Blogging for Bliss

Korte Nederlandse vertaling aan het eind.

Hello fellow bloggers out there and others of course!

Today August 4th Kari Ramstrom of Artsy Mama is hosting a blog party in honor of the launch of the 'Blogging for Bliss' book by Tara Frey. I haven't seen the book yet, obviously we have to wait a little longer for it here in Europe, if it will be available at all over here, but we all know that ordering in the States is easy as pie nowadays. The internet has made the world so small. Blogging has the world turned even smaller to me on a personal level.

Made for Karla and Beth's bling your birdhouse party, part of this has become my profile photo

I started blogging in September 2007 after a short period of lurking. I have been creative all of my life, but I never felt at ease with the 'color by number' creativity that I surrounded me here in the Dutch hobby shops. I have been a collector all of my life too and I have written dairies and journals as long as I can write, so discovering blogs felt like coming home to me.

Collection of vintage hankies. All white as is typical for the antique dutch hankie.

Yes, there are people out there that understand the beauty of jars and jars of vintage buttons. Of collections of hankies, vintage bling, need I go on? And those people write about it too! On top of that those people create with these vintage goodies, that was new to me, though I always tried to recycle materials, being a child of the sixties.

So I choose a name and got started: I started writing in English, as I definitely wanted to reach out to American crafters in the first place, but I have met creative people from all over the world; from Sweden, Chili, France, New Zealand and Singapore to name a few.

Soon I discovered that this world was so stimulating to me. Meeting new friends from all over the world, reading about their lives and commenting, making a dialog, has enriched my life more than I could ever express here. That is part of my bliss! Thank you very much!

Here is an impression of my blogging life until now. I have experienced that all bloggers are very generous, but I have decided to leave that out of this post, I'm afraid that I forget to mention somebody.

A few weeks after I started blogging I joined my first art challenge, hosted at that time by Louise of Beachy's cupboard, that no longer exists, her current blog is Whispering Poppies. I made this collage^


I joined my first swap, hosted by Heather of Pretty Petals, my partner was Carola of Boxwood cottage. I sent her amongst others this^ little paper dress and the purse. I still didn't show you these.


That little dress inspired me to make this garland, a witch wardrobe for Wanda, of the Rat's pajamas my partner in the Sweet and Sinister Swap hosted by Kari Ramstrom.

I never celebrated Halloween before, because we traditionally don't do that here in the Netherlands, but when I read about it in blogland I liked it!

I even dressed up as a witch, for the Halloween blogparty of Vanessa of a Fanciful Twist.
Don't worry, it was fun but

This ^ message was inside the paper doll I made for Debra in the Halloween flight swap she hosted herself.


I think it is nice when you try new things, like celebrating Halloween. In fact it inspired me to make what I consider my master piece until now:


What I especially like is that showing your creations is so stimulating in blogland and can even make new friendships. There are so many nice people out there, thanks for visiting my blog and stimulating me and cheering me up!


Not only Halloween inspired me to create, Valentine's day did that too, another party that isn't traditionally celebrated over here in the Netherlands.




I always was a camera shy person (I don't know whether you can tell lol, but I have to admit that I am simply having trouble taking photos of myself too).


My daughter usually takes the photos of me. We haven't named her after photographer Eva Besnyö by coincidence!
But the fact is that I am not that camera shy anymore. It is more easy to accept yourself when you are surrounded by real women all day in blogland, thanks for enhancing my self image ladies!

Taking photos everywhere has become part of my routine,

before you know it, you are documenting your life in quite a fun way; of course we all are such adventurous ladies, just watch my visit to the garden center ^!
Blogging really stimulates me to be creative, taking photos is part of that, I like to experiment taking photos for my banner:

Like this one, that didn't made it. My banner photos are all in my side bar. Yes and I know I'm still carrying my July banner! I haven't found a matching back ground for August yet.



I even met a great photographer Susanna Gordon and her friend through blogging and was part of this ^ very fun project.


Blogging can make you get out of your comfort zone.
I was creating these ^ kind of pop up cards for quite some time, when in February 2008 Linnea Maria won my give away and I wanted to make her a more Scandinavian French inspired pop up card:



When I started blogging I joined a challenge to reorganize my studio. I did that without buying new stuff, I painted and revamped a lot of junk from the attic. I was happy but hubby was even happier for decluttering. What a bliss!


My latest swap was a personal swap with Andrea Tarling of Vintage Bella Studio. We did a junque in your trunk-inspired swap and this hat box, here after make over, was the trunk I sent her, but I will tell you all about that next time.
Now I am joining Stephenies 'I thought of you swap', but I don't have any sneak previews :-( for Kitty and you.

There is always a party going on in blogland and I love that. Not that my life is always a bowl of cherries, but I like to keep this corner of my life as cheerful as is possible. There is enough drama around us already. I know that there are a lot of blogging women out there who are trying to make this blogging world feel better, thanks for that!


So I end with this party girl, it is Karla Nathan's grand daughter Sugarwings, disguised by me as a  button fairy. I sent her to Karla for her 50th birthday.

My life has changed in such a positive way since I started blogging. I want to thank you, the readers of my blog, as well as the writers of the blogs that I am visiting. Unfortunately I couldn't mention all swaps, I choose the ones that I thought fitted best in this post. I love you all!
Blogging is so much fun.

Have fun at all participants at the Blogging for Bliss party. Kari of Artsy Mama has a whole blog roll of people who are playing.
Did you know that I never heard of the word bliss before blogging?
I do hope I got the meaning right! Thanks for visiting me, I'll try to visit every blogger who is blogging for bliss! xoxo LiLi M.

Vandaag ligt het nieuwe boek van Tara Frey "Blogging for Bliss" (vrij vertaald bloggen voor geluk) in de Verenigde Staten op de schappen. Reden voor Kari Ramstrom van Artsy Mama om een blogparty te organiseren met dezelfde titel.
Natuurlijk zijn het op de eerste plaats de contacten die het bloggen zo leuk maken, ik wil jullie allemaal hartelijk danken daarvoor. Voor mij is het ook heel belangrijk dat het bloggen me creatief stimuleert. Ik ben mijn hele leven al een frutselaar en een knutselaar, maar de laatste jaren dreigde dat wat ondergesneeuwd te raken. Ik heb wat voorbeelden van door het bloggen gestimuleerde creativiteit in mijn blog verwerkt. Met opzet heb ik ervoor gekozen om de vrijgevigheid van bloggers buiten beschouwing te laten, ik ben zooo bang dat ik iemand vergeet.
Bedankt voor je bezoek, groetjes LiLi M.


shadow box sent to/voor Marianne @ a songbird is nesting