"All of time and space everywhere and anywhere..."
If you're not a Doctor Who fan (I'm sorry for you), the quote was taken from it.
*These photos were taken in frame, so please excuse the glares of light, and poor photo quality.
Ikea Dresser - Painted
Above photo: Dresser after I painted white lines on 3 drawers and changed knobs on same drawers a couple of years ago.
I used the same colors in the frames I painted on the rest of the dresser. I added the blue and gold to drawers.
I love those marquee letters, but they're so expensive. So I made one (that doesn't light up) using cardboard, glue and pins. Up close it doesn't look great, but from where it sit on our mantle, mistakes aren't TOO noticeable.
Photo Gallery and Photo Shelves
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| From left clockwise: Daniel & Soren weeks after birth, Library in Ephesus (awesome!), a canal in Venice, columns in ancient Athens. |
Lately.
I have been ON IT lately. Actually hanging photos long printed and framed. Painting, making completing, organizing. AND taking care of an 8 month old. I don't know what happened and where the motivation came from, but I'm happy.
Above is our dining room. I always planned on it being black and white art only. The 4 largest photos to be in that room are finally up, now I have to print and frame 6 more photos and give this a completed look.
Above is a bad iPhone photo of a wall in our room. It's a large wall with only these illustrations on it. I dreamed of having a fainting chair there, but dreams are often just that. So I wanted to brighten the room and give this wall some thought.
I put up 3 shelves for books, picked out some bright spray paint colors and painted my existing frames. With the three shelves there I could add two additional illustrations of mine (these are a series I create for Daniel), plus one of an artist I love, and a couple of photos from our Mediterranean trip (here, here, here, here AND here...a bit linky...i know).
I also painted our dresser, but that's for another time.
On Getting a Tattoo
"...for many of us (tattoos) are deeply personal, extremely important daily
reminders of who we are, where we come from, who we have loved, where we
have been, and
who we aspire to be." -Lisa Congdon
I saw this quote and loved it, because that is exactly how I feel about my tattoo. I had an idea for a tattoo for 7 years; at one point it was going to be "hope," at another it was going to be in elvish (LOTR geek here), but then I settled on "love" written in my own handwriting. I was 25. Weeks before I found out I was pregnant with Soren.
This tattoo isn't a representation of romantic love. It is there to remind me that Jesus loves me deeply, that I'm called to love everyone in the same way, and that I fail at it all of the time. Love isn't limited to your friends, or the poor, or orphans and widows. It's for those you just don't connect with, those who bully, murders, terrorists. I need to be reminded everyday.
Confessions - Food Edition
What a week and a half we have had. We started with doctor appointments (possibly more on that), followed by house deep clean for our new crawler and Vacation Bible School prep, then Vacation Bible School, which led to a stomach virus passing through our family and now teething. Daniel still has the stomach bug, and I am trying to keep everything disinfected so we don't carry our germs outside this house of ours.
In the mean time I bring you...
Confessions - Food Edition:
• I want to move out of Texas, and I want to bring HEB with me. I love HEB. I have the best one.
• I like a variety of foods, but the ones I hate tend to be white (cauliflower, mayo, white gravy, some
sort of chicken helper my mom used to make me eat and it's white)
• I hate mayo. I hate cauliflower. For some reason those two blended together with garlic is delicious.
I still don't know why.
• I buy HEB brand or cheaper brands of food generally, but I will splurge on olive oil. I love olive oil!
• I don't want to be around someone eating peanut butter, I don't want to think about globs of it on
my sandwich, but I still love putting it on toast and apples.
• When I'm not nursing a baby, I eat a little bit at a meal. My stomach doesn't hold that much. If you
don't live with me, what you don't see is that I am eating all of the time. All kinds of stuff. Mostly
cheese, bread and desserts.
• Our family thinks I refuse taking desserts home to force Daniel away from dessert. The truth is I can
easily eat 8 cookies in a day and not even realize it. I'm saving myself!
• Baby Led Weaning (more on that later) has opened my eyes to the freezer world. I make batches of made-from-scratch good food for the whole family. We enjoy such delicious things like pesto, homemade pizza sauce, peaches, pancakes with bananas. So many things! I eat so well now!
Legacy
The first was a celebration of a life well lived. There were stories about how he loved his wife, was smitten with her all of their 56 years together and treated her with great care. There was laughter as his grandchildren remembered visits with him. I left hoping that I could leave such a legacy behind.
The second was harder. I choked back tears the entire time, and thanked God for Soren, and prayed that I would never see the day his soul left Earth. There weren't stories about who Lyla loved, but there were stories about who loved her. And her legacy. I can tell you that the legacy she leaves behind is greater than many can hope to leave in 80 or 100 years. She has a story of faith, hope and waiting. She leaves behind parents who love her, and trusted God's plan. The loss of children is never easy, but with God on our side we get through it and have the hope of being reunited with them in heaven.
Lyla wasn't healed on this Earth, but found herself fully formed and perfect in the arms of her Creator who loves her more than we can comprehend.
I hope to leave the legacy she does when my time here is over. You can read Lyla Hope's story here.
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What You Didn't Know About Graphic Design
Warning. This post is a bit long. Sorry. I have a lot to say on the subject.
In the past couple of years I have seen a lot of articles talking about the worst majors/jobs to pursue. Always, the arts are listed. Really, only arts are listed. And every time I am mystified by the people making these lists and wonder what the basis for these lists come from.
So, I thought I'd clear the air on being a graphic designer. I hope you can learn some things that you didn't know about graphic design.
- Let's start with the beginning. Is it worth getting a degree to become a graphic designer? The short answer: YES. If you look at job requirements of various graphic design jobs, you will see that most require a BA in Graphic Design or related fields. With the competition out there for these jobs, a degree gives you a foot in the door. After that, a portfolio sets you apart from all of those who have their college diploma in hand.
You CAN be a freelance designer without a degree, but getting started with a small portfolio is difficult, and a completely different ball game.
- Income. True, graphic designers can start with a humble salary. But the truth is, my starting salary was SIGNIFICANTLY higher in graphic design than my husbands starting salary in Information Technology (we had the same amount of experience in our fields). And a lot less money was spent on my college degree than his.
- Money vs Happiness. I could have gone into accounting and made a lot more money, more quickly. I also know that I could have gone into accounting and felt like I was missing something. When I have considered making a career change due to the economic state, I have found that I would be so unhappy, and I truly enjoy graphic design. It is worth giving up some things I'd like to have to stay in graphic design. It has also allowed us to experience God's provision in difficult times (more than once God has provided when we thought we wouldn't be able to pay our bills).
I could go on about careers that bring in a lot of money after years of school and student loans. Or careers that don't bring in much money, but are so important to scientific development.
I have, also, realized how often people think these creative careers are to get out of certain skills such as math, grammar, science and so on. So here are some skills you might not know graphic designers should possess:
- An understanding of how people think. First, you have to decipher what a client is looking for. Most clients don't know how to word it. They'll throw out some words like "energy" or "corporate" or "clean," then you have to figure out what THEIR definition of those words are. You, then, must consider what grabs the clients of your client. There is a lot of psychology involved.
• Along with that, there is an understanding of how the brain reads and deciphers information that designers MUST possess.
- Grammar. I have proof read so many things! I have to catch spelling errors, misuse of commas and split infinitives. (Please, don't use the writing on this blog to judge my grasp of english grammar.)
- Creative writing. Ok, that's a bit deceiving. I don't have to write whole stories, but I do have to come up with clever slogans, using alliteration, puns and a lot of silliness. It's a completely different skill from visual creativity. I have to turn on a different part of my brain for those.
- Knowledge. I don't know how else to label it. If you work for a variety of companies, you gain a lot of knowledge about engineering, oil (especially in Houston), healthcare, fitness, fashion, hospitality. If you design for one company a lot, you begin to learn a lot about their particular field.
- Time Management. I know. You're saying, "everyone needs time management skills." True. Have you ever had to come up with a concept for an ad, get all content (including photos) from different sources, stay on brand, make sure all info is correct and spelled correctly, and have it sent to thousands of people in 5 minutes? This is a real example, though rare. Usually you get an hour.
- Business and entrepreneurship. The direction of your career depends on how much you need to know about business; someone who is an in-house designer needs to know just as much as anyone else working for a company. BUT someone who owns their own business must have great marketing skills, be able to sell, schmooze, mingle, negotiate and cold call. Truthfully, I hate all of these things. I like people, but I don't like trying to sell to them.
And while artists brains tick a bit differently than others, many of us are good in other random subjects. I'm quite good at math, especially algebra; I would happily solve algebra problems all day. My best friend, who is also a graphic designer, has some skills and interest in the sciences.
I hope you feel enlightened, and not bored. I, also, hope you aren't considering a career in graphic design, because I don't want more competition. ;) The next time you see/meet a graphic designer smile at them; we stare at computers A LOT!
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Mallory Nicole is a Texas based photographer raising her small family and dreaming of travel.
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