Five things to be cheerful about this Monday

1 // Vintage postage stamps that inspire fanciful storybook themes

Chicago-based Illustrator Diana Sudyka uses vintage stamps from Europe as the starting point for fanciful paintings created using gouache, ink, and watercolor. Sudyka offers prints of many of her paintings on her website, and she also shares her work on Instagram.

2 // The shortlist

The Sony World Photography Awards have announced their shortlist of winners. There’s some really amazing work in there, very inspiring.

3 // Magic sauce

Seven of them that you should know about.

4 // Apple and cinnamon hot cross buns

because its nearly Easter, and these look delicious

5 // This quote

I think there is a certain age, for women, when you become fearless. It may be a different age for every woman, I don’t know. It’s not that you stop fearing things: I’m still afraid of heights, for example. Or rather, of falling — heights aren’t the problem. But you stop fearing life itself. It’s when you become fearless in that way that you decide to live.

Perhaps it’s when you come to the realization that the point of life isn’t to be rich, or secure, or even to be loved — to be any of the things that people usually think is the point. The point of life is to live as deeply as possible, to experience fully. And that can be done in so many ways.

– Theodora Goss

from her blog post Fearless Women