Monday, 23 June 2008

Beauty, Love and Joy - my Fab Five


Goodness, this has never happened to me before - I've been nominated for a Blog Award!

Wow and gosh and I feel I should be wearing my best frock and shoes (though funnily enough I'm not) in order to accept the award most graciously and gratefully.

It come from Michele of Hedgelands Glass & Gems - who has helped take my idle interest in sea glass up a few notches to something approaching an obsession, and who has transformed some of my favourite pieces of Mersea sea glass into some lovely pieces of jewellery.

Thanks Michele!

So now it's my turn to nominate five bloggers who have brought Beauty [and/or], Love [and/or] Joy into my dull and muddy little life, by the sheer power of their blogging. And you will notice that I have put aside my oft-rehearsed, antisocial, sourpuss-won't-play 'no tags' rule for once - because I think this is something rather different and I do sincerely welcome the opportunity to highlight five of my favourite blogs and bloggers. I've mentioned and linked to them all before but here, all in one post (and in strictly alphabetical order) are my nominees:

Green Chair Press - one of the first blogs I encountered (through our mutual love of ampersands!) - and still one of those I find most visually stimulating. I adore Susan's creative talent and unerring eye for design, the freshness of her approach, the way she uses poetry in her work and just the sheer inky, tactile wonderfulness of her printing. As regular readers will know, a number of Susan's pieces have made their way across the Pond and now adorn my life and home - some of which I've mentioned here, here and here to list but a few of the times my own blog has been inspired and influenced by Susan's.

May December Home Accessories - I can't remember when or how I first landed upon Barb McMahon's May December blog, but I've been a regular visitor ever since. Barb has an amazing gift for spotting the interior design potential of all kinds of unlikely objects. She's a champion recycler, a generous advocate of the work of other designers and craftspeople, a great writer and all round lovely person. She runs three other excellent blogs: Pannifers Food and Such, Basically Unemployable and Stratford Daily Photo as well as being a guest contributor on several others, including Vintage Indie.

60goingon16 Warm, wise and wonderful, Diane's blog is just like Diane - unfailingly surprising, intelligent and thoughtful. Her posts have had me by turns falling off my chair laughing, signing up to campaigns and petitions, moved to tears, filling up my BookRabbit shopping trolley and downloading tracks from iTunes. I landed on 60goingon16 almost as soon as I started blogging (or maybe Diane landed on Musings first - I can't remember), and for me at least it was one of those 'ping!' moments when one simply knows one is going to like this person a lot. And nearly a year on, every time I visit 60goingon16, I still hear that 'ping!'

The View from the Last House in America - Kim and I 'met' through our mutual interest in the 1920s illustrator Gladys Peto (see Kim's blog here and my blog here). But her blog covers more than her love of art and illustrated books - there's family life on a farm which straddles the US/Canadian border, tours of local places of interest, and the latest addition to the family - the adorable puppy Maisy. And it was Kim who started the whole tea cup thing - so she's got a lot to answer for!

Uphilldowndale - home life, country life and the most wonderful photographs of 'watching nature take its course, from the top of a hill in a rural area of northern England'. UHDD's pics are consistently wonderful - from spectacular sweeping landscapes to the most telling details from nature and local buildings. She has a keen eye for the quirky, the poignant and sometimes the unintentionally hilarious. In addition to the ones on the blog, there's a good collection of her photos on Flickr (check out in particular 'Square Circle', 'Tulip and egg' and some characteristically oblique shots from the Bakewell Show).

So these are my Famous Five - I raise my glass of supermarket Merlot you all!

(Should you feel so inspired, you may now nominate your own top five favourite blogs and perpetuate this Prestigious Award!)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Aw shucks, J! You'll have me blushing. But thank you.

uphilldowndale said...

Pink cheeks all round, thank you, your most kind

Barb McMahon and Alan Mailloux said...

Thanks so much Juliet!

Kim Velk said...

I tried to leave a comment yesterday...Since it doesn't appear I assume a technical glitch.

You really made my day. It is an honor to be singled out by my own favorite blogger. I have been enjoying looking around at the other four honorees as well.