Life of Pi - Literary Carry

I promised this would go up for Memorial Day weekend and then I spent all week being sick. So I had to play some catch up, so here is my catalog of what Piscine Molitor "Pi" Patel, found in his lifeboat after a shipwreck.

Definitely click to view larger...

Make It Yourself: Clean or Dirty Indicator

If you live with three other roommates like I do and sometimes you find it's hard to keep up on running that dishwasher, have I got something for you:

 This lovely dirty or clean indicator!

We use ours to remind each other, 'Hey, there are some dirty dishes in here, load it up and run it.' or 'Look these dishes are clean, maybe I should put them back in their cabinets.' It's at eye level on our cabinets above the dishwasher.

I bet you are wondering, 'How can I have one of those for myself?' Well, let me tell you: by using this template and following these wonderfully easy steps put together by yours truly. Read after the jump for my full tutorial and printable template.

Maddie on Things!

Last week my roommate and I went to the Brookline Booksmith to see Theron Humphrey and his infamous dog Maddie presenting their book Maddie On Things. If you are not familiar with Maddie and her special talent, stop reading right now and head over to their website:

www.maddieonthings.com

 

I really didn't know what to expect, a reading? A signing? It ended up being a delightful artist lecture, listening to Theron talk about his work, Maddie and beyond.

Not only is Maddie an incredible subject, Theron is a great photographer. His work is so much about telling stories and his passion is abundant. His most recent project, Why We Rescue, tells the photographic stories of rescue dogs and their families. He is so invested in sharing these stories and encouraging the creativity of everyone he speaks to. It was an wonderful event, and if they are coming to your city you should definitely make the time to fit them in. 

Not to disappoint, midway through Theron's slideshow Maddie hopped up on a thing:

Photo by Caley Mahoney

My Father's Dragon - Literary Carry

One of my favorite books growing up was My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett with illustrations by Ruth Chrisman Gannett. This is just a little painting I did the other day cataloging all the things Elmer Elevator took on his adventure to rescue the dragon.

Definitely click to view larger...

I liked the idea quite a bit, it was fun to see all laid out what the contents of his backpack were. So now I am working on another painting of all the the things Pi found in his lifeboat in Life of Pi which should go up this weekend.

These are some of the beautiful original illustrations, done in grease crayon on a grained paper.

Flowers, Plants, and Leaves

Lately I have been trying to work on some designs for patterns, though I can't say I am progressing forward very quickly. Basically just been sketching bunches of flowers, plants and leaves. So here are just some drawings that will hopefully become something later...

 

 

Let's Shop Some Independent Artists

Recently I have adopted a new shopping vice. Before it was mostly books. I buy books like women are stereotypically supposed to buy shoes. But really, can I complain? There are worse vices, worse expenditures. I could be buying porcelain baby dolls...or drugs. My new vice is also really quite harmless but super addictive...art.

Not in the framed landscapes, silent auction sort of way. But thanks to Etsy and craft fairs I can get doses of little pieces of affordable art (or crafts). Some recent additions include:

Laura Berger's Feel Better Now Zine, $10

Image from Laura's Etsy

 And boy, did it ever work. I was having a pretty rotten week last week. The USB port on my tablet was broken (solution acquired though!) and my seltzer machine, light of my beverage life, was on the fritz. All my accessories were failing and I was cranky. Then I opened my mail box and found my package containing this adorable zine. How can you stay upset with images such as these:

 

 You can visit Laura's Etsy shop here: www.etsy.com/shop/laurageorge

Okay, so that one was kinda cheating, it's still a book but the next one isn't, promise:

Owl Rattle from Free Ramblin' Folk, $18

Massachusetts College of Art and Design hosts a spring sale every year offering a variety of work from students and alumni with a percentage of  proceeds going the artists and the rest to student scholarships. In all my years as a student, alumni and staff member I have never purchased anything from the sale, till I saw these fine fellows by Fashion alum, Katie Cavacco. I didn't actually realize it was a rattle until I picked it up to bring to the cash register, but I still don't think I would actually let a child sully his wise facade constructed of upcycled felted wool sweaters. He will be the guardian of my books. 

See more in Katie's Etsy shop, here: www.etsy.com/shop/FreeRamblinFolk

Finding Design in Brooklyn...

Like that's hard, pshaw! It seems like every other store in Brooklyn sells fantastically designed (if not slightly overpriced) knick-knacks, stationary, and kitchen products. But here's a round up of some of the cool things I purchased on trip to New York last weekend.

First, every time I am in New York, I always end up in used book stores. Do I need more books? No. Do we lack used book stores in Boston? No. Do I always end up buying more while I'm there? YES. One of our first stops on our walking trip of what felt like all of Brooklyn was P.S. Bookshop in Dumbo. I ended buying a cheap copy of The Road which should be my next read, and I also picked up a few of these:

Decomposition Notebooks - Pocket Sized by Michael Roger Press, made of 100% recycled post-consumer waste, printed with soy ink, etc. etc. And even without the green appeal, they have the best designs ever on their covers. I picked up the ones above, a honeycomb and typographic map. More of their products can be seen here: www.michaelroger.com

Second stop ended in a complete impulse buy of these great postcards I saw in the window of a baby store:

 I had seen these terrarium postcards by Quill & Fox online before and I thought they would be perfect to send to my mom, who loves postcards & terrariums (two birds-one stone). They had always lived on my online wish list till I picked them up in store. You can see more of their adorable stationary at: quillandfox.com

Then we went to Williamsburg,  where all of the quirky things live. We visited yet another used book store, Book Thug Nation, a tiny space with an excellent stack of old mysteries and noirs. I picked up an old copy of Agatha Christie's An Overdose of Murder for $4. I loved the skulls on the cover.

One of our final stops was the Brooklyn Art House, home of the Sketchbook Project, which if you have never heard of is the contribution of sketchbooks by artists all over the world, compiled into an incredible traveling show. I wanted to live in this room, surrounded by all these incredible books:

You can pick a theme and the library will randomly pull two or three sketchbooks meeting the criteria of your search which you can then sit and go through at your leisure. Learn more about the project and their Brooklyn Library here: www.sketchbookproject.com

Traveling Across These 50 United States

I was inspired over the weekend by this awesome map I found Etsy, made by Ello There Wedding Invitations & Print Shop run and created by Maddy & Seth Lucas:

I loved their map to help you track which of the national parks you've been to across the United States. I wanted to make my own map of places I had been around the country, so I tooled around in my sketchbook and came up with this:

 

Probably worth looking at big.

Visit Maddy & Seth's blog here: ellotheredesign.blogspot.com 

And their Etsy shop here: www.etsy.com/shop/ElloThere  

 

Book Restoration

A few days ago I was having a lazy weekend and I was trying to find something to make the weekend more interesting, a project to keep my hands busy. So I found an old book on the shelf that I have been meaning to rebind for ages. It's a copy of Grimms' Fairy Tales that I bought at a library forever ago that fell out of it's cover. I realized that before I bound the book and lost the end sheets I had to scan them in and maybe print them out to use again.I thought I would share them here because they are darling:

Here's the cover, I love the debossing and I want 

to use the font again on its new cover.

I feel like these end sheets are a bit too cheery for Grimms.

The inscription on the inside cover reads: Happy Birthday to David from daddy & Mother.  I'm not sure when the book was printed by the inscription is dated July 15, 1940. So it's a bit old. It's a little bizarre owning a book that was given to someone as a gift over 70 years ago, but I like knowing it has a history.

Birthday Banner Book-Card

I love love love making people cards. Birthdays, holidays, valentines, thank you cards, I love them all. You may not know this about me because I usually don't take pictures of them before I send them out, but this time I did. I was inspired to make these based on those birthday banners people hang on the wall at parties, the ones like this:

So I took that idea and I wanted to make a banner that you could hang that would say 'Happy Birthday' but at the end of the week when the festivities are over you could take it down and fold back into a book. Here was what I came up with:

And here is another one, just with different colors and a bit bigger (the first one measures 1 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches) this one is about 2 x 2.

 just went to Micheal's and bought about 10 rolls of ribbon so I expect to pretty crazy with making a bunch of these in all different colors and styles.

Month of Love Daily Sketch Challenge

For the month of February I am participating in a daily sketch challenge where all the drawings are love themed. There are so many really great artists and really great drawings so click on the picture to head on over to take a look!

 

Credit to Jeanine Henderson for the awesome header!