tidbit Tuesday!

One of the many bloggers I follow occasionally (regularly?) posts a list of funny little things she has learned that week. None of them warrant a full post and some of them really have nothing to do with the regular theme of the blog. I enjoy the lists though and they allow me, the reader, to know her more personally.

So along that line, I bring you "tidbit Tuesday" where I throw out some tidbits. I don't think it will happen every Tuesday but you never know.

1. Use Feedly if you read any blogs on a regular basis.
Don't rely on a bunch of bookmarks. Don't bother googling the name of the blog each time you want to check in on it. Instead, pile all your favorites into Feedly. You can even – heart flutter – organize them into folders. Yours truly is a bit of a blog addict. I follow roughly 50 blogs at any given time so this keeps everything all in one easy-to-check place. I can read by category, or by individual blog, and I often pick and choose, skipping posts that don't interest me. Feedly also has a feature where you can save things you want to look at later.

2. Birds are migrating!
Keep your eyes peeled for interesting feathered friends fluttering about. Last week I saw a group of these brown speckled birdies (see photo above) eating off the ground in my front yard and got obsessed with figuring out what they were. Best as I can tell, and I am no expert birder by any means, they are they Gray-Cheeked Thrush. They summer north of me in Canada and winter far south in the tropics.

3. Great new book: The Returned by Jason Mott
I don't consider myself a sci-fi reader but I don't mind a dash of it or any other supernatural elements within a more realistic story. Could not put this one down and neglected many things to keep reading another bit. Plus, I was kind of sad when it was over. That's a sign of a good read if you ask me!

sweet embroidery!

The AIGA has launched a new blog, Design Envy. One of the very first posts featured these beautiful new book covers that are done in embroidery. How awesome is that?!

Jillian Tamaki, the artist who did the covers also made this crazy monster quilt. If you needed proof that embroidery can be awesome and stylish and strange and anything but grandmotherly, well, here you go.

I love the way in which various mediums and artforms intersect. Here is an illustrator trying her hand with needle and thread which leads to the production of a book cover, which is a combination of embroidery, illustration, graphic design, and typography.

I am not there yet, but this is a craft I fully intend to experiment with someday.

you blogged it: story stones

We recently enjoyed an extended visit from the cousins. I assisted my mom-in-law with finding some great craft inspirations for keeping the kiddos (minus the two babies) busy.

Now I get to share our "you blogged it, we did it" stories!

One activity we did was story stones. I first found the idea on one of my favorite craft sites, WhipUp. Full credit goes to Red Bird Crafts as seen on both Etsy and in the blog world.

We hand selected the best rocks from a heap at the nearest landscaping supply place. We filled up a bucket for a mere $2! The stones aren't polished or anything but they were a good size for this craft.

Ours ended up being a bit more influenced by the characters and illustrations already adorning the fabric, but that's ok. Only the adults were wielding the fabric scissors so it worked out better this way. The kids were more than happy to select the perfect rock and spread the Mod Podge out. The googly eyes were a fabulous and funny touch.

 I hope to revisit this craft soon for myself and use more abstract fabrics to create shapes that could be used in storytelling. In fact, I was reminded of one of the final pages of the super-cute children's book Penguin. Everything Penguin "says" is drawn as little pictures. It's a lovely picture book that has become a favorite at our house. May it inspire your own story stone adventures!

My husband made this cute one!

Library designers connect!

Someone at work came across the website My Perfect Library which is about branding libraries. Specifically, she found an article about Library logos where the Grand Rapids Public Library logo was mentioned as being a quality logo. Woo hoo for me! I feel famous!

Even more cool is the fact that I've now connected with the designer who runs that blog. I left a comment on her site and she emailed me. Behold the power of the world wide web, people. How fun!

My friend, French Paper

French Paper is a fun and funky paper mill that happens to be right here in my home state of Michigan. They produce the best promotions and I currently have not one, not two, not three... five of their posters hanging in my home. Two of which I even paid good money to have professionally framed. One of which has inspired the as-yet-unpurchased paint for my kitchen.

And I have excellent news for anyone who has wished to own such a poster themselves. They are now selling them! Woo hoo! And if that wasn't exciting enough, they also sell a bunch of other goodies with the same, sometimes strange, vintage look.

I was also super excited to see that you can purchase their paper and envelopes made from their paper for your very own. I am always looking for a good envelope supplier when I do my own graphic design projects. You could order 50, which is much smaller quantity than other sites have offered.

Some credit should go to their graphic designer – of course – Charles S. Anderson, a well-known designer still producing great stuff. I even studied him in college!

Project Wish List: Scrapbooks

I always have multiple project ideas swimming about in my head. Here's a nice long list for myself and for your amusement.

Scrapbooks I have supplies for:

1. Halloween book
This is a smaller book that would feature pumpkin photo and a costume photo from every year. Eventually, you will be able to flip through it and enjoy a fast forward experience of the annual festivities.

2. Christmas book
This is the same concept as the Halloween book although I am not quite sure how to narrow it down a far as which photos go in it every year.

3. Teacher book
I want to put together photos from Chad's teaching career, primarily the lovely annual school photo and then whatever additional odds and ends accumulate.

4. Old-fashioned scrapbook
I have decided to compile all the photos of friends and family that arrive at Christmas time into a large miscellaneous kind of book. This will also be the place where I keep copies of newspaper articles or announcements that relate to our family.


Scrapbooks (or photo books) I have in mind:

1. Grandma Bev's life
I know my Aunt Amy has all the photos in her basement and has talked about doing a book. It's a daunting project – after all, it would be her entire life – but I think it would be cool to do. I would love to have her siblings help write stories and captions to go with her childhood and for my grandfather, my father, my aunt, and my uncle to do the same for photos from her marriage and the time when their children were young. Sadly, I am not sure how much us grandchildren will remember. Some things for sure, and I think photos might help trigger memories. Anyway, this book would be kind of a family project. Maybe it should be a series of books. What could you fit in one – a decade? Two? All the images are pre-digital cameras so it would have to be the kind of scrapbook where you stick in the photos or there would be a whole lot of scanning involved if it was going to be done online.

2. Christmas ornament book
I think of this as being a small little book with close-up photos of individual ornaments. The page could have a caption or the opposite page on the spread could have a short little story. I think of making this kind of book for my husband's grandmother, who has several old ornaments with stories. I also think of doing this book for my Grandma Helen. Most of her ornaments came from travels. I can picture the ornament image on the left side of the page and a beautiful landscape on the right side of the page.

3. 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009
That's where I left off in the scrapbook world. I like to imagine these being like yearbooks of our life as a family. My daughter was born in 2008 but I recently finished a book that encompassed her first year of life so it seems like starting there would feel repetitious, at least right now. I obviously can't keep up on doing regular scrapbooking so I am interested in doing the books online through Snapfish or Blurb.com. I just haven't tried it yet. I am not intimidated by doing page layouts. I do that every day for my job. So really, this shouldn't be all that difficult! There are some pretty interesting vacations in a few of those years (the Florida Keys and Boston) so it would be fun to get those photos in book form.

4. When I was 1...
I would also like to make a set of books that are child-specific that the child can have for themselves. Right now, as my daughter is a toddler, I frame those in terms of age: "When I was 1..." or "When I was 2..." But as she enters school it seems like it would make sense to have them follow the school year. I think the key to success with these books (which I picture as little squares for some reason) and with the so-called yearbooks, is to do them a few years after the fact. Then you are much less attached to every photo and able to edit things down.

A future obsession

Today at work I listed to a back episode of the CraftSanity podcast that interviewed Jenny Hart, owner of Sublime Stitching. I have always appreciated the look of embroidered things and wondered how exactly they are made. Projects with stitching have been popping up in the craft books I have been reading. And now I have discovered this site! It has a starter kit and fun and funky patterns. I am tempted to send away for it and get started at this very moment. I will resist for now!

Here's one of my favorite patterns from the site:

Birthday garland!

So the next project on my radar is some festive re-usable garland. I want to craft some up before Julia's birthday party. I have visions of yellow and pink and butterflies but I can be easily influenced by other temptations in the delicious fabric store so I am not making any promises.

I first saw some how-to instructions in Amanda Blake Soule's book (apparently I am her big fan!), Handmade Home. I've also since fallen in love with the website whipup.net, which very helpfully offers a round-up of different garland ideas all in one amazing list. I am attracted to number 17 because it's easy and because it's scallops instead of triangles, which I think looks pretty. Number 27 from The Purl Bee is crazy fun too! Lots of shapes and I adore how they zig-zagged it across the ceiling in this lovely photo.

Of course the original idea was triangles spelling "Happy Birthday" that can be draped across the fireplace. And I should probably do that one first. I have a feeling this is something I could seriously get carried away with! Doesn't every room need a garland?

The art of nature

I have this "discovery tray" on my coffee table in the living room. I took this photo after carefully arranging it. More often than not it is all jumbled up but that's ok by me. Julia is old enough that I don't have to worry as much about her putting things in her mouth. Instead we can talk about how the stones are smooth and how the coral used to be underwater with fish and how the seashells have stripes. Amanda Blake Soule talks about doing something similar in her book The Creative Family: How to Encourage Imagination and Nurture Connections. In her house, there is a special shelf that gets decorated with seasonal treasures.

I so wish to gift Julia with an appreciation of nature. To do so, I have had to make an effort to notice it. In the brief moments we have together outside, transitioning from our home to Granny's, we've noticed the pink and purple clouds, we've crunched our boots in the snow, we've listened for birds singing and then searched them out, we've watched squirrels, and, occasionally, we've found a treasure or two. She is beginning to notice things before I do – "Mama! Look! A leaf!" – and I am so pleased. Spring will bring even more outdoor adventures.

An affordable splurge

I discovered the website 20x200 a while ago. There was a blurb about it in one of my design magazines. The name of the site comes from the fact that the artists sell 200 prints at $20 each (along with larger prints at higher prices).

This past weekend I decided to treat myself to a piece of art. The painting I bought was one that caught my eye when I first discovered the site many months ago. Lucky for me there were a few left. I am in love with the colors. The beautiful sky, the lush green, and the striking black and white of the birch trees. It has a calm and hopeful feeling for me. The artist is Lisa Congdon. I glanced through her blog and saw her entry in regards to her birthday. She noted that she did not start painting until she was 33. See? It's never too late to pursue the thing that interests you!