First Anniversary

This blog is a year old! My how time flies. I like to tell stories with a lot of pictures and few words but today I feel the need for going on a bit.

I started out on this journey by signing up for an Etsy shop – my crafting needs to be more self-supporting though I still haven’t opened. Some said that a good way to promote the shop was to blog. Blog? You mean put yourself out on the web? Are you nuts? I imagined blogs as the territory of self absorbed, love-lorn teenagers swooning over Robert Pattinson or literary blogs with solitary writers reaching out for peer review and grammatically correct companionship from fellow wordsmiths, but I’d never heard of crafting blogs.  And then I spotted this -

 

 

I was perusing the magazines at Barnes & Noble when the colours on the cover of this issue of “Artful Blogging” caught my eye, I opened it and was blown away – so much colour, so much creativity, so much positive attitude; I started visiting the blogs in the magazine, much too timid to venture a comment. I noticed a recurring observation – many bloggers would say how blogging had helped to grow artistically, how the photography was improving. This is exactly what I needed – the motivation to improve – so I jumped in. I had (and often still have) no idea what I’m doing or where I’m headed but I’m in this for the journey. And because there’s bound to be a lot of wandering here and there and an eclectic mix of stuff I though I should travel as a gypsy – much of my life has been an un-rooted wandering, always eager to see what was over the next hill. I’ve discovered there are a lot of gypsies in Blogland!

 

 

I also like the circus, with its mystery, colour, fantastic costumes and general creepiness. So this gypsy dabbles in magic – of the entertaining kind. I’ve also discovered something deeper, the community: when one person makes a positive comment on a blog I’m reading, even though I don’t know these women (mostly women) and the comment wasn’t directed to me, I feel uplifted by it. The goodness spreads like the rings in a pond after a pebble is tossed in and it influences so many.

 

 

There is a Buddhist prayer:

“I go for refuge to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha until the attainment of the enlightenment. From the virtuous merit that I collect by practicing giving and other perfections, may I attain enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings.”

The Buddha is the teacher, the Dharma is the law and the Sangha is the community of believers. In blogging I have been able to take refuge in this very generous community of believers so I would like to thank you: for creating your beauty and sharing, for uplifting and positive actions, for your companionship.

And to celebrate this blog’s birthday in true Hobbit style I would like to give you something – if you like vintage images please feel free to snag a few, below are some old postcards from my collection.

 

Happy Easter!

 

 

 

Because we all need love!