I used an image I took of her house and printed it onto Belgian linen bookcloth. I made the striped back cover in Photoshop and it was tricky working out where to place the stripes and image so that they were in the right place when I bound the book. It worked even better than I hoped. I hope she likes it.

One of the things that tempted me back to my blog (apart from my friend Carol telling me how much she enjoyed reading it – all bloggers should have a friend like Carol!) was finding that the lovely writing gb had given me this award. The award was originated by Montessori Mama – isn’t it pretty? Very cheering on these cold winter days.

The rules are these:
- List six things that inspire my creativity
- Pass the award on to 6 more kreativ bloggers
- Link back to the person who gave you the award
- Link to the people you are passing it on to and leave them a comment to let them know.

Six things that inspire my creativity. Hmmm…

1 Reading. Once I am interested in something, I have to read as much as I can about it. The down side of this is my ever expanding library which threatens to take over my house. My latest inspiration is a book called ‘500 Handmade Books – Inspiring Interpretations of a Timeless Form‘ published by Lark Books.

2 Other bookbinders. One particular thing that has caught my fancy (which is in ’500 Handmade Books’) is a wonderful ‘bustrophedon variation’ by Cathryn Miller, which is a sort of book which folds up into a small cube. I think it’s delicious and especially as I think this was created by the same Cathryn Miller who also comments here and is a member of the Book Arts Forum, a wonderfully inspiring place to visit.

3 Blogs. I was inspired to try bookbinding by reading the blog written by Dennis Yuen. He also has a beautiful book featured in  ’500 Handmade Books’. His blog features lots of tutorials and images of the gorgeous work he does.

4 Curiosity. I see something, I have to try and work out how it was done and reproduce it. Expect to see a ‘bustrophedon variation’ attempt gracing (or otherwise) these pages sometime soon…

5 A slightly obsessive nature. I have been designing and writing this web site I have been working on for over a week. I sit down to work as soon as I get up and often find myself sitting working until late at night. I even dream about solutions to problems I am having. I realised on Monday, I had not been out of the house for a week, apart from taking Milo into the garden for a run around. (No wonder I am not having much luck meeting a new chap). I am also obsessive about finding lovely materials to work with, nice paper, leather, fabric and so on. Oh and kit. I love the tools and gadgets and equipment that go with bookbinding.

6  I love it when people appreciate something I have made. It gives me such satisfaction. When I was younger, I was always lacking in self confidence so when people praise my work it gives me such a buzz.

So there you have it.

I pass this on to  the following people who all create such wonderful things and who all seem to inhabit a parallel universe where days are 48 hours long. How else do you explain how much they achieve? Or is it that I am rubbish at time management….?

Teresa – home schooling , soap making, homesteading, cooking wonderful food, writing and so much more

Amy H - she knits, she makes books and brings up two small children – they are all gorgeous.

Kylee – making polymer clay jewellery, running language and jewellery making workshops, bringing up a baby, President of her local Arts and Culture Association….

Kim – the friendliest, most supportive blogger who encouraged me when I was first starting out and who is a wonderful artist. She also founded the  Top Artists Directory which must take so much time to keep updated and also writes the poetry blog PoeArtica

Astrid – a bookbinder from Germany who has never failed to inspire with the quality and the variety of the books she produces. Not to mention the quantity….

Claire – my friend in the real world, who has written a really funny book ‘Plus One: A Year in the Life of a Hollywood Nobody‘ and whose persistance and hard work in getting this book into print and then used as the inspiration for a movie ‘The Making of Plus One‘ is truly inspirational. She even appears in the movie – how cool is that?

Now to close, this is so creative it deserves a Kreativ award of its own. Great music and a superb video by Oren Lavie. Enjoy.

First off Charmaine Zoe over at Tales of Terror from the Black Lagoon (great blog title!) said that I am a ‘Kick Ass Blogger’

an award which originated at Mamma Dawg’s. In her words

“Maybe they’ve got incredible, original content. Or they’re overflowing with creativity. Is it someone that helps you become a better blogger? Or a bloggy friend you know you can count on? Or maybe it’s someone who simply inspires you to be a better person… or someone else who sends you to the floor, laughing your ass off. Whatever the reason may be, I’m sure you know at least a couple of bloggers that kick ass. Well… why not tell ‘em so?

Here’s how to send them some love:-

* Choose 5 bloggers that you feel are “Kick Ass Bloggers”
* Let ‘em know in your post or via email, twitter or blog comments that they’ve received an award
* Share the love and link back to both the person who awarded you and back to www.mammadawg.com
* Hop on back to the Kick Ass Blogger Club HQ to sign Mr. Linky then pass it on!

To get codes click on the button above which will take you to KABC HQ – don’t forget to link up the person who nominated you for the Kick Ass Blogger Club. “

OK. Done all that. My five ‘Kick Ass Bloggers’ are *drum roll*

Pete @ My GPS Cameraphone

Teresa @ Life, Homesteading and Everything

Amy @ In the Fishbowl

Tom @ Burnt Maze

Jenny @ The Latest Whatever

Next up. What can I say? Those of you who are acquainted with Lord Likely and his Astonishing Adventures will probably have an inkling of what is to come. (Insert you own double entendre here).You can read all about his ‘Golden Cock of Excellence’ award here.

In his inimitable fashion, he explained why I was receiving this accolade thus:

“Lady Diane Aldred: supremely creative English rose Diane has been a regular reader of my wondrous journals, and for that she deserves honouring. Plus, with any luck the receipt of said award will endear her to me, and we shall wind up entwined in a passionate embrace, possibly whilst nude.”

In reply I just have to say – consider yourself endeared, we will have to see about the rest :-) The award itself is a little – how shall I put it? Ah yes, outré, for a wholesome blog such as this one (especially as some of my readers might be of a nervous disposition), so if you would like to see it, please click here. Now go and have a lie down.

Recovered? Right the next one arrived this evening courtesy of the lovely Diane CA @ DianeCA’s Metamorphoses.

She received this from Sandee @ Comedy Plus and from her lovely husband Renny @ Renny BA’s Terella, so she is doubly brilliant!

The rules for this award are:

* The winner can put the logo on his/her blog.

* Link to the person you received your award from.

* Nominate and link to at least 7 other blogs.

* Leave a message on the blogs of the people you have nominated.

Now you know how obedient I am, so here are my 7 brilliant blogs.

Diary of a 70′s Teen

Scratchbags

Your Neighborhood Reverend

Nanny Goats in Panties

Subu.Inc

Astrid

So there you have it, speeches optional.

I watched the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics this afternoon – well some of it – it went on for hours. It was quite awesome and putting aside any issues or disquiet that any one may have about the Chinese government’s policies or human rights record, there was no denying that they have set the new benchmark for opening ceremonies. London is going to struggle to get anywhere close to this stunning performance in 2012.

Here is a 30 second round up the BBC broadcast at the end of the 4 hour coverage this afternoon. The quality of this isn’t brilliant but if I find a better clip I will swap it over later.

This is the ad that the BBC has been running  for the games. I love it.

And finally, here’s something that might give you an inkling of how successful the UK Olympic Games opening ceremony is likely to be. These are some UWE students (University of the West of England in Bristol) organising a charity balloon launch. Sigh. I despair.

]]> http://dianealdred.com/2008/08/08/lets-celebrate/feed/ 26 DCA http://dianealdred.com/2008/07/18/where-the-wild-things-are/ http://dianealdred.com/2008/07/18/where-the-wild-things-are/#comments Fri, 18 Jul 2008 19:39:36 +0000 Diane http://dianea.wordpress.com/?p=1552 ]]> Well, hello there, I’m back! I have so much to tell you I don’t know where to begin. The new haircut? The holiday plans? My meeting up with an old friend? The lovely walks?  No, it has to be my excuse for my absence. After #2 son’s graduation, he came back home with me and we have been hanging out together before he heads off again. It’s been a nice reminder of how life used to be, having a boy with a bottomless pit for a stomach in the house again, it’s been one long round of cooking, food shopping and laundry, movies, music and cooking. And more laundry.

The graduation ceremony was a great thrill for me and the rest of the family. I thought I would explode with pride. My son looked so handsome in his gown (minus cap, you will notice. Apparently, the graduates had been throwing them into the air for photographs after the ceremony and it was thought that was too dangerous – someone had hurt their eye a year or so ago, so political correctness prevailed and they were banned apart from in the official studio portraits – utter madness.)

My two sons and my ex and I, had a great few days in Leeds, it really is a fun city with lots of great shopping  (unless you are shopping with/for two very fussy sons – and I thought women were supposed to be bad!) and restaurants. We had one particularly wonderful dinner at a restaurant called Anthony’s which was a bit ‘Heston Blumenthal’ if you know what I mean! Every dish had at least one ingredient that made you say ‘What?!’ (risotto of white onion, parmesan air and espresso? Or poached quail, pea sorbet, cocoa, morels? Or how about my dessert of apple parfait, pork filo and sage ice cream?) We were all totally amazed at how delicious it all was, in fact we would go so far as to say it was one of the best (if not the best) dinner we had ever eaten.

Since we returned, #2 son has spent his days fishing in the river which runs through our garden – amazingly he actually managed to catch a fish yesterday (which he threw back). I don’t know who was more surprised #2 son, me or the fish! He saw an otter in the river while he was fishing but by the time he had shouted me to come and look, it had gone – probably terrified by the loud shouting coming from the river bank :-)

We did manage to spot a fox in the field next to my garden. Apparently, it has four fox cubs which we haven’t managed to see yet but the mother fox comes out every evening for a walk around the field. We managed to catch some shots of her including this one of the fox eyeing up a crow which seemed quite oblivious.

I love the view into the field, as do some others it seems…

We have had a really fun time since we got back from Leeds. I’m very conscious that these times together are going to be much rarer in the future. My nest will be well and truly empty. On the bright side I will have lots of time to make books and play tennis… (knee is finally better, by the way). I have been working on a photo album which I am making as a gift for a friend whose daughter is about to give birth to a little girl – my friend’s first grandchild. Here is a sneak preview.

By the way, an update on my garden furniture saga. PayPal finally decided in my favour and have refunded me £500 which is the most they can, the balance is still to come from the dodgy seller, (Gemma at Land of Sofas) so I’m not holding my breath. I was contacted by someone else who read about my problems here, she had also bought furniture from this wretched woman but had been too late to file a claim with PayPal, so she stands to lose all her money.

When I was searching for alternative garden furniture, I found a web site selling the same furniture, under a different name (Home Living Online) but I could tell from the telephone number that it was the same people. Please do not buy from this company. I have reported them to the Trading Standards people and I hope that they will stop them from swindling any more unsuspecting customers.

Well, it’s nice to be back blogging and I have missed my visits to my blogging friends – thank you for your concern at my absence, but fret not!  #2 son is off on holiday next week so the house will be quiet again and I can get back into a routine. Books and blogging here I come….

]]> http://dianealdred.com/2008/07/18/where-the-wild-things-are/feed/ 26 DCA http://dianealdred.com/2008/07/05/storm-clouds-over-dorset/ http://dianealdred.com/2008/07/05/storm-clouds-over-dorset/#comments Sat, 05 Jul 2008 13:14:59 +0000 Diane http://dianea.wordpress.com/?p=1536 ]]> I try not to use this blog too often as a personal forum for all my pet peeves, personal traumas and disasters however, every once in a while something happens and I just have to explode! Back in April, I thought I was being very clever and bought some garden furniture from an eBay shop. It was a very good price (but still quite expensive -£600 or so). I still haven’t received the furniture.

Here we are at the beginning of July and my garden is still bare. I am furious. Particularly as the company that sold it to me (Land of Sofas based in Poole – be warned!) are now no longer registered as an eBay seller and do not communicate with me at all, and all their contact details are no longer available on eBay.

I managed to track them down and have contacted them several times. The girl I spoke to (Gemma) is always very short with me and seemed irritated I am bothering her. She has given me several dates for delivery, which have passed with no apologies or explanations, so I opened a dispute with PayPal and they are investigating the situation but as time goes by and our very short summer whizzes past, I am still furniture-less. My lovely big sons keep offering to go round and sort her out, as Poole isn’t too far from where I live (she signed off with her home address when she initially contacted me after the sale) but I am resisting their offer and attempting to do things through proper channels but if all else fails, I may go round there myself (with sons and a couple of their taller, even more scary friends) to discuss my refund!

The annoying thing is that the seller does appear to have lots of positive feedback but on closer investigation, most of it is for selling some sports drink bottles. All the feedback for the garden furniture they have sold in the past, says how long they had to wait for delivery and a lot of those people demanded refunds. The lesson from all this is to read the feedback properly. Don’t just look at the high positive feedback score and assume all is well. That’s the end of the lesson, I’ll keep you posted with any developments.

Anyway, rant over. A nice thing this week, has been reading the new ‘Top 101 Artists’ Blogs’ list over at Kim’s blog. Kim very deservedly (especially since her blog redesign) is at number 1, Emila’s lovely blog is at number 2 and guess who is number 3? Yes, moi! It’s such a phenomenal amount of work to update this list every month (particularly given the vagaries of Technorati) so I do recommend you head over there to check out some great art blogs. Kim was also sweet enough to pass on to me one of the many awards she has received recently – the Friendly Blogger award – well I try to be! Thanks Kim!

I’m going to pass this on to a couple of new commentators here at ‘Much of a muchness’ , 70′s teen and Daddy Papersurfer. If you read their blogs you will see why I enjoy reading them so much. And they are indeed, very friendly bloggers :-)

As I write this, there are gale force winds and rain sodden grey skies above, but does this stop #2 son from lighting the barbecue and cooking the ribs he so lovingly prepared last night? Indeed it does not. He is outside wearing shorts, a jacket and a woolly hat, cooking our lunch before we settle down to watch the tennis at Wimbledon (ladies final – the Williams sisters – should be a good one).

After the tennis, #2 son is going out (to play golf would you believe!) and I am settling in to watch Doctor Who – series finale, cliffhanger ending last week, Martha, Rose, Donna, Daleks, Davros  and all the Torchwood team, especially lovely John Barrowman aka Captain Jack – I can barely wait – 5 hours 20 minutes to go……

I was supposed to be going to a picnic at Mapperton listening to Cuban Salsa music tonight but that is looking like a non-starter so more TV it is….and then tomorrow, the Men’s Final, Roger Federer versus Rafael Nadal, the dream final! Woo hoo!

Couch potato? Moi?

Here are the instructions for Trav’s Staying Out Of The Dungeon Trivia Meme:
He said: A meme needs ‘structions.OK…here’s your ‘structions:
Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to:
1. Choose a category from one of these: Television, Stage & Screen, Nightly News, Publishing, Lives & Times, Music
2. Find 8 bits of trivia about your selected category
3. Be sure to let me know when…ok, if…you decide to play along so I can see what you come up with.
4. You may tag, or simply offer the meme for borrowing or stealing as you like.

So here we go. My chosen topic is Stage and Screen.

1 Tom Selleck was the original choice to play Indiana Jones. He turned the part down as he was too busy with ‘Magnum PI’ and it went to the lovely Harrison Ford.

2 Daniel Craig is the first actor to play James Bond, who is younger than the series itself.

3 Johnny Depp only had 169 words to learn in ‘Edward Scissorhands’.

4 Daniel Day Lewis and Russell Crowe were considered for the part of Aragorn in the ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy. Even though he had never read any of the books, Viggo Mortensen took the part, after being persuaded by his son who loved them.

5 ‘The Last Samurai’ was not only Ken Watanabe’s first American Film, it was also the first time he had spoken English in a film. Tom Cruise took no ‘up front’ salary for making this film and trained for two years before film making began, learning sword fighting and taking Japanese language lessons.

6 Bette Davis was the original choice for the lead role in ‘Mary Poppins’. Danny Kaye and Fred Astaire were considered for the role of Bert, which was played by Dick van Dyke (and his atrocious Cockney accent….)

6 In the Coen Brothers film, ‘Intolerable Cruelty’, George Clooney plays a talkative character who is vain about his teeth. In his previous Coen Brothers film, ‘O Brother, Where Art Thou?’, he plays a talkative character who is vain about his hair.

7 Only days before the role of Batman was cast in ‘Batman Begins’, eight actors were asked to audition for the part. The actors were Christian Bale, Joshua Jackson, Eion Bailey, Hugh Dancy, Billy Crudup, Cillian Murphy, Henry Cavill and Jake Gyllenhaal. While Bale won the part, Christopher Nolan liked Cillian Murphy’s audition so much, he cast him as Dr. Jonathan Crane/The Scarecrow.

8 Due to his part in ‘The Machinist’, Christian Bale was vastly underweight (about 120 pounds on his 6 foot+ frame) when he was under consideration for the part of Batman in ‘Batman Begins’. After being cast, he was told to become as “big as you could be” by Christopher Nolan, the director. Bale underwent a dietary and exercise regimen and ending up weighing about 220 pounds (about 40 pounds above his normal weight). It was decided that Bale had became too large (friends of his on the film’s crew dubbed him “Fatman”) and he quickly shed about 20 pounds to have leaner, more muscular frame.

So there you have it, 8 perfectly random facts (largely culled from the Internet Movie Database) and a wonderful excuse to have a look at some of my favourite movie actors. Yum!

I’m not going to tag anyone as it’s quite task compiling this list but if you’d like to have a go, please feel free!

While I’m at it catching up on tags and things, Dunn over at Simply Dunn, passed on this lovely award, which she received from Crissy, called the ‘Arte Y Pico’ award. Thank you so much, Dunn!

Arte Y Pico Award rules :

1. You have to pick 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award through creativity, design, interesting material, and also contributes to the blogger community, no matter of language.

2. Each award should have the name of the author with a link to their blog.

3. Award winners have to post the award with the name and link to the blog of the person who gave them the award.

4. Please include a link to the “Arte Y Pico” blog so that everyone will know where the award came from.

I would like to pass this on to

Astrid

Rhonda

Teresa

Pete

Paul

I’ve tried to find out what ‘Arte y Pico’ means but the nearest I can get from my translator widget is ‘art and tip’ (which makes no sense) I think it means like a tip of a mountain (the peak) so maybe it means ‘the peak of art’. I’d be glad for a good translation….

The weather here has been glorious, we had a wonderful weekend and I went to my first barbecue of the year on Sunday. It was a gorgeous afternoon and we played croquet which was great fun. Not quite like this game though.

I played tennis yesterday and today and have even been doing some gardening (not my forte, I must confess) but it is so wonderful to be outside in the warm sunshine. Needless to say, it is going to get cooler after today so I have been making the most of it – hence the lack of both bookbinding and blogging. I’m sure normal service will be resumed very soon.

Just a very quick post to show you this book and to tell you I’m not going to be around for a week or so. I’m off on an adventure – I’m flying to Geneva with a friend and we are then driving to Barcelona and catching a ferry over to Mallorca. We are then going to spend a few days at her apartment before flying back to the UK next week. I’m looking forward to the trip – Thelma and Louise eat your heart out! On second thoughts, that didn’t end too well, so maybe not :-)

As I will be traveling around, I won’t be taking my laptop so I’ll be having an enforced break from blogging, so apologies if I don’t visit yours for a while. I’ll catch up on my return. In the meantime, Kim over at Laketrees is having a little competition and is inviting people to vote for their favourite art work. I rather foolishly entered a book and it is up against some stiff competition – mostly (if not all paintings). If you are feeling kind and generous, and like my books I’d appreciate a vote or two so I don’t end up as a complete ‘Billy No-Mates’ over there. Thanking you kindly….

I like this paper. Despite being a Japanese chiyogami paper, it’s a very tribal or ethnic design and according to the latest edition of the fashion magazine I subscribe to, that is one of the trends for the summer. We should all be wearing dresses made out of fabrics like this book. Well, all you ladies should – guys, it’s optional :-)

Guess what? This is my 200th post. 200! Whoever would have thought when I first started this blog 14 months ago that I would have so much to say? Certainly not me! I used to be incredibly shy and spent my teens hardly speaking to a soul. Things did improve as I got older, largely due to my (then) husband who made a point of making me speak up for myself at parties and the like. It was far too easy otherwise to let him do all the talking. At the time I thought he was being really cruel but with hindsight I see that it was just what I needed.

I remember the moment when I realised I wasn’t shy any more, vividly. I had enrolled on a course designed to get women who had taken time out to raise their families, back into the work place. We were asked to describe how we saw ourselves and how we saw everyone else on the course. Describing me, I came up with shy, lacking in confidence, quiet, reserved. All the other 20 or so people on the course said talkative, confident, friendly, outgoing. And in one of those Damascene moments, I realised I had been talking my socks off and joining in happily for the entire week! I do still find some occasions where I revert to crippling shyness and become awkward and tongue tied, but they are few and far between these days.

This was my anthem in those days – I give you Kajagoogoo – I had a huge crush on Limahl, my world fell apart when I discovered he was gay…..

Check out those hairstyles and fashions – hilarious!

Now to celebrate my 200th post, I thought I would say a little thank you to some of the regular visitors to Much of a Muchness who take the time to leave a comment. I always try to visit their blogs in return but sometimes I don’t manage it as often as I would like. So this is for you

Kim – wonderful artist and all round lovely person. She regularly updates the ’101 Top Artists’ Blogs’ and is quite justifiably at number 1 in the rankings. (The fact I am number 3 has no influence on this list at all – honest) A labour of love if ever there was one. I won one of her portraits in one of her regular competitions, it is quite wonderful.

Paul – also known as Struggling Writer. Read his blog for snippets of his wonderful stories and news about his toddler daughter, ice hockey and his play off beard. Manages to be first to comment so many times it’s uncanny….

Creechman – what can I say? He loves actresses, TV, tennis, movies and his dog Emerson. He is a semi-rocket scientist from Houston. He seems to like English accents.

Teresa - sometimes her comments are funnier than my posts, but I forgive her :-) Her blog is full of news about yummy food, home schooling her lovely boys and birding amongst lots of other things.

Durano Lawayan – always has a pithy amusing comment to make. His blog is so full of wonderful, insightful posts about the world and all it’s many vagaries and absurdities which he brings to our attention with superlative skill.

RennyBA – everything I know about Norway I have learned from Renny! He is a ‘network evangelist’ and his mission is to introduce the food, customs and people of Norway to the rest of the world in a fascinating way. He succeeds admirably!

Diane CA – is Renny’s wife, her relatively new blog is full of insights into her interests in social work, her life as an American living in Norway and her views on the world around us. Her description of herself as ‘if I were any more of an extrovert I would turn inside out’ made me laugh!

Peteej – takes amazing photographs using his mobile phone camera and even is kind enough to give tutorials showing how he achieves such wonderful results. He also publishes photographs from other mobile phone photographers (ahem, mentioning no names but someone not too far from here was featured a while back…..)

Kylee – makes beautiful jewellery out of gemstones and polymer clay. She is an expat living in a beautiful part of France and I must warn her, one day I am going to arrive on the doorstep of her studio to see it properly! I have always vowed to visit Carcassonne and she lives quite close by…..

Astrid – is a German book artist who is talented and thoughtful enough to write her blog twice, once in German and then in English. I will confess to shamelessly stealing ideas from her and slavishly following her advice. A leading light over at the Book Arts Forum too.

Lord Likely – what can I say about Lord L that he hasn’t said himself? And in a much more – how can I put this? – outrageous, outré fashion than I could ever dare to….

Daddy Papersurfer - he thinks I’m scary. But perhaps not as much as his lovely wife, Lo the Terrible Goddess, who tries to keep him under control – with varying degrees of success it seems….

70′s teen – the diaries of a Manchester girl growing up in the 70′s. Strikes so many chords with me it’s scary. She is going to send me food parcels containing Northern delicacy, Hollands steak puddings – hurrah!

AmyH – I think Amy lives in a space -time continuum where she has 48 hours in each day – she has two small children and manages to make books, crochet, cook, read and do a million and one other things which totally puts me to shame….

Lady Banana- just loves to blog, in fact she thinks she may be addicted to it…. and I suffer from widget envy whenever I visit her blog. She loves photography and her life in London and it’s always fun to visit her wonderfully yellow blog.

Jenny – writes funny comments and has a blog to rival Lady B’s for widgets and an enthusiasm for life that leaves me breathless, Jenny’s blog contains the immortal truth ‘Drink coffee – do stupid things faster with more energy’ – that must be where I am going wrong. Memo to self – drink coffee!

And now to finish, a thought for the day.

Me? I’d be 21 again. But still with my lovely sons, (not sure how that would work as they are older than that!) but with the benefits of hindsight and experience…and better judgement as far as the opposite sex are concerned….. :-)

It must be the Oscar’s ceremony which has inspired so many awards recently and just like buses, along come another batch all together!

Kim at laketrees has not only sent THE sweetest little award winging my way but has tagged me in the ‘Message in a Bottle’ meme. First, the award, how cute is this?

I love this award ‘so much’ too. I think it was originated by Emila at Emila’s Illustrated Blog and came to Kim via Mellanie at See it. Draw it. Share it. I’m going to pass it on to

Clara Teresa Dunn Astrid and Kylee

The ‘Message in the Bottle’ meme is quite complicated. Lots of instructions, so deep breath – here goes.

**** START COPY****
In a Bottle across the Blog Ocean. Leave a message in the sand or on the bottle. Write anything you wish. Be a pirate or a poet. Serious or silly. Anonymous or not.What message would you like to send out to the universe?
Mimi’s Message In a Bottle Meme
1. Compose a message to place in your virtual bottle.
2. Right click and SAVE the blank graphic below

3. Use a graphics program of your choice to place the message on the picture
4. Post the Message In a Bottle meme and your creation on your blog along with these rules
5. Tag a minimum of 5 bloggers – or your entire blogroll – to do the same. Notify them of the tag. Your virtual bottle will remain afloat in the blogosphere ocean for all blogernity (That’s a Mimism for blog + eternity.)

Mimi says: “ADD your site to the Mr. Linky list and place your blog’s name and url in a comment HERE TO LET ME KNOW YOU’VE COMPLETED THE MEME. I will add it to the master list of message bottles. Email mimiwrites2005 at yahoo.com if you have questions.”
Go HERE to see all the bottles floating in the blog ocean. The site is called Message In a Bottle.
***END COPY****

So basically, copy, paste and follow instructions…..hmm. Even I should be able to manage that…

In the spirit of irony, here’s my ‘Message in a Bottle”

Kim tagged the following people

Anand Archie Art News Blog Ascender Blog Elf Boyd Catsy Colin Cooper Corrine Debbie Deborah Diane DouDy Drowsey Monkey Durano Ev Fruity Hanna Janette Jeremy John Jos Kimmy Kris Leigh Life cruiser Lisa Lyn Lynda Lindsay Manuel Mary Ann Meg Megan Mel Mellanie Michelle Netster PALMA Pet Monologues Pearl Renny & Diane Santa She Walks In Beauty Shoshana Should Be Famous Snoskred Speedy Sue Sugar Queen Sully Suzanne The Artist’s Magazine Vin Walter williebaronet

So as you can see it’s getting hard to find people who haven’t already been tagged for this so I’m tagging anyone in my blogroll who fancies doing this one but particularly Struggling Writer, Pete at myGPScamera, Mike at The View From Here, Lord Likely or his friend Andy Fanton. As writers/Photoshop whizzes I’m dying to see what you come up with! Of course, it goes without saying only do this if you want to – no pressure!

A while back I resigned from my role as Founder over at Go! Smell the Flowers (pressure of work, artistic differences, leaving to spend more time with my family and other tried and tested excuses). I still pop over there on occasions, usually when I hear that things are kicking off again (which happens regularly – never a dull moment over there!) They are just in the throes of turning their blog into a full blown community with its 18 ‘founders’ (there were 20 but two, Drowsey Monkey and Olga the Travelling Bra, have also just resigned – see their blogs and GSTF for the reasons why). It’s a very lively place with humour, insults and serious debate flying around – every day brings several new posts and apart from never knowing what is coming up next – you also never know what the regular commentators are going to say next. Fur can fly and frequently does.

Jim & Em who started GSTF have given me a Flower Smeller badge, to read about this please go here. In their words :

‘This badge serves to acknowledge others who are, in their own way, smelling the flowers. They maybe regular visitors to this blog, one of the 18 founders blogs or someone that could contribute here who is yet to visit! Maybe they have recovered from an illness, written a book, made waves in the blogosphere, won the lottery, made a major shift in their life, won promotion, quit the rat race, raising a family, discovering their greatness and on it GO!s as more examples from around the world start to surface’.

I shall have to ponder on who to recommend for one of these badges….they will need to be hardy souls :-)

Any volunteers?

And now as a reward for anyone who has made it this far (thank you) here is a video clip. This is the beautiful song ‘Falling Slowly’ which won the Oscar for best song at this years Oscars. It comes from the film ‘Once’ a small budget, Irish film which has won many prizes and plaudits – you may remember I raved about it some months ago. It is now out on DVD so there is no excuse not to see it. It is quite simply fab.

I was tagged by Kylee over at Bijoux and Banter with this meme. It’s my punishment for not posting yesterday! Actually I reckon you are the ones who are being punished having to read even more ‘stuff’ about me :-)

It’s called ‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’ (with apologies to both Abba and Alan Partridge) and I have to answer all these questions so that you get to know me better. Well, I reckon you know probably as much as you would want to by now, but just in case there is anything else – here goes.

1. What is your occupation? Bookbinder/blogger/tennis player
2. What color are your socks right now? None, bare feet
3. What are you listening to right now? Gotan Project
4. What was the last thing that you ate? A hot cross bun
5. Can you drive a stick shift? Yes, my car is stick shift but I prefer an automatic.
6. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? Red
7. Last person you spoke to on the phone? A ‘gentleman caller’ (as Jane Austen would say…..)
8. Do you like the person who sent this to you? Very much
9. Favorite drink? White wine – especially Condrieu or viognier. Or champagne of course…. or a Bellini….
10. What is your favorite sport to watch? Tennis
11. Have you ever dyed your hair? Yes
12. Pets? None
13. Favorite food? Italian and Thai
14. Last movie you watched? There Will Be Blood
15. Favorite Day of the year? When the clocks change in the Spring
16. What do you do to vent anger? I rarely get angry but if I do I tend to burst into tears of rage
17. What was your favorite toy as a child? Spirograph
18. What is your favorite, fall or spring? Summer – I am a hot house flower
19. Hugs or kisses? Both please
20. What kind of pie? Apple and cinnamon
21. Do you want your friends to email you back? Yes, I like hearing from them….
22. Who is most likely to respond? All of them I hope!
23. Who is least likely to respond? The one who doesn’t receive it!
24. Living arrangements? House by a river near the coast – perfect.
25. When was the last time you cried? I couldn’t possibly say….
26. What is on the floor of your closet? Shoes
27. Who is the friend you have had the longest that you are sending this to? Blog friend – Kim
28. The friend you have known the shortest amount of time that you are sending this to? Blog friend – Teresa
29. Favorite smell? Newly mown grass, the sea.
30. What inspires you? Learning new things, going to art exhibitions, reading good blogs
31. What are you afraid of? Spiders, bugs
32. Plain, cheese or spicy hamburgers? None – not fond of burgers
33. Favorite car? Audi RS8. One day…..
34. Favorite cat breed? Maine Coon – my ex-cats.
35. Number of keys on your key ring? 3
36. How many years at your current job? This is a job?
37. Favorite day of the week? They are all pretty much the same but I play tennis on Mondays
38. How many provinces have you lived in? Is that the same as counties? Seven
39. How many countries have you been to? Loads including Russia, Kuwait, Thailand, Jamaica, Barbados, USA, Morocco, Kenya and all over Europe ( too many to list)

So there you have it. I am going to tag three people I’d like to know some more about:

Kim at Laketrees

Teresa at Homestead Notes

Brenda at Drowsey Monkey

I was also rummaging through my links at Technorati, and I found this which I almost missed, so apologies if I am late in acknowledging this.

This was given to me by the Political Cat who said Much of a Muchness

‘gives me beauty that soothes my soul (confession: I do love paper)’.

So, a fellow paper-holic :-)

I am supposed to pass this onto 10 blogs that I consider to be excellent blogs. I am going to cheat here slightly. I am giving this to all the bookbinding/book arts/paper artists blogs which are listed on my ‘Links’ page. They are all beautiful, inspiring and creatively excellent, so I am leaving it to you to see if you are on that ‘Links’ page – how idle is that?

Now then, talking of being idle. Have you heard about the ‘Hawaiian Chair’? It is the latest exercise craze. You can keep fit while sitting down. How cool is that? Here is Ellen Degeneres trying one out….

I think I’ll stick to tennis….. :-)