Ode to a car...

I was delighted to discover that my post Add Some Music to Your Day actually inspired a wonderful art journaling post by Julie at Copy+Paste. It's great when you manage to inspire someone who inspires you. Then I discovered that through her post about my post, Carmen was also inspired, and then also through Julie's post, SarahLP was inspired to create a wonderful page managing to combine Kirsty's tilt-shift post and Julie's post that was inspired by my post... confused? Well, the point I'm getting at, is how wonderful it feels to be a pebble. Yes, I am the pebble in the pond creating ripples. And isn't that one of the great things about blogging and this strange world of online communities - how people just keep dropping pebbles into a huge cyber pond and the ripples spread and spread and spread.

Well, before I stretch that metaphor too far, I thought it probably time I stepped up to my own challenge and created an art journal or scrap book page featuring song lyrics. My problem was... which lyrics to begin. At first I thought of Blur's Tender: Love is the greatest thing, we have. But I may use that for a different project... and then I considered countless other lyrics all with hidden meanings and twists. But in the end, I went for a straight forward, simple approach: Madness. I like driving in my car... it's not quite a jaguar. 

The reason this lyric won out is because I've been meaning to scrapbook a page for ages now about a most beloved car. My Creature Car, Jason. Yes, that's right, I named my car Jason. He was known as the Creature Car because he was also used as the business car to ferry Jennifer and myself between workshops (and our business is called Creative Creatures). He was beautiful:

I loved Creature Car not only because he looked magical, but because he was the first car me and my boyfriend bought together. He also represented a new stage in my life - freelancing and running workshops. And he had character.

Creature Car drove off to the car park in the sky in May this year. His head gasket having blown for the second time and being, sadly, too expensive to fix. It was like losing a pet. In fact, I quite often consider my cars as pets.

Having a car for me is Freedom. It is independence. It is wonderful. Driving along an empty road with the music loud and any destination before you - utterly brilliant. And I know that cars will come, and cars will go, but for now, please, take a moment to remember magical, faithful, wonderful Jason, Creature Car extraordinaire...

 I wanted my scrapbook page to be about freedom (so the castle in the background kind of suggesting adventures and possibilities). I also wanted the page to be about fun, which is why I included the saucy-lady air freshener. This was our actual air freshener, and I liked it because it was unexpected and it made people laugh. 

The tyre tracks were done by cutting up some ribbon and pasting glossy side down.

 

I wanted the key to look like it had just been thrown down on top of the page because I am notorious for leaving my keys lying haphazardly on tables and shelves and never being able to find them, and the tax disc brought a different colour and shape element in. I also tried cutting up an old MOT certificate to use as background, but the page just became drowned out with stuff, so I left it off.

Finally, I've taken a couple of liberties with the song lyrics. The first being that I changed 'like' to 'love' and then made it past tense. Because, of course, I can no longer drive this particular car.

So, that was fun. What next?

Rb X

The world in tilt-shift

Kirsty from Copy+Paste posted recently about a technique known as 'tilt-shift' that makes the word seem to appear in minature when the technique is applied to photos.

I've got hundreds of photos stored on my computer, all calling out to be tilt-shifted. Once I'd shown my boyfriend Kirsty's post and directed him to the tilt-shift webiste, he spent a very happy hour playing around with our photos and Tilt Shift Maker.

 Visit the copy+paste project for more detailed information. All this post is for is to show off David's own tilt-shift efforts.

If you fancy making your own tilt-shift photos you can do so very easily here. Be warned! It gets addictive!

Add some music to your day...

Music is essential for me to have a good day. If I don't have the radio on at least once during the day then I am more grumpy and pessimistic than usual. But a couple of banging pop tunes or a soulful blues song, or a noisy indie band later and all is right with the world. I think it corrects some hormonal imbalance.

I'm pretty open to most music, as long as it's made with passion and heart and isn't just a tick the boxes formulaic hit the notes sort of the thing. I don't know what my favourite sort of music is. I can listen to good quality country, pop, indie, jazz, blues, folk, rock. I probably don't 'get' dance music or techno music or music that abuses you, or most rap music, but sometimes something crosses over. So what does make good music for me?

Well, I love to dance to music, but I also love to sing along, and I think that one of the most important thing in a good song are strong, lyrics: witty, intelligent, simple, to the point, flowery... I like any of these types as long as they hit the spot.

For me, lyrics don't have to make sense, or tell a story, but they should seem like they do. I'm a huge fan of Sparklehorse and I often have no idea what his songs are about (You are a car, you are a hospital, play good keyboard with horse's teeth, on Saturday...), but they touch something in me and I find them inherently beautiful (Keep all the crows away, keep skinny wolves at bay, with big piles of smiles, may all your days be gold my child). One of my all time favourite Sparklehorse songs is Most Beautiful Widow in Town.

The words are simple but they create such an atmosphere of longing and sadness and even a slight twist of humour. I think it's absolutely beautiful. Anyone who can listen to that song and not be touched by it at all must be made of stone or have ears clogged with sawdust, the lyrics run:

'We were both standing in your mothers living room

Sweating up a storm in that terrible month of June

And the sweat rolled down your cheek and into your mouth

 I knew it must have been a dream

'Cause your mother would never let me in her house.

You are the most beautiful widow.

You are the most beautiful widow.

I bet you are the most beautiful widow in town,'

And that's just the opening verse and chorus.

I also love Sparklehorse's style. His album artworks, his sense of experimentation with his lyrics, his obvious love of language. His music is probably an acquired taste. He plays with his instruments and arrangements, his songs are a mix of electronica, acoustic, rock, folk and pop. He is slightly indefinable, and I like that. I like that he makes you work a little. Have a listen to him - even if you think it's awful, I think you'll agree it's done with love and sensitivity and originality. Sadly, Mark Lincus, the guy behind Sparklehorse, died earlier this year. He shot himself through the heart. I think the music world is a slightly less sparkly place without him. You only have to hear his album titles to get a sense of his uniqueness, they are like poetry in themselves:  

Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot 

Good Morning Spider, 

It's a Wonderful Life,

Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain,

Dark Night of the Soul,

In the Fishtank. 

 Dreamt for Light Years... is probably the most easily accessible album, and a good place to start if you want to get to know him. You can also visit his website: http://www.sparklehorse.com.

I could talk for ages about lyrics and my favourite song writers (Van Morrison, Devendra Banheart, Adem, Blondie... the list would go on and on). But I'm going to end with a small nod at The Smiths who I have only really started appreciating this year. I find their song lyrics so refreshingly simple and direct compared to many other songs. They are blunt and unusual and wonderful. Here's a selection of my favourite. I've deliberately not said which songs they are from, or copied them exactly word for word, but if you'd like to know, then I'll be happy to tell you. I think they stand alone rather well though:

'Punctured bicycle on a hill top, desolate...'

'I was looking for a job and then I found a job, and heaven knows I'm miserable now...'

'How can someone so young, write words so sad?'

'Girlfriend in a coma, I know, I know, it's serious...'

'Shyness can stop you from doing all the things in life you'd like to... so ask me ask me ask me, I won't say no, how could I?'

'And if it's not love than it's the bomb, the bomb, the bomb, the bomb that will bring us together.'

What I'd really like to do, if I was slightly less lazy and slightly more talented, is create art journal pages for all these. Maybe I will one day.

Are there any song lyrics that stand out for you? Is there anybody out there who feels compelled or inspired to create some art pages from these lyrics or any others? I'd love to know.

Until then, add some music to your day and see what it inspires you to do...

Rosie

A cherry on top

Well, I was absolutely delighted to be awarded a Cherry on Top award:

Thank you very much Jennifer. I feel very chuffed.

I understand that there are some conditions I need to fulfill to accept it. I need to list three interesting facts about me, post a picture I love and nominate five other blogs for the award. Well, the first two tasks I'll fulfill a little later this week once I have access to my photos and have thought about the facts I'd like to share.

As for the nominations, well I don't follow a very large range of blogs at the moment, and the ones I do, I think already have the award. But I would like to nominate the girls at Copy and Paste Project. I love their blog - a wonderful blend of book love, craft ideas, inspiration, beautiful art and random things. Check them out here if you haven't already.

Rosie x