Above: Another potential use for Tupperware containers - it's my pallette!

I would love to introduce some additions to my blogroll! Yey, new friends!

Check out Juli Cady Ryan’s art blog, Finding your Inner Butterfly. She showcases her own dreamy illustrative artwork, and also shows work of some of her own favourite artists from various places around the web. Here is a link to Juli’s blog displaying another artist whose work I like, Erika Husselmann.

The Found Art Project blog by Emme. What a beautiful, positive idea: people offer art, quotes, poems and small stories suitable to print onto A4 size paper. We all download and print the artworks, and spread the joy by distributing, guerilla style… on a community pin up board, tucked into a park bench or bus stop seat, in a borrowed book, or somewhere else harmless and unexpected. Here’s a really cool recent Found Art Project post, with lots of numbers in it.

If you go on Facebook, visit the Joyful Girls; I came across them via the Found Art Project. They were doing a give-away together. Did I mention I won a give-away prize? To enter we left comments with Random Acts of Kindness and I won a Guerrilla Art Kit. I will totally tell you about that/show you pictures when it arrives in the mail.

Lisa King is a multi-talented human, to whom I was also introduced through the Joyful Girls. She plays music, is recording her adventures with vegan eating and even has an etsy shop: Sew Lucky.

Fellow cat fanciers… the Simon’s Cat films are animated short films that perfectly capture feline wiles and manners. Thanks Desba for the name, it enabled me to source this. This is part of the introduction from the British Comic Show, where the creator will be a guest speaker:

Simon’s Cat is an animated cartoon series created by English animator Simon Tofield. Best known for its humorous observations of cat behaviour and simple black and white presentation, the series has now amassed over 65 million views on YouTube alone.

A favourite among cat-lovers, the series differentiates itself from many previous cartoon cats by having no dialogue, relying purely on visual comedy and situational familiarity to engage and entertain.

Free stuff – sweet!

If you are after simple quick recipes, in fact 5 ingredients and merely 10 minutes, you can download a free recipe book from Stone Soup. Go to the blog post and scroll down to the download link.

Nathalie Lussier is a living example and very informed expert on eating completely raw foods, or just converting some of your diet to raw. You can sign up for ‘feeds’ (haha) and info, ‘like’ on Facebook, or get various downloads. Visit Raw Foods Witch and scroll down to Raw Vegan Dessert Recipes and click on the download link for “28 Desserts You Can Eat Everyday”. Lots of good ideas there!

Incidentally, do you like the new flowery background here at the blog?

I hope you have a wonderful, warm, creative week,
Meg x o

Thanks to several friends on Facebook who passed on this wonderful video. Many of you may have already seen this, but here she is again – my addition to the virus-osity-o-rama (virulence just sounds too much like the plague)! 

Let’s make lists of unqualified “I love ….”s in our lives. It’s not going to be a “Live Bold List” with a number and a title, just a free floating list of joyous affirmations:

1. I love that it’s raining
2. I love that I am warm and dry
3. I love that the electricity works and I have light and a computer connection (and internet!)
4. I love my warm pink cardigan from the OpShop
5. I love the smell of the Sticky Date Gingerbread baking
6. I love that we have a gas connection and the oven works so it can cook the Sticky Date Gingerbread
7. I love that I brought my washing in earlier – before it started raining – and it’s dry on my bed, waiting to be folded and put away
8. I love that I got some yummy food cooked today ready for the week
9. I love that despite being ‘off’ wheat, barley, red meat, sugar, alcohol, preservatives (etc) and nuts, there are still plenty of interesting yummy options for nutrition and nourishment

Oh, yeah and one “My (thing I own) is great”

1. My new stripey leggings are great (and also dry, waiting to be folded and put away, and later – WORN with glee!)

I think everyone’s list is meant to be personal and specific. Hence mine is of a somewhat domestic nature today!
Wanna share? There’s a comments section below, or you could comment at my Facebook Visual Artist page. I’d love to hear about a few of the things you appreciate

Remember, Like the girl in the video: You, too, can do anything good!
Meg

I am very excited to have had my work chosen for an etsy “treasury” on the theme of Joy.

See you soon,
Meg

Important green message – a short advertisement for a Honeybee show on SBS tonight (in Australia, sorry overseas friends!)

Some other inspirations today:

I liked the entire e-town show that I was listening to on my run/walk today, but totally got a spring in my step when I heard Dave Alvin and the Guilty Women, one of the guests on e-town do a rock version of Que Sera Sera.

…Then in kicks my synaesthesia and my brain goes: “Que? Seurat. Seurat” So I have to give a link to Fawlty Towers and one to the famous artist George-Pierre Seurat and his most famous painting “Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte”.

I enjoyed this TED creativity talk by Elizabeth Gilbert (she wrote the book Eat, Pray, Love). She says maybe so many creatives would live longer lives if we chalked their creativity up to having a genius instead of being a genius. Less pressure, more making.

And finally: Create your own SuperHero! Are you kidding? This is too much fun! Go do it! Thank you Marvel!

Have fun!
Meg

I have mentioned the most excellent Barbara Sher before. She has written some books that have been very important to me, such as “Refuse to Choose” and “It’s only too late if you don’t start now”. Today I have added Barbara Sher’s blog to my blogroll. There is a range of different stuff there, I haven’t finished checking it out myself, but my favourite quote so far (the one that I had to tell you about) is:

I love technology. I kiss nerd techies on their lovely, generous brains.

Also, Thank you for adding me to your blogroll M. Tornado Puppy!

Thanks for reading, see you soon.
Meg

Hope your weekend has been fun so far.

I would like to quote some more inspiring words from Charlie Pabst:

Don’t get yourself down that someone may be better, richer or faster than you. Let them
inspire you instead. Do your own good work.

I will give you the link to his eBook “A Human’s Guide to Freelance Living” again as I find it such good simple kind cheering information.

Take care of yourselves,
Meg.