed at cheering you up on the other.
She works from Fort Bragg and has cards available in a couple of stores on the coast but mainly she’s an online business and got help from West Company to figure out the business side of things.
Fledderjohann’s operating assumption is “You can increase your happiness by making others happy.”
She came up with the concept mainly because she was eager to share her photography.
“I love photography and want to share my photos. Mendocino County has many wonderful photographers, lots of them my friends,” she explained. “But the more of us there are trying to sell our work in conventional ways the harder it becomes for each of us to make a living. In addition, I wanted a product that most anyone could afford. I began by giving away little cards with a flower photo on one side and an inspiring quotation on the other. I handed them out to friends and strangers. In return I always got a smile and ‘thank you’ and sometimes tears or a hug. And I always came away feeling happier. When my friends asked for their own cards to give away it became a business.”
And Fledderjohann says selling the cards makes her happy too.
“I treasure the many comments I’ve received from customers who relate the positive experiences they’ve had giving out Happiness Cards. I estimate that there are over 60,000 cards in circulation right now adding to the happiness of both giver and receiver.”
An example of the quotes on her cards is: “‘To play the wrong note is insignificant. To play without passion is inexcusable.’ – Beethoven.” This one comes on the back of a photo of a red-edged white begonia.
Fledderjohann works alone – and loves living so close to the Botanical Gardens in Fort Bragg where she finds inspiration all the time – but gets help filling orders from a friend and neighbor when things are extra busy.
She takes inspiration from nature but also from role models “like Georgia O’Keeffe who kept creating late into life.” Why? “I’m almost 85,” she says.
Find Fledderjohann’s cards at http://www.happinesscards.net
Happiness Cards 