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