Boston-Based Indie Designers... The Boston Sampler

Check out The Sampler...they have moved to Weymouth and are having a Local Sampler featuring items from crafters and DIYers from the Boston area! Contributions are due at the end of the month. They will also be having a release party at Spark Craft Studios in Cambridge to celebrate!

So, stay tuned for the new city Samplers in their Shop... and keep your eye out from some little embroidered goodies from Simply June.

As a little side note... look what the UPS man brought me today!

The Process, not the Product...

I just finished ready a book about a cross-country train ride. The book was a little fluff reading left over from the holidays, but the story reminded me that life is really about the journey and not the destination. Similarly, as a designer, my art/craft is about the process and not the product. I'm not talking about the end quality of a product because I believe things should be both beautiful and well made. But rather one should slow down and enjoy the process of creating, allowing one's personality and experiences to show through. When I purchase something from another artist or crafter, I am always intrigued by the hands that have made it. When you hold in your hands a handmade item that was passed down in your family, you feel a connection to it and to those before you. So, my challenge this year is to really enjoy that process and to allow myself to slow down and take the creative journey - less concerned about the destination than the journey itself.

The photograph is a piece I did a while back that we installed in our dining room. It seemed fitting with today's post as adopting Nikolai was really a test of enjoying the journey and not just the destination. I often hear adoption described as a journey - it is often a long slow one at that and the actually journey often begins long before you take that first step into an adoption agency. My journey began long ago, but this piece made from an old window chronicles just a part of it. The bottom photograph is of me and my son Nikolai on the day we drove away with him from his orphanage. It was such an anticlimactic day - our third trip to Russia and he was finally ours - in my arms - never to be handed back to his caretakers at the end of a short visit. I had imagined this day over and over in my mind. I lived, breathed, dreamt about this moment - it was full of smiles and laughter and celebration - theatrical crescendos in the soundtrack of my life. In contrast, the moment was small, sincere, sad, happy, quiet and still. I held Nikolai in my arms. He was so scared. This was the part of his journey that would lead to a better life, but journeys are full of change and he knew to hold on tight. I held him even tighter...

Look What I Found Under the Christmas Tree



















Jason and I decided to share our Christmas present this year and bought it for ourselves a little early. Our new Cannon digital SLR camera arrived yesterday and is quite photogenic. :) We took some shots with it last night and it is incredible. I am so excited to take the next round of product photographs with it for SimplyJune. Having so much more control over focus and lighting adds so much more depth to the photographs. I actually studied photography in college as an Art Minor, but have just fallen into the rut of using my point and shoot digital and doing my best to improve lighting and color in Adobe Photoshop. I have been pleased for the most part with my results and certainly would only use a digital camera for my website photos because of cost and ease. However, there is really a limit to what I could do with my previous camera. I will have to say that the best advice I can give when taking product photos is to get yourself a nice lightweight tripod and turn off your flash. I also use the timer on my camera for taking photographs so that I can step away from all lighting (so as to not cause shadow) and not move the camera while actually taking the photo.

I really enjoy taking product photographs and styling the photos - also a great exuse to to go to auctions and antique malls. I'm not sure if I have mentioned it before, but if you are in the Boston area you must check out The Massachusetts Antique Cooperative in Waltham. They are a really nice antique mall with over 125 dealers tucked away in an old factory building. This is the perfect destination for a rainy afternoon - though I would definitely go without little ones. You could literally browse for days in this place before you had explored every nook and crannie and discovered your favorite treasures.

Tap, Tap, Tap.....Ziiiiiiiip...

I love the sounds of a typewriter. Tap, Tap, Tapping along on the keys. There is a rhythm, a tempo, a decisiveness in action and a permanence to the words formed. This I write to you from the relatively quiet keys of my Dell laptop where I can add and delete words at will.

This typing beauty is a late 40's early 50's Remington that I bought this summer at a yard sale. A local family was emptying the contents of their elderly mother's home as she got ready to move after many years. The first thing that caught my eye was a large box of beautiful variegated wool granny squares framed in black. The box contained dozens of these beautiful squares and some extra skeins of the beautiful wool yarn - a project never finished, but made with love. I pictured the old woman sitting on cold New England winter evenings crocheting and enjoying the repetitiveness and sense of accomplishment that I find in needlework. So, I decided to take the squares home and finish it during this cold New England winter. I continued to meander up their driveway to find my Remington beauty. I fell in love at first sight. I could hear the Tap, Tap, Tap......Ziiiiiiiiiip... in my head and I tried to contain my excitement. One should never bug out one's eyes or jump for silly joy when one finds a gem at a yard sale. Instead, I asked its price in my most non-chalant manner. (I have never been able to witness my bargain hunting acting abilities, but hey anyone who knows me knows my record speaks for itself.) After a little bartering, I got my portable Remington and my box of wool granny squares for a neat 25. As I began to leave with my goods in hand, one of the sons about my age asked me with a somewhat baffled look, "What exactly are you going to do with that box of wool and an old typewriter?" Apparently, I'm 31 going on 81...