Digitizing old photo albums

Posted on March 13, 2012 by Jenny

One of my clients approached me a couple of years ago to see if I would be willing to digitize their family photo albums.  They were wanting to do it, but could only find non-local businesses that did it, and they did not want to ship their treasured memories off to Florida.  I agreed to help them with this task and, over the last couple of years, have scanned in and completed five photo albums for them.

I finished the fifth one this past week, and it was a doozy.  It is twice as big as the other ones I have done and ended up being 482 pictures with captions, which translated into a final file size of 128 pages.

What I do for these photo albums is I scan in the background separately, so there is a clean page.  Then I reformat the page into a (now) typical scrapbook-sized page and cut each picture out from the scan and place onto the fresh background, trying to keep the general look and feel of the old album.  This is a timely process, but for this latest photo album, it was even more of a process because the photos all had this unique deckled edge to them.  I considered leaving out the deckled edge, but then decided that the deckled edge is part of the photo and part of the history of how photos were presented, just like the photo corners.  When it is all said and done, I also design a title page for them, like the one to the right.

This particular photo album was also very, very delicate, even though the subject matter was from the mid-1950s.  While I was taking out the pages from the album, the album cover itself broke along the edges.  I suspect this is due to being so full of pictures and pages, but also because of the low quality of the album in the first place.  Wanting to return the album to my client in one piece, I looked and looked and looked for a new album cover, all to no avail.  They simply do not make this size and style album anymore.  When I came to this realization, I was just sick that I would have to return the album to them broken.

And then I remembered that I have a very talented sister-in-law who has been trained in how to bind books!  So, I sent her the cover and she was able to disassemble it and create a new cover for me that works perfectly and is really beautiful — much more attractive than the old cover and it matches the simplicity and style of the photo album.  I have not shown the new cover to my clients yet (will do so when I return the album to them), but I think they will really appreciate her beautiful work.

Posted in beautiful, black and white, book, client, design, digitizing, photo album | Leave a comment

Guardians Poster Design

Posted on March 8, 2012 by Jenny

Late last fall I had an interview that I thought went absolutely nowhere.  Imagine my surprise, then, when at the end of January (when everything else was happening) I got an email from the organization informing me of our next project.  It definitely caused me to wonder if they were contacting the right person.

They needed me to put together a Constant Contact email, which I easily did, resulting in a project the very next day to create a very large poster that they can display at their networking meetings/social gatherings.  My client sent me a few different designs that they had done in the couple of years past and, although I was not sure how to order all of  the information that needed to be on this poster, I was pretty confident that I could design something better. One sample of a previous poster is shown to the right.

The poster needed to display lots of information: people’s names and titles, a description of the organization, meeting time and location information, etc.  So although it is huge, there really was not much space.  It also needed to convey the separateness of the two groups, while also emphasizing their connection and partnership in helping to raise funds for the larger organization.  They also stated that they use this poster both in the day and at night, and needed the names, especially to be easily readable and the focus of the poster.

So I set to work and put together the poster below.  I decided to feature the names on a white background, to make the names very readable at a glance.  I tried to title the poster to show the overall connectedness of the organization, while keeping the divisions separate.  I also highlighted the meeting times of the organizations to help people potentially interested in joining to easily see where and when they meet.

On the whole, my client LOVED this new design and was impressed that I was able to put it together in such a short turnaround time.

Posted in before and after, blue, design, poster | Leave a comment

Pistachio & White Chocolate Chip Cookies

Posted on March 6, 2012 by Jenny

I am not a huge chocolate fan, but I do love white chocolate.  Last year I happened upon this recipe and tried it out — a total winner.  Very tasty.  One of Gavin’s favorite cookies that I have made!  Remember that you don’t have to make all of the cookies at once.  You can roll them up into little balls, make however many you want, and then freeze the rest in a freezer bag, then pop into the oven and add on one or two extra minutes to the cooking time.

Pistachio & White Chocolate Chip Cookies

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Yield: 3 dozen

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup Butter
  • 1/2 cup Sugar
  • 1/2 cup Brown sugar
  • 1 Egg
  • 1 TBSP Milk
  • 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
  • 1-1/4 cups Flour
  • 1/2 tsp Baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp Baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp Salt
  • 1/2 cup Rolled oats
  • 1-1/4 cup Pistachios, chopped
  • 1-1/4 cup White chocolate chips

Cooking Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350. Cream the butter and sugars together on high speed for three minutes.
  2. Add the eggs, milk and vanilla and beat for 3 minutes, being sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl to ensure even mixing.
  3. In a separate bowl combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and rolled oats. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients slowly, being sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl to ensure even mixing.
  4. Fold in the pistachios and white chocolate chips. Drop heaping teaspoonfuls onto a cookie sheet with parchment or a silpat.
  5. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until golden brown. Allow to set up on the cookie sheets before moving to a baking rack to cool completely.

Posted in butter, cookies, dessert, egg, flour, honest fare, nuts, pistachios, recipe, salt, sugar, vanilla, white chocolate chips | Leave a comment

LA Zoo Watercolor Painting

Posted on March 1, 2012 by Jenny

This Saturday is the first Saturday of the month, and so I’m hoping to be able to get together with a few friends to go out on a painting excursion.  This all started from an afternoon painting in a friend’s backyard.  Since then, we have gone to the Zoo, Descanso Gardens, and the Griffith Observatory…paintings I will share in the coming months!

For the zoo, it was just Patti and I.  She led us to a nice tree-covered, patio-type place by the giraffes and chimps and it would have been great…in the summer.  By the end of the 2-3 hours we spent there, we were both icicles.  This particular subject was challenging for me, and when I left the zoo, I was so disappointed that it did not turn out.  But then after a few hours, when I looked at it again, I realized it wasn’t as bad as I thought.  It’s surely not going to win any awards, but painting and drawing from life is hard, especially (for me) when painting animals and having difficult perspective challenges.  Maybe we can go back and try again this summer, when it is a bit hotter outside and we could use some sitting in the cool shade.

Posted in art, blue, colorful, drawing, en plein air, giraffe, painting, saturday morning painting group, travel watercolor kit, tree, watercolor, zoo | Leave a comment

Greene Ink Press Website Updated

Posted on February 28, 2012 by Jenny

Last year I posted about designing the Greene Ink Press website for my sister-in-law, Kendra, who has graduated from the University of Iowa’s Center for the Book and is now pursuing a career in writing and letterpress.  When I first put her site all together, I built it using older standards.  Late last year I took a class in designing with CSS, Cascading Style Sheets.  I had already dabbled in CSS here and there, but the class helped me to have a more comprehensive understanding of how to build a site using CSS completely.

After the class, I was very enthused with all I learned and decided to put my learning to practice and completely re-haul Kendra’s website.  Mostly it looks the same, the benefits being more in the structure of how the site is built.  However, we added new sections to her site to show off her magnificent work and I updated the Essays section to look much more graceful and less heavy/clunky…a major improvement.

Here is a before picture of the essays page.  Notice how domineering the header of the essay is and how everything feels very tight and heavy.  I wanted it to look better than that, but at the time I had no better solution and that was about the best I could do.

After my class, however, I learned how to structure things in a better way, and how with the new technology you can do different things.  So, I jumped right in and created a lighter page.  Instead of a heavy header for the essay information, I lightened it up with rules that I couldn’t do as accurately or as well using the old technology.  I also limited the width of the essay text so that the reader’s eye doesn’t have to cross the length of the entire page, making it easier to read, and gave a little more space on the page as a whole.  Overall, I think this redesign greatly improves the design of her site:

This website is the beginning of doing an overhaul on all of the websites that I’ve designed and still manage.  It’s exciting to me to be able to use the new technology to update and create new and improved designs for my clients!

Posted in Artist to watch, beautiful, before and after, center for the book, class, design, Iowa City, website | 1 Comment

More fused glass

Posted on February 23, 2012 by Jenny

I really spent a lot of time at the glass workshop leading up to Christmas.  Not only was it a bit slower for me in December, but I also was commissioned to do a window vase in sea glass colors and wanted also to experiment making the Christmas tree ornaments.

Here are some pictures of some glass pieces I did along the way:

That is a picture of a square of fused glass that I did.  I had no particular vision in mind about what to do with it, and I still am not sure.  Magnet, maybe?  Not sure, but I do like how it turned out.  Here it is from a head-on view:

Here were a couple initial concepts for the sea glass window vase I was commissioned to do.  I love how this one came out:

I was pretty surprised when the person didn’t like it, but she was wanting more of a cross motif, something I didn’t know until I showed her some first pieces.  Whatever the case, I thought it was absolutely beautiful and was content to own it myself, until it was purchased by my aunt as a gift for a friend who is hard to shop for.

I also made this piece, which I like, but wish was a little more bold — sea glass colors can be a little too subtle for my tastes:

It is pretty in a very delicate way.  Here is a glamor shot of the two of them, done by my excellent husband:


Posted in art, gift, glass, hard to shop for, iridescent glass, vase, window vase | 2 Comments

Four Colorful Pears

Posted on February 21, 2012 by Jenny

Around Christmastime, I seemingly had a little bit more free time than I do at present.  Anyway that, combined with being charged to paint a picture for my Aunt Ellie for Christmas, combined with putting together an Easter painting for Glenmary, led me to a lot of painting.  Sometimes I paint from life, sometimes from pictures.  One of my favorite sites to look for painting inspiration is Flickr…although sometimes I come across some pictures that are so pretty that I think “how could I possibly paint anything prettier.”

I ran across a picture of four pears on Flickr, called Pear Parade.  This is one of those pictures where I wonder why even try to make it prettier (the lighting and arrangement, etc. is so perfect to me), but I tried anyway, and am happy with the results.  First, I love painting fruit because I love the bright colors that you can get.  Second, although I have painted fruit before, I was intrigued with painting the same thing but with differing attributes (tall v. skinny, green v. red, etc.).  In the end, I really like how this painting came out — loose, but identifiable, and I love the delicate shadows under the pears.

Posted in art, colorful, flickr, green, painting, pears, red, shadows, still life, watercolor, yellow | Leave a comment

Painting with friends is an enjoyable way to spend the afternoon!

Posted on February 16, 2012 by Jenny

Last fall, my friend Patti contacted me about possibly getting together to paint.  Patti is an artist as well and has a flexible schedule, so it sounded like a great idea to me.  One beautiful, crisp fall day I went over to her house and we painted “en plein-air” in her backyard, capturing her garage.  This was my first time painting outside in my Aquabee sketchpad, and it was a bit difficult getting used to how much water could be used on the page and how fast it would dry off in the nice sunshine.

I really like how this painting came out, as long as I don’t inspect the crazy perspective at the bottom of the page.  Painting en plein-air is very difficult, but it was something that both Patti and I have enjoyed and have taken to doing the first Saturday of the month, adding a few people into our fold.  This particular month we were unable to meet on the first Saturday, so we’ve rescheduled it to this weekend, which I look forward to!  If you’re local and interested in painting on the first Saturday, let me know!  There is no prerequisite to being good at painting at all — we welcome everyone!

Posted in art, en plein air, garage, painting, saturday morning painting group, travel watercolor kit, watercolor | 2 Comments

Rivers of Living Water

Posted on February 14, 2012 by Jenny

When I was in Seminary in New Jersey, I really thought I was abandoning design and painting, but discovered so many types of those opportunities presented themselves to me while I was out there, studying theology.  Although that is interesting and thought-provoking in and of itself to me, today I wanted to share with you one of those opportunities that came my way!

As part of my program of study, I had to do an internship at a church equaling about 10 hours a week or so.  I chose Central Presbyterian Church in Summit, NJ and really enjoyed my time there.  On literally the last day of my internship with that church, a woman wandered in to the church office to inquire about how the church might help her with a book she was putting together.  To my recollection, the secretary wasn’t able to give her any help for what she was looking for, but brought her into my office to show me the book she was working on, since the secretary thought I might appreciate it because it had to do with scripture in an artistic way.

The woman introduced herself as Yueh, and she was putting together a visual harmony of the gospel books.  She showed me some sample pages and I was instantly overcome with the beauty and uniqueness of the book, and very impressed with the time and detail it must have taken to work on such a project.  The picture above shows a sample of what the book is like.  She has read through the Revised Standard Version (I think) and has laid out the four gospel accounts next to each other, showing what words are shared and what stays unique to that particular gospel.  At a glance with her book, you can see the thrust of a particular passage, but also can see in detail what each gospel author wrote to be particular for the community that they were writing to.

As we got to talking, Yueh inquired about me and learned that I am a watercolorist and asked if I had any ideas for the cover of her book.  I suggested that perhaps to show the meaning of what she was doing, she could have an image of four unique strands that at the same point blend into each other.  So, she commissioned me to do such a piece and began printing dust jackets to finish off her book.  As a going-away present, she gifted me with my own book and a couple of books to share with others.

I am writing about this now because I heard from Yueh just the other day.  When I had last talked to her, she was printing this book on her own.  She has since been able to contract with a printer in Canada and is now able to produce a second edition of the book for a very reasonable price and is doing quite well in selling them.  I am so happy for her and so in awe of her great persistence to see her passion through.

If you have interest in learning more about her or Rivers of Living Water, Yueh has a website up at http://www.HeavenlyBright.org.

Posted in art, Artist to watch, beautiful, book, christian, colorful, gospel, painting, seminary, watercolor, yueh goffin | 3 Comments

Chocolate Chip Waffles

Posted on February 9, 2012 by Jenny

Another tasty breakfast!  In honor of Valentines Day Weekend(-ish), I will post one of Gavin’s favorite breakfasts that I made last year.  I found this recipe through the Tasty Kitchen website, and have made it several times and really enjoy it.  Easy to do!

Chocolate Chip Waffles

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Yield: Serves 4

Ingredients

  • 2 cups Flour
  • 1/2 tsp Salt
  • 1-1/2 TBSP Sugar
  • 1-1/2 tsp Baking soda
  • 3/4 cup Chocolate chips
  • 2 cups Buttermilk
  • 2 Eggs
  • 1/2 stick Butter, melted
  • 1/2 tsp Vanilla

Cooking Directions

  1. Whisk together flour, salt, sugar and baking soda. Toss in chocolate chips and coat well with flour mixture.
  2. Mix together buttermilk, eggs, butter and vanilla. Pour batter into a waffle iron and cook to your iron\'s instructions.

Posted in breakfast, butter, buttermilk, chocolate chips, egg, flour, recipe, sugar, vanilla, waffles | 4 Comments