2009 July | Making it Lovely

Archive - July, 2009

CD Storage?

Yesterday, Brandon said something that made me very happy: “Let’s get rid of all these CD cases.”

Right now, we have most of our CDs in the five BENNO towers that are in my office to the left and right of my EXPEDIT. We also have several hundred more in my office closet though, and in the stacks and stacks that seem to accumulate throughout the house.

We need to condense our music library, but we’re not ready to go 100% digital. These Semikolon boxes look really nice, but I think we’d need too many. Plus, I already have a million IKEA KASSETT boxes in pink (which seems to be a discontinued color), so I could just use those. Maybe if we transfered all of the CDs into paper sleeves that would make boxes more of a practical option? Or these CD/booklet display sleeves so we can store the liner notes too? Or maybe the CD binder route would be better — I think that’s what Brandon wants.

CD Storage Options

How do you store your music? Or have you guys gone completely digital? And while we’re at it, what about DVDs and video games? ‘Cause we’ve run out of space for those too.

Office, Organization • 174 Comments • July 31, 2009

Three Months Old (Eleanor’s Monthly Photo)

July
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(I’ll be taking a photo of Eleanor sitting in the Eames rocker and wearing her pin each month until she’s two years old.)

Previous Photos
One Month Old • Two Months Old • View All

Parenting • 69 Comments • July 29, 2009

Garden Growth

July
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I could tell that the flowers in my garden had grown, but I hadn’t realized how much until I looked at a photo from last year. This is what they look like now:

This is the same area, last July:

A huge difference, no? And here now, from a different angle:

The area to the left of the egg chair is looking a little bare, but there are hydrangeas that just need to fill in. Any idea how long that will take? I’m thinking years and years. *Sigh.*

Outside • 39 Comments • July 28, 2009

Working With Digital Paint Swatches

July
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Here’s a question from my recent FAQ post. Nicole wrote:

Maybe this is a silly question, but how did you get the paint colors off the brand’s websites? [...] I wanted to email a “true” swatch [to my family] with my photos but couldn’t save a swatch from the Valspar website. Did you get permission from the companies or am I missing something??

Thanks for asking (and nice name, by the way). All of the big paint companies use flash for their websites, which means you can’t right click to save swatches. You can get around that though by taking a screenshot and grabbing your color from the image created.

So how do I make the brush strokes and paint blobs for my mood boards? I made my own custom set of Photoshop brushes, but you can use a font like Blobs, Brushstrokes & Balloons or this free ink splat font instead. Just pick your color and then use the brushstroke or blob of your choice. If you’re feeling fancy, you can play around with the layer effects in Photoshop.

Paint Swatch

'D' for Design, FAQ, Painting • 29 Comments • July 23, 2009

How I Got My Baby to Sleep Through the Night (Without Crying)

July
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I get a shower each morning too. Now, let me preface this entire post by saying that I think temperament has a lot to do with it. And before you hate me too much for having such an ‘easy’ baby, just know that she barely sleeps during the day and she doesn’t appreciate me trying to do crazy things like oh, sitting down.

Our Bedtime Routine

I don’t keep Eleanor on a strict schedule during the day. I pretty much parent on demand (though a natural schedule is starting to emerge), but I’ve followed the same bedtime routine each night since she was two weeks old.