Pages

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

A Long One....

First off, I'd like to give a huge "thank you" to those of you who took the time to comment on my last post with encouragement and ideas surrounding a possible book. You all really sparked some new ideas and reaffirmed some of my existing ideas. I really do appreciate it. I'm beginning to formulate some thoughts, and will discuss them with my editor friend. So we'll see where this takes me-it's still quite a long shot, but now I feel a lot more confident that maybe I could pull something together. I'll keep you all updated....

So, in other news, we've been busy. I'm in the mood lately to get projects completed and fix decorating dilemmas that have been hanging over my head. Over the weekend, we checked two items off that list.

First, we made a big jump in the progress of our master bathroom. Jason built a corner cabinet over the sink, because the design of the area was assymmetrical and just never seemed to look right. He didn't actually build the whole thing-he ordered the cabinet door to match our existing cabinets, then built around it to create the corner unit. But nonetheless, it looks great! And then he also replaced the sink and fixtures with new ones that are much nicer and more elegant. Can I say how absolutely wonderful it is to have a handy husband???

And while Jason was working on that, I decided to work on something that has been irritating me for months. I stupidly didn't take a very good "before" picture, but we have this bookcase hutch in our guest bedroom that didn't match the "desk" it was sitting on.

The story is this: When we moved to the new house, we had two matching file cabinets. But we had no bookcase, and we really needed some storage for books and magazines and such. So Jason (again with the wonderful handiness) built a tabletop and bookcase hutch to fit over the file cabinets. But I never had time to paint the bottom portion to match the top, and I've never been too happy with the top color anyway. So I decided to finally bite the bullet and do it. And can I say that I LOVE the results? Underneath, I did a basecoat of red, and then I used a gorgeous yellow-green color and a bright pinky-salmon. I sanded it on the edges afterwards, and the red shows through as an accent, and looks so cool! It makes me happy everytime I walk into the room now! Gotta love that!

Then, I was feeling artsy yesterday, and didn't have any immediate projects that needed to be done, so I decided to do another spread in Riley's book. Those of you who have children probably know how incredibly soft and warm the top of a baby's head is. I just love to rest my cheek or lips on the top of Riley's head and rub across the soft hair. So that's what the pages are about.

And finally, as per Cori's request, here are the different categories in my image file cabinet:

1. Riley- any baby-related papers/images and photos of him

2. Patterned Paper- non-vintage papers-mostly scrapbook papers

3. Colored Paper- paper that doesn't necessarily have a pattern, just more of a color theme- like teastained paper for example

4. Vintage Wallpaper- mostly vintage wallpaper (mostly from Pam!), but other vintage patterned paper as well

5. Self- images of myself

6. Objects-images of objects like furniture, etc.

7. Butterflies/Insects- self-explanatory!

8. Frames- anything that could serve as a frame, like images of actual frames, or other cutouts

9. Old Photos- divided into photocopies (because some photos I can't bear to use the original) and real photos

10. Birds/Nests/Eggs- again, self-explanatory

11. Misc. People/Plants/Animals- usually, anything that doesn't fit into another category!

12. Circular Objects- this category probably could go because I really don't use it much anymore, but I used to use circles behind people's heads as halos, etc...

13. Figures/Bodies- mostly nudes

14. Decorative- things like German foils or other decorative elements

15. Transfers- I print some things onto tissue paper-transfers probably isn't the right word, but whatever- I know what I'm talking about!

16. Architectural- architectural elements

Then I also have files in the back that have a variety of book pages, handwriting, ledger pages, etc.

So there you have it! Thanks again to those of you who helped me out with the book ideas, but also thanks to all of you who read in general! Being home with a baby all day limits my social interactions considerably, so it's really nice to have a little community to be part of!

4 comments:

Lilli in Vancouver said...

Wow, you have certainly been getting stuff done! The bookcase looks Fab: I think it would make me happy everytime I saw it too. That's what a home should do for us, right?

I LOVE the colour combo in Riley's latest pages!

Kari said...

Haven't been to your site in awhile. Wow, book deal. COOL!!! That's wonderful and I cannot think of a better person to write a book. I love what you've been doing with your home and your Riley pages are sensational, as usual. Can't wait to hear more about what your thinking about writing.

Anonymous said...

you know, i think its great that you even can CONSIDER getting a book published... that has always been my dream but some days it seems just that- a dream... but i wish you the best!!!

and your studio is just lovely!!! the colors you chose are simply beautiful!!! and you organized your papers too?! hmmmm, so i am not the only one- hahahaha!

again, your collage work is precious!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for sharing your file organization, looks like a pretty good system. Riley's latest page is gorgeous as usual, and that shelf is lovely! If it's not too late, I would LOVE to see a book by you, your style is so unique and thoughtful. You may not think you have any groundbreaking techniques, but your work is beautiful and different and I would love to see what goes in to making them. Ooh, now I'm getting all excited thinking of how amazing your book would be! :)