have you seen this website??!

it's called three beautiful things ("3BT" for short!) which a very cool woman called clare is using each day to (and i quote) "record three things that have given me pleasure". her beautiful things can be big or small, serious or funny...mostly they are tiny, ephemeral moments that could easily slide away without being noticed. except clare noticed them. and made a concious effort to write them down. every single day. and what writing it is! i would give serious money and/or one of my less vital limbs to be able to turn a phrase in the seemingly effortless way she can.

i found the blog a couple of years ago and read it avidly each morning with my coffee; then, while brushing my teeth, i would think about the previous day (since, emphatically not being a morning person myself, i hardly ever experience a "beautiful thing" before 10am) and decide on my three. often i would think, "i should start doing this properly" or at least, "i should write these down"...but of course i didn't...

embarrassingly, somehow (probably when my comp crashed & all links & emails were lost) i got out of the habit of reading 3BT. and then the other day--out of the blue, while doing something else--i found it again!!! and this time, i'm resolved: i AM doing it properly! whereas clare is a writer, and chose a blog format; i am a papercrafter...so i've made myself a funky little minibook. in addition to things i experience & enjoy, i'd like some of my "beautiful things" to be little innovations or discoveries i have made creatively. the feathery friend on page 1 represents my current "funky little bird mania" phase; sometimes i may doodle, or paste in a swatch of patterned paper, or maybe i'll stamp in there, who knows? i'm thinking my book will probably be three-quarters 3BT and one quarter art journal...but we'll see...

thank you, clare--your blog is one of my three beautiful things! :)