Inspired

Seeing...SoFoBoMo

I finished my SoFoBoMo project this weekend and uploaded it to Blurb today.  Unfortunately, I won't actually be uploading it to the SoFoBoMo website, as I just don't have the time right now to format the 80 pages in PDF files.  I'm OK with that as I carried the project through to book form, which was my goal.

I included 40 photographs and because I just can't create an image without including text, each one is accompanied by a quote on it's opposite page.

 

Even when I was very young, I loved making books.  I cut up small pieces of paper and sewed them together with embroidery floss...writing little stories complete with illustrations.  I've given hand made books as gifts and love making art journals.  More recently I've found stories creeping into my mixed media collages .  It's interesting to look back and recognize the signs were there all along for my love of making books, but it took me many years to connect the dots.  I'm hoping there may be a hand made bookmaking course to found locally this fall!

The Blurb books aren't hand made works of art but are just as delightful to hold, as the contents are of my own creation.  It somehow seems to lend validity to my creativity...and a sense of completion.  That may sound odd, but it feels very "right".  I read a quote recently which (paraphrased) went something like this..."you'll know when you're following your heart's desire because every hair on your body will stand up and scream "YES!"".

Has your hair screamed "yes" to you lately?

Seeing

unraveling the det...

By Kate Miller Iredale

Book Preview

(the link above has access to the first fifteen pages)

Books, Books, Books...

I received my first Blurb produced book last week.  It contains all the post and photographs from my blog in 2006...my first year of blogging.

I was very pleasantly surprised at the quality.  I had been a little nervous about the colour quality but amazingly, it was very true to the colours on my own monitor (which has never been calibrated)

It was A LOT of work to prepare the copy.  The photo's were all originally JPEG's uploaded to TypePad and Blurb requires a much higher resolution so every photograph had to be upgraded. 

Making it all fit into  Blurb's templates was restrictive too.  I think I may create some of my own templates for the next one...oh, yes, I'm hooked, there will definitely be a "next one"'

I've been working away on this project for over a year and was beginning to think it was going to end up in the "unfinished project " category.  Determined to finish it and with my studio in the process of disappearing into boxes a few months ago, I finally did.  I can't begin to tell you the immense satisfaction of opening a book from a publisher, that you yourself have created.  I was beyond ecstatic!

 

I love the journal aspect of this book...looking back at myself three years ago and seeing who I was then.  I will most likely tire of blogging someday (not yet!) and this record of me, my family, my art and my thoughts will be lost.  I also appreciate the format of it all being on paper and easily accessible to flip through.

If you like the idea of having your blog printed out in journal form...I can only encourage you to go for it! 

You'll be very happy that you did.

(now I just have four books left to finish up...two more years of blog posts, my SoBoFoMo book and one other photographic book of last year's December Views.)

...and I'm almost finished SoBoFoMo!