2010 « My Blog

My blog.

Thoughts on books, design, storytelling, family, and more. From my little corner of the world to yours.

Archive for 2010

a beginning and an end

Thursday, April 29th, 2010

. . . . .

I am just finishing up a book with Ricca about her grandparent’s lives, and I want to share an important takeaway from the project.

When we first discussed the book, one of the most overwhelming pieces of the project for Ricca was thinking about when to end the book. Should she go until current day and include all the young great grandkids? Should she stop at her own generation? Or her mom’s generation? Should she include spouses?

It sounds like a small detail, but it’s actually quite important to have a solid and clear ending to a book. Her grandparents had 3 girls – one of which was Ricca’s mom. Eventually we decided to end the book with the weddings of each girl. This created a clean, consistent ending for the book and kept the focus on the older stories and photos – which is exactly what Ricca wanted. And as soon as we made that decision the book became so much more doable. It just sort of fell into place.

. . . . .

Posted in tips & tricks | No Comments »

amanda + jeremy

Wednesday, April 21st, 2010

. . . . .

Here’s a wedding book we recently made for photographer Tec Petaja. I love the pink and grey colors together.

. . . . .

Tags: custom wedding album
Posted in wedding books | No Comments »

dear margaret

Monday, April 19th, 2010

. . . . .

My Great Aunt Margaret – my grandmother’s sister – recently mailed me this batch of old letters. The sweet part is they are all letters my grandmother, Ruth Mary, wrote to Margaret over the years. Both women decided that the newest Ruth Mary – my daughter – should have them. So some day our little Ruthie will read about her namesake, in her own words and handwriting. Very sweet.

. . . . .

Posted in bits of my family | No Comments »

laundry, circa 1940

Thursday, March 25th, 2010

. . . . .

Please note the hanging girdles, the vintage All, and the machine for pressing her husband’s clothes. And still she smiles! Am feeling quite grateful for modern life at the moment.

. . . . .

Posted in photographs | 1 Comment »

photo yearbook

Friday, March 12th, 2010

. . . . .

Here is a book to inspire you. Jennifer wanted a special way to remember a big year for her and now husband James. So we made her a photo yearbook, with calendars to remember key dates and events…and of course lots of photos documenting their year of engagements, weddings, friends, and family.

. . . . .

Tags: custom photo album, custom photo yearbook, photo yearbook
Posted in custom books | 6 Comments »

awesome 70′s mom + popcorn boy

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

. . . . .

Posted in things old | No Comments »

martha stewart weddings

Monday, March 8th, 2010

. . . . .

We were so excited to be included in Martha Stewart Weddings this January as part of their Memory Keeping story. You can see the book we did for them below.

And here is a link to us on their site!

. . . . .

Posted in press | No Comments »

love this one

Thursday, March 4th, 2010

. . . . .

From a birthday book I’ve been working on all week. I love this image.

. . . . .

Posted in custom books, things old | 1 Comment »

DIY, customize a moleskine

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

. . . . .

I was recently asked by Brides.com to come up with a DIY project for Valentine’s Day. After a bit of thinking, I decided to customize an off-the-shelf moleskine sketchbook. (I know, am a bit crazy for the moleskines!)

I made my DIY moleskine for Steven (he loved it!) and I think it makes a great handmade gift for any occasion. The basic concept is that you cut out some of the original pages and glue in your photos instead. I also added a “Top 10 Reasons I Think You’re Really Great” list to accompany the photos. Oh, and I wrote a secret in it, too.

Here is the project feature on Brides.com with the detailed instructions. Please let me know if you have any questions. And if you make one please send me a photo, I’d love to see how yours turns out!!

Here are some more photos of mine.

Click here to download the instructions and a printout the custom bellyband design.

ENJOY!

. . . . .

Posted in diy | 4 Comments »

wedding book week! #5, my own wedding book

Friday, February 19th, 2010

. . . . .

We’re celebrating our second annual Wedding Book Week. This week we featured a book a day and not just with wedding day pictures. We showed a book about a couple’s love story, a book of honeymoon pictures, and of course some lovely books of the big day. And today you finally see my own wedding book!

Enjoy, and contact us to get a quote for your own custom wedding book.

NEXT WEEK! I have another fun post for you Monday. It’s a DIY book project that makes a great little gift. Come visit again Monday!

. . . . .

book #5, steven + kim (finally!)

Yay! Our wedding book is finished, and I’d like to thank Wedding Book Week for making it happen. Seriously. Deadlines are the best.

So here it is…Steven and I got married 7.7.07 up in an amazing little town on Vancouver Island in Canada called Tofino (my favorite place ever – go if you can). Our story was a central part of the wedding, so of course we included it in the book. In a nutshell: we met on a blind date after college, dated for 2 years, broke up for 8, then got back together and got married in the same year. We took our own sweet time, thus our wedding theme and book title…Steven and Kim Finally!

I always knew we’d want to include more than just wedding day photographer pictures in our book. We used a great local photographer named Jeremy Koreski who is mostly known for his surfing images, and we totally love the images he took of our wedding. But our book also includes our story, a few pictures from what we call Round 1, some quotes from friends/family/us over the years that tell the progression of our story, pictures from our wedding week, and even pictures from our honeymoon. It’s our story.

Our reception was on the beach, so for our book I used a linen that reminds me of the sand, with a photo of one of our Steven and Kim Finally signs.