tinkered treasures: the book!

This is the cover of my book. My book. Even as I type the words and see the image, it barely seems real ... this dream come true.

Tinkered Treasures will be out on Valentine's Day 2013 (how perfect) but is available for purchase now as a pre-order. I plan to list a supply at my Etsy shop in early spring to sign and sell. Again, barely real.

It was last year on my birthday actually (mid-October) that I received a confirmation from the publisher about my book proposal. And what a busy year it has been! My publisher is in London and I am in Rhode Island and it was decided that I would create the projects and ship them to London to be styled and photographed.

The very messy Girlie Office

I needed to provide step-by-step photographs for illustrations (!) and supply all of the text. The months that followed found me making glorious messes as I recreated favorite projects and worked out new ideas, shipped boxes of "makes" and crossed my fingers that they would arrive safely to their far-away destination.

Some projects ended up not being quite right for the book like the switch plate frames that didn't translate because the ones standard in the U.S. aren't widely available in the U.K.

For the book, which will feature just over 35 crafts, I probably created almost double that amount of projects.

With three batches of projects completed and shipped it was now time to write, write and write some more. I wrote everything from catchy titles and snappy introductions to projects steps, to descriptions of supplies, techniques and more. I was also sure to infuse my text with silly puns to keep "my voice" in there.

Next, there were many rounds of carefully proof-reading layouts to ensure that instructions and illustrations made sense and that terms were used consistently.

And now my treasured book is listed on Amazon and Barnes & Noble!

Something very interesting that I learned about myself during this process was that I am clearly not a perfectionist when it comes to the projects but when it comes to the text, boy, am I ever a stickler and sometimes even getting a phrase just right could take an afternoon.

Thank you for reading. I have so much to say, am a bit sleepy and just hope this all makes sense.

For all of you dreamers out there, remember that it all begins with an idea and it all began for me right here on this dear little blog.

xo
elyse

fall is here

Ahh, fall! The season that I liken to an oatmeal raisin cookie -- sure I want to believe that chocolate chip is my favorite cookie of all or that spring or even summer is my favorite season but when it comes right down to it, no other season is quite as tasty or makes me feel quite this way. The sights, the smells, the cool breezes, the tights! Did that make any sense? Anyway ...

The other day I was leafing through the new Pottery Barn catalog and spotted this charming idea of fixing a pennant to a pear. I didn't have any pears handy, just some short-stemmed apples but still had to try this out. In the midst of a.m. busy-ness, I began snipping small diamonds from patterned paper, folding and then adhering them to unsuspecting apples.

"Mom, can we eat these?" Sure, just remove the flags first.

By now my boys are pretty used to seeing me setting up impromptu photo shoots around the house.

Once I moved on from the apples I began playing with acorns and scattered them on this small plate with a different little pennant and then laughed to myself thinking how it looked like a dish left behind by a squirrel at a dinner party. (Did that sound nuts? Pun intended)

It's nice to make even a little time to play.

Happy fall!

xo
elyse