avon bottles

i suppose i have a bit of a weakness for feminine dainty things . . . it comes from admiring my grandmother's vanity as a little girl. . . these are a few more of the treasures i picked out this past sunday in the nottingham antiques barn. they are vintage avon cologne bottles - the blue boot is still 2/3 full of cologne. and the little carriage, though empty, smells heavenly when opened.

antiquing

found these in nottingham, pa yesterday, in an antique barn.

anniversary postcards

tim and i just had our first anniversary and we took a quick trip to the bahamas to celebrate. somwhere in between scooting around Nassau on a moped and climbing the queen's staircase we decided to begin a tradition. we each picked out a postcard for the other, secretly wrote a note, stickered it with local postage and dropped it in the mail. yesterday, the postcards appeared in the mailbox and we read them together with childish giggles and grins. it was so delightful to see what we'd each written. the best part is we now have very personal souvenirs that are dated and location stamped (not to mention that they cost next to nothing), we're going to do this every year, whether we travel to someplace new or just stay local.

creative self

I read this article from Scientific American Mind after seeing a post about it by dozidesign.

a few bits of the article really spoke to me:

-"When children are very young, they all express creativity, but by the end of the first grade, very few do so. This is because of socialization. They learn in school to stay on task and to stop daydreaming and asking silly questions. As a result, the expression of new ideas is largely shut down. We end up leaving creative expression to the misfits—the people who can’t be socialized." - Robert Epstein

having worked on a few occasions with young children, i've wondered about this idea for years, where does creativity begin to be stymied ? this opened up a can of worms for me just beginning to think about the ways that we halt our own creativity or allow it to be halted by others.

lots of people have said to me "you're so creative," i've heard that so many times that it has taken on a persona of its own in my head - i've been told i'm creative, i think i'm a creative person, therefor i create and i maybe the most creative person i know (at least in my own head). i've begun to think about the culture or mindset among people who have established creativity as a part of their personality that makes them competitive with other people who are creative. i think we can get caught up with wanting to be the most creative person, even though we feed off of eachother and are inspired by eachother.

i think the established and affirmed creative people tend to shut out the idea that the other people could be creative to if they were allowed.

-"Creative people are productive. They may have lots of ideas that don’t work, but the point is that they have lots of ideas." - John Houtz

i often find i have so many ideas, i'm overwhelmed by choosing one direction, and i allow those overwhelmed feelings to follow me through the creative process.

one last one:

- ". . .let me give you an example of an exercise I do with people that boosts group creativity. It’s called “the shifting game.” In this exercise, half of my teams stay together for 15 minutes to generate names for a new cola. The other teams work together for five minutes, then shift out of the group to work on the problem individually, then come together for the last five minutes. Even with all the moving around, the shifting teams produce twice as many ideas as the nonshifting ones. This happens, I think, because groups inhibit a lot of creative expression. Dominant people tend to do most of the talking, for one thing. But when people shift, everyone ends up working on the problem." - Robert Epstein

i've always found this to be true but i like how Robert Epstein articulated that the dominant people do most of the talking. i'm one of those non-dominant people who lets the talkers do the talking. lately i've been struggling with trying to change this about myself so that i have a voice in group settings. i've heard that the squeaky wheel gets the oil, so i've meekly tried to force myself to become a sqeaky wheel, or at least - squeakier. the truth is i'm not sure if i can hack it!

for the love of light

this just came in the mail . . . postal polaroid bliss
a book devoted to polaroids and their creators

eames inspired

i've been inspired by the eames brothers for several years but i was hesitant to use these stamps and invoke the names of designers as great as charles + ray eames without putting a bit of like-minded, free-spirited design into the envelope which I was slapping these bits of design history on to.

Gorgeous Finds

A few of my recent finds from the used book shelf at the library, I'll snatch any volume that has a leather binding.

this one was so intricate, i just had to have it.

thanks to charles + ray

i'm so thrilled to have a set of the new eames stamps, truly inspiring design.

polaroid book

photo from fortheloveoflight.com

i pre-ordered my copy of this awesome polaroid book . . . I can't wait for it to come!

library finds

The smell of aged books doesn't do it for me, it isn't in the dog-eared pages and torn book jackets that signify a well-loved novel, it's not the thrill of checking out the new release section, and it isn't the calm feeling of being in a place that's eerily quiet, okay maybe a little, but there is something else that gets me excited when I visit the library. It's opening a book to discover a tattered remnant of someone else's life slipped in between the pages, perhaps as a page marker, and simply forgotten. The usual find is a discarded library reciept, which I tend to enjoy because it lists what else the book's reader checked out that day, sort of like a little window into their, likely busy, life. Sometimes though I'm amused to find a photograph, or a handwritten note, or even, on a rare occasion, a little sketch. I once found a small collection of comic strips that had been clumsily clipped out and were stuck together just inside the cover.

We are lucky enough to have a small row of shelves out side our main library doors dedicated to selling old and outdate books, where my trip to the library usually ends. I scour the shelves searching for beautiful covers or interesting ilustrations, rarely am I actually in search of a good read. I am more often pleased by a leather cover that's been debossed with guilded leafing or a fancy cloth binding that's come loose. Tidbits of writing on the first leaf from the giver of the book will also bring a smile to my face. These scrawlings usually serve to remind me that the book was a gift once before as well.