4. Post Secret

*Copy*:

As a wise, fictional cockney once said, 'small pleasures - who would deny us these?', and although there's probably inspiration enough in that scrap of Oliver!, it's not the one I've picked to use right now. Instead, the small pleasure that's provided our latest prompt is Post Secret.

If you don't know about this wonderful project, I'm not going to ask where you've been, just suggest you check out either the blog or one of the books, and prepare to be enthralled. The postcards which comprise the project - all submitted anonymously – are a nosy art-lover’s dream (yes – that’ll be me, on both counts). In turns jaw-dropping, wry, heart-rending and mysterious, they are somehow endlessly fascinating.

Seeing the Post Secret digest pop up in my blog-reader on a Sunday morning is most definitely one of the aforementioned small pleasures and the combination of words and pictures which make up the postcards seemed a perfect leaping-off point for a Copy+Paste challenge.

*Paste*: Kirsty's project =

For Julie and I, the big difference between our secrets and those shared on the original PS blog, is the lack of anonymity. It’s much trickier to bare your soul when people have some idea of who you are. For me, at least, it ruled out any kind of deep, dark secret (not that I have an especially murky or intriguing past) and steered me towards a more minor admission.

In the spirit of Post Secret, I’m not about to explain the reasoning behind my vegetable-based shame (and yes, I know tomatoes are technically a fruit, but when was the last time you chopped one into a bowl of ice-cream?). All you need to know is that I genuinely squirm each time I do it, but have to accept that sometimes white lies make life simpler than the thorny truth.

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*Paste*: Julie's project =

Firstly I need to say how much fun it was finding Kirsty's confession dangling from my letterbox yesterday. I'd love to know what our respective postmen/ women thought of our little revelations as they were delivering them. I hope it brought them a little light relief amidst the same old envelopes and junk mail.

Like Kirsty said, finding the right level of secret to share was a tricky one. Especially as we didn't give each other any hints about what we were going to spill! Difficulties arose when certain secrets began to demand I reveal them - like they wanted to bask in the light of all your attention after years of being smothered in darkness.

Luckily I managed to quell their cries and chose to share this instead:

Was that a secret? Did you know? Could you have guessed?

My project is something of a double copy. While my content was indeed inspired by Post Secret [a site which I find absorbing and reassuringly human] the style in which I composed my confession was copied from this very cool, hand drawn magazine cover :

Seeing as how Adam and Joe make me laugh so very, very much I felt it fitted perfectly with the nature of my revelation.

The original artwork is by 'Rupert' from the design collective: www.thisisrude.com and you can see a closer image of it here. [It's definitely worth a look if you like the feel of retro / 80s old school illustrations and doodling].

It's your turn now to struggle with your inner big-mouth who wants to tell all ... and the sensible you who has that fine, upstanding reputation to maintain! Good luck.

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So, now you know a little more about the two of us than you did at the start of this post, we’d love to take a nosy at your secrets, too. If you play along, remember to leave us a comment below or drop your images into the Flickr pool.

We promise - hand on heart, pinky-swear and everything - that, however blush-worthy they are, we won't tell a soul.