beautiful blog award and freebies

The lovely Kayla of Ramblings of a Small Town Girl was so sweet to pass the Beautiful Blog award on to me! Thanks again, Kayla! I'm supposed to list seven facts about me and pass the award on to a few other people. You might remember the last time I listed seven facts about myself and how...well, how boring it was. These seven facts are a little more about things I like, because I could go on about that list forever...

001. I have very diverse music taste. My last.fm shows everything from British pop (Little Boots, Elle Goulding, Kylie Minogue) to indie folk (A Weather, The Swell Season, Bon Iver) to swing and standards (Michael Buble, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra). I also like classical crossover (Il Divo, Josh Groban, Andrea Bocelli) and classical (mostly just Bach at the moment).

002. I don't know how to sew. When I was little I made a teddy bear for my Sunday school class, which we donated to a children's hospital. That's the only time I've ever sewn anything, ever. I used to crochet, and I'd love to get back into that. I came across a sweet little television program this morning and it's really inspired me. (I'd also love to learn to knit, but it looks so very difficult!)

003. I love libraries and bookstores, anywhere I can be surrounded by books. People talk about the way books make them feel infinite; I'm one of those people. I could talk for ages about books, my favorite stories and characters and the way they all make me feel. (Don't worry, we'll save that for another entry.)

004. I love collecting quotations! I'd love to have a notebook where I keep them all in one place, but most of the time when I buy a notebook I'm too afraid to write in it because I don't want it to become "used" and thereby irrelevant. Hopefully I'm not the only person in the world who's quite that silly. Anyway, a few of my favorites:
"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams." - Eleanor Roosevelt
"Nothing is permanent in this wicked world, not even our troubles." - Charlie Chaplin
"Only the gentle are ever really strong." - James Dean
"To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all." - Oscar Wilde
"Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." - Howard Thurman

005. When I was eight years old I was introduced to one of Claude Monet's many infamous Water Lilies paintings and decided I loved Impressionism. I still remember seeing the painting in a shop window at that age and telling my mom quite adamantly who the artist was. I've been passionate about the movement ever since.

006. I love a good old-fashioned mystery. I used to be obsessed with Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot novels, and of course the Murder on the Orient Express film with one of the most amazing casts ever. I love the British mystery series Inspector Lewis, too. The stories that aren't about scaring you, but just about solving this intriguing puzzle. I like to occupy my mind and look for clues. I'm not always very good at it, but I like it!

007. On the subject of #001 and #003, I always match certain books and music to certain seasons. Fall is my favorite music season because I usually have a mix of melancholy indie folk (Rosie Thomas, William Fitzsimmons) and vintage-inspired swing (Robin McKelle, Imelda May). The books are almost always historical novels. Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series is an example of perfectly fall-like books to me. (I've only read the first two in the series so Voyager is of course on my list for fall this year.) Anything by Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters, Elizabeth Gaskell, they're all my ideal reads for fall as well. My latest interest is the Tudor dynasty so I recently bought a few Tudor-related novels I'd love to read this year, too.

I'm passing the award on to:
A Spot of Whimsy
Provacative Couture
Sprinkled Dreams

Congrats, ladies! I wish I could give the award to everybody. There are so many beautiful blogs out there, both in content and design. Thank you all for making the internet a prettier place.


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I was trying to spiff up my layout a bit and wanted to make some of these icons - I'm not sure I love the way they turned out, but I thought I'd share them just in case anyone else likes them. There's 23 icons including most social networking sites as well as a few randoms such as "Follow" and "Contact". They're 220x59 .png files; you can see a few of them in my revamped sidebar. I'd be quite grateful if you wouldn't mind linking back to me somewhere on your blog (text link in the footer, icon in the sidebar, etc) if you use them. Enjoy!

I've also updated my blogroll and some of my favorite blogs in my sidebar, so be sure to check those out!