700 / This Is Life

This is my 700th post. And this post also marks a new season for this blog and for me. A week ago, I started college as an art major. I love that I get to learn about art (and eventually graphic design!) in school!

So it just seemed appropriate that in my 700th post, I should post my first college art project. The goal of this project was to create four progressions of lines from simple to complex.

As you can see, each column starts with a different type of line, and the designs get more detailed in each row. My favorite column is the third one; I like how the design rotates from square to square.

Also, I noticed that the shapes kind of look like the word "RISE." That was totally unintentional, but I thought it was cool!

I'd love your thoughts on this project! What do you think of it?

Book Cover DIY

Awhile ago I saw on Design*Sponge that someone had covered all their book with freezer paper so they matched. At the time I thought it was crazy and obsessive. Maybe it is. But when I was redecorating my room (hopefully more pictures of that will be coming!), it was really bothering me that all my books didn't match my color scheme, so I decided to try this idea! I love how it turned out and it really wasn't as time consuming as you'd think.

I don't do many DIY project ideas on this blog, but hands-on stuff is a big part of art, and I wanted to share this really easy idea for covering books. So here's a step by step (with pictures, too!).

#1: Gather your supplies. You'll need some freezer paper, scissors, a pen (I used a Micron), and some books.

#2: Cut your paper to size. If your book is small to medium sized, the width of the freezer paper should be just fine. You only have to cut off a piece bigger than the height of your book. For bigger books, turn the paper the other way and make sure you cut off enough to wrap around the cover with some left over.

#3: Fold the top and bottom of the cover. First, put the bottom of the paper up against the lower edge of the book. Once you have a fold line, lift up the book and crease the fold. Then put the book back on the paper, just slightly above the edge you just folded, and repeat the step with the top edge of the book. You'll end up with two folded edges on the paper with a book on top (second image).

#4: Fold the cover flaps. Once you have the book on the paper as shown above, fold the left side over so it's even with the right side. You may need to move the book around a little to make it line up. Then fold the edges in around the book covers.

#6 Tuck the cover in. Then, take the book cover itself and insert it between the two layers of the paper cover. Push it through to the end and make sure to do both the front and back covers.

#7: Write your titles on with pen, repeat the whole process, and before long, you'll have a whole shelf of covered books!

What do you think of this idea? If you try it, please let me know how it goes!

Collage Book

Lately I've been working on a fun little collage project. I bought this neat architecture book at a yard sale (great find!), and I've been using it as the base for a collage book using clippings from magazines and other fun things - just about anything pretty that catches my eye.

I tear out every other page or so from the book in order to make room for what I'm sticking in, similar to what I did with the quote book I blogged about awhile ago.

I did a little collage on the first page, as a sort of cover/title page:

On the inside are all sorts of pages. Some are real collage-y, and others are just pages from magazines or catalogs that I like and glued in. Here's a collection of some of what's in my book...

As you can see, sometimes I group things logically together, i.e. by color, and other times it looks more like a random assortment. That's part of what's fun for me about this project: I can change my strategy and just have fun!

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this project!

New Sketchbook

I got a new sketchbook recently and I've been exploring the hobby of doodling and sketching and drawing.

I know so little about art, but I like to play around, especially with typography drawings. So I thought I'd share some pages from my new sketchbook. I did this as a first page. (Inspired by Matthew Wahl's work for Adopt Rinah.)

Just fun experimentation with lettering. Another type drawing I did was to create the sketch for an imaginary font. It was inspired by a "C" I carved out of part of a bar of soap, hence the name "Soapstones." One day I'd love to learn how to actually make this font usable on computers!

And this is yet another type experiment - the beginning ideas of a poster I'd like to make.

One more thing before I go - some 3-D shapes. The star failed and the cubes are only slightly convincing, but it was a good challenge for me to at least try!

Do you all like sketching too? What do you like to draw? And I'd love to know your thoughts on my sketches as well.

Crafty Things

I love doing crafts, especially scrapbooking, so I thought I'd show you a few random crafty things I've seen lately.

First, this tutorial for a fun ruffly scarf.  I found it on Dollar Store Crafts, which is a blog about making interesting crafts from dollar store items.  Isn't this scarf neat?

Ruffly things are super fun, and this one doesn't look too hard if you have a little patience for sewing.

I think these Delights stickers from American Crafts are so neat.  I love them!

And this toothbrush bracelet (found through Dollar Store Crafts) is such a cool idea.  I would have never thought of making anything crafty out of a toothbrush, and I think the result is really neat.  See?

It looks a little time-intensive based on the tutorial, but the finished product is so neat that I think it might be worth it.  And you could probably boil a couple toothbrushes at once to save time.  That sounds strange, right?  Read the tutorial and it will make sense. :)

I got the book Sharing Your Story by Ali Edwards for Christmas, and it has great ideas for mini albums.  I'd recommend it to any scrapbookers out there!  The graphics throughout the book are also quite good, which is important you know.

And finally, I want to share that I'm really loving the Obscure Collection from Basic Grey.  It was part of my Creating Keepsakes prize package, and the patterns are so fun!  It's still available here from Basic Grey.

Hope you enjoyed these little crafty things today!  Have a great week.

My Bulletin Board

One thing I really enjoy is my 4 foot by 4 foot bulletin board.  It covers almost a whole wall, and it's such a fun place to put pictures and other stuff.  I think I have almost 100 pictures on there, and some other things, like quotes and design items that I like.  The board is a combination of 16 squares that are each 12x12 sections, so it divides up neatly in little pieces.  Around the edges are pages like this, with photos, and some full 12x12 photo collages.

A few things have changed since I took the pictures, but they will still give you an idea of what my bulletin board is like.

For that section, I stuck a piece of 12x12 scrapbook paper on the bulletin board and then put pictures on top, almost like a scrapbook page.  Those tape frames are from Kitschy Digitals.  I have three other sections that look a lot like this, two big photos, and two collages of a bunch of little pictures.

I did a similar thing with this section, but I used quotes instead of pictures.

On another section of the bulletin board, I put the box from one of my Creating Keepsakes prizes on, and stuck some notepads in it.  That's handy because I always know I've got a piece of paper when I need one.

Then, in the middle of my bulletin board, I have four sections all covered in design items - like an inspiration board.  Here are some pictures of that.

In this picture... a POG for the Smog Federation... I loved these things when I was little and I thought the design was neat and a little retro looking. And also graphic items for Give Uganda Water and Next.

 
And in this one... a neat bag from Design House Stockholm, and one from Charlotte Russe (love their logo!).  There's also a random vintage photo I found in a used book.  And there's a Wacom ad, a Sunglass Hut gift card holder (haha, funny story behind that...), a little card from a small pizza shop (to remind me that small businesses need good design too!), a picture of Nashville, and some other stuff...

And here are two things designed by the great graphic designer I got to do an internship with this summer. It was such a great experience and it's fun to see some of her work!

And here's my color wheel... I haven't used it a whole lot, but it's fun to look at and get accustomed to where the colors are on it.

And here's a Bingo card, a Reilly business card, and a user's manual for my iPod.  I love the simplicity and epic minimalism of Apple's design.  And then a Vera Bradley card... I like the typography of that logo.

I hope you enjoyed this little peek into my bulletin board!  Do you all have bulletin boards or inspiration boards?  I'd love to know what kind of stuff you stick on yours!

2011 Scrapbooking Plan

I thought I'd give you a little peek into my scrapbooking plan for this year.  I will continue making 12x12 layouts, but I'm also using a kit called Project Life to document and journal the daily happenings.  You can get this year's Project Life products here.  I'm actually not using any of those products, although they look great, because I bought last year's Project Life kit... well, last year, and didn't finish the project.  I had been trying to take a picture every day, and that just felt too burdensome for last year.  So this year, I'm doing something different.  I'm using the album...

And the page protectors and journaling cards and all that...

...but I'm not taking a picture every day. I'm just trying to put as much "stuff" from each week in the album as I can. Sometimes that's pictures, but other times it's memorabilia or quotes or just a pretty piece of scrapbooking paper.  I'm adding in a few more of my own supplies, too, as I go.  I keep this little tote with all my Project Life stuff, which helps keep it all in one place.

And then I just keep a running list of pictures I want to get printed.  I'm hoping to finish this project, and have an album done by the end of 2011.  But it's not always going to look like the way I just explained it... there are going to busier times this year where it might be harder to keep up with it, and that's okay.  I'm not counting on every week being the same.  But I like this project so far - it's a fun way to record memories and also recount God's faithfulness.  Here's part of one page... I like incorporating lots of things besides photos.

I haven't actually printed any photos for my book yet, but I plan to do that soon!  In the meantime, I'm enjoying the journaling part and adding in stuff.

Quote Book

I wanted to share a project I did a while back.  As you know, I love quotes, and I altered an old Bible dictionary to make a quote book for myself.  Here's the cover of the book.  I added some rub-ons to it to make it a little bit different than the original cover.

For the inside of the book, I tore out about 1/3 of the pages so that there would be extra room to add stuff in.  I just laid a ruler in the spine and tore along that, removing a few pages every now and then as I flipped through the book.

Then I started adding stuff in over time.  The table of contents has a little pocket with a couple verse cards...

And I separated most of the other quotes into categories, using the letter headings from the Bible dictionary as guides for organizing the categories.  Here's one page.

I tried to use some different kinds of paper and a couple stamps and accents as I stuck stuff in.  Some quotes are typed out and printed, and others are handwritten.

I made a few pockets out of a few of the pages I had torn out.  Those pages have been fun for other craft projects as well - I still have some left somewhere!

Some of the quotes fold out, too.  That makes it more fun and interactive to look at.

And maybe the best thing about this book is that there are still blank pages left so that I can always add more quotes and verses.

Hope you enjoyed this little peek at one of my projects.  And maybe you'll try it yourself with an old book - it's really fun and not hard at all.