At CSULB, I teach Typography and Graphic Design classes. One thing I enjoy doing with my class is introducing them to the history of both by taking a field trip to the International Printing Museum. When you go to the museum, either as an individual or with a group, you get a guided tour through the museums display of antique printing equipment.

It starts with the museums Franklin press,
where Gary Mark Remson demonstrates the casting of type, and the quick cooling of type metal.

Then on to the reproduction Gutenberg press, where one of the students assists in helping to print a page of the Gutenberg Bible.

We also see the fancy Liberty press,


and everyone’s favorite, the Linotype.
(this photo is from an earlier date)

We then move across the parking lot to the Book Arts area, for some hands on printing. My morning class was having such fun printing, I had to kick them out for the afternoon class!


When you have never printed before, and are setting type, some funny accidents can occur, like this example- he was trying to spell “OH SHIP”, but “PIHS HO” he got it backward!


We al thought this was so funny, that it became our catch phrase for the semester, whenever something went wrong. On the day of the final one of the students brought in a silkscreen, and printed us all “PIHS HO” shirts.

Happy summer everyone!

Well my busy life was not to be outdone by Spring herself, who burst on the scene in a blaze of glory this past month. This ornamental cherry lives just off the back deck, and is always the first to remind me of the change of the season.


The blossoms are truly spectacular on a clear day. Look at that sky!


Further back in the yard, we have this wisteria covered arbor.


It not only looks good, it smells fabulous!

The cherry and the wisteria bloom simultaneously, and are separated by the new bright chartreuse leaves of the pin oak. You can see the oak a bit in the first picture, it all makes a great color combo.

We also have other flowers showing off this time of year, like this sweet pea bush.

I have one pea plant in the back by the wisteria arbor, and one out front by the artichoke.

Yes, we have artichokes now too. This is a stupendous plant if you live in the right climate. I cut it way back once a year, usually around November I think, and otherwise I ignore it, other than when I’m hungry. Unfortunately the kids now are old enough to realize the deliciousness of artichokes, and I have to share the bounty.

Speaking of lazy gardening (were we?), I didn’t bother ripping out the tomatoes last year, and they started producing again in March! One of the only times my laziness has been rewarded. Now if I can just pick them before the opossums steal them. Or is it Rats? Probably better not to think about it too much.


The oranges do make me happy to live where I do, and sad for my brother freezing in Brooklyn. Wait, they had a warm spell this week didn’t they? Ok. Oranges guilt free:


So there you go. A busy spring. We’re getting all caught up though. Really.

So I’ve been distracted and busy lately and have ideas swimming for blog posts, but no time to stop and get them down. This though, I just had to tell you all about. Friday, in celebration of Husband getting through another 2 weeks of employment, we made a treck out to Chris & Pitts Barbecue in Bellflower.


Now first notice the color scheme. You may not know this, but I am rather fond of a red and aqua blue color scheme.


Add to that the entire building is painted faux wood log cabin. LOVE that.


And then at night it is all lit up like Christmas. I love Christmas too.

These are the folks (sounds right to call ‘em that) that bring the BBQ sauce to your supermarket shelves. Anyhow, we had been there before, but it had been 8 years, and the recollection was dim. Well, let me tell you, if you haven’t been you need to go. Not only fabulous ribs, (bypass all the other nonsense, this is a BBQ joint after all, go for the ribs!) (I did make the mistake of ordering the chicken and rib combo, but next time: just ribs.) but also the best Vanilla shake I have EVER had. I was strategically placed between son Theo, (chocolate shake) and daughter Sadie (vanilla) and for a vanilla to trump a chocolate – well it was phenomenal. Seriously.

What are you waiting for? Go!

This story of our very, very, very, fine houe is a long winded one, and wasn’t easy to write about. The project took so long, and I had so many photos (and emotions) to sift through, it was hard to condense into a blog post. Here then, is the story of (mainly) the outside, and our decision to add a second floor.

In case you missed the beginning of the saga, where we bought this cute little bungalow, it is here.

And the part about the first practical and cosmetic renovations is here.

Which brings us to the crazy part of the story.

Knowing we needed a new roof, and a new kitchen, and a new foundation (the house was visibly sunk in the middle, and the kids toys kept rolling to one corner.) We thought, let’s go up!

We were a little nervous, because we hadn’t seen any remodeled bungalows that were done with any success, but we drove all over both Long Beach and Pasadena and took photos of original two story houses of the same era, and collected a couple dozen reprinted plan books to get design ideas from. I wanted to have the new house look original on the inside, as well as on the outside.

The first architect we tried using wanted to give me a great room, and just wasn’t getting the “old inside” concept, even when I would draw in a “breakfast nook” and give her dimensions, it wasn’t appearing on the plan. I think she was having her assistant draw the plans, which is fine, but not giving her our art direction, which wasn’t. I finally drew up the whole plan view of what we wanted for the upstairs and downstairs myself, in Adobe Illustrator, and gave it to her assistant to copy. (1 pica= 1 foot!) (I did take drafting in high school….) When she then seemed to have no ideas for elevations, (She did nothing, with the excuse that she didn’t know which way we wanted the ridge beam to run!) I respectfully parted ways. (And was told “You are never going to have it look original, the way you want it to” – so much for respect!)

At that point we had literally done all of the design ourselves, so we decided to hire a “Building Designer” to transfer my plan into CAD, hopefully do elevations, get the engineering done, and get it through the city. He attempted elevations, but apparently wanted to put every drag and drop CAD bungalow-ish window he could in the house. He had giant leaded glass Prairie Style windows, ones with little squares in all corners, traditional double hung, everything but anything that remotely resembled what we had originally, and were keeping, for the downstairs. By that time I knew what to do, and scanned in his elevation. Then using Photoshop, I covered everything he had done with shingle texture and began duplicating the downstairs windows and proportions, and creating banks of windows for the upstairs, also changing the roofline, and deck trim and pier in the process.
I then gave it back to the “Building Designer”, who looked at it and said “Yeah, thats what I was thinking.”
GRRR.

I’ll stop griping now, and move on to the construction.


First we had to pour a new foundation, which required taking off the siding, propping up the house, and digging a giant trench around it.
(The last thing I’ll say in regards to the “Building Designer” is that we parted ways about this time, because he had the engineering for the foundation done wrong, then tried to bill us to change it. Which wasn’t even cool.)

It was big fun for the kids and the mail lady to “walk the plank” to deliver the mail.
Oh, yes, did I fail to mention? We lived inside for the whole duration of the project.


So If you took my class at CSULB in 2003,4,or5, and I seemed a little crazy, it was because I was living in here.

With two small children.


And no privacy. (That’s my original bedroom. At least they threw a tarp over the bed.)

It was crazy.

We tried to cheer ourselves up by putting the kids art up over the drywall.

It was cold too. Tape, drywall, and plastic wrap really don’t keep out the cold and rain. And we had a lot of rain that winter. I have an awesome video of Sadie dancing in the rain (in the house) in her new fairy costume that Christmas, but sadly, it isn’t digital.

Eventually the framing began.

And eventually I became immune to the mess. Speaking of messes, our neighbor was not happy with how long the project was taking. One day I overheard her asking another neighbor if we had “run out of money”. (Drywall and tape is really not soundproof either. I could hear everything going on outside, like I was standing there with them.) We hadn’t run out of money. They say though you can get building done Right, Inexpensively, or Quickly, and if you are lucky you get 2 out of three. We chose Right and Inexpensive.

It had been 10 months up to this point. That surprises me now, because at the time it felt like it had been forever.

Framing goes pretty quickly, but left new hazards for the kids. The contractor used to give them a dime for every dropped nail they could find. This kept them busy many an afternoon.

It was a big day when the porch concrete was poured. Note the ghosting on the porch piers, (the horizontal line at the top) That’s how much the porch roof had to be raised, after 92 years of the porch piers settling. (About 5 inches!)


We had all of the new windows custom made by a company here in Long Beach who have been making them since the 20’s. I made them plan lists like this.

Finally, a year and 8 months after we had started, the siding began to go on.

The “belly band” detail on the house is one of my favorite parts. I am not ashamed to say we stole it from Greene and Greene’s Blacker House.

We wouldn’t see the upstairs shingled for another 4 months.
Why?
I have no idea, other than to say the tail end of a project takes the most time. Especially in our case, as we were planning to do all the interior finish work, including building all the cabinets, ourselves. We also wound up trimming all of the exterior windows, and putting up the deck rail ourselves. Ourselves being Dave and I.


You maybe wondering where the kids were during this whole time. I have to confess that we just let them play nearby, or gave them tasks to help. Theo had his own cordless electric drill at the age of 4. Really. Looking at a word book one day, he knew all of the tools, but nothing of normal kitchen stuff like spatula or mixer.
I haven’t really spoken of the kitchen situation during this period of my life, so I will give you these words:
George Foreman. Microwave.

It was a long haul, but two years and seven months after they first started digging the foundation, we were finally able to put in the landscape.

And the outside was done! We had turned 1200 square feet into about 2400, now had 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 2 sleeping porches upstairs, and still managed to keep the whole backyard intact. (I believe in preserving outdoor spaces.)

Of course the inside has it’s own story. One that again, I’m not quite sure how to approach. Room by room? Chronologically? Let me know your thoughts, and I’ll start sifting through the photo archives…

Isn’t this the best photo ever of my kids? This was shot up in Bishop, the week after Christmas, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

First – Christmas


Here are the kids, cozy in their jammies Christmas morning. We open our presents and stockings first, then Dave’s brother and sister and their families show up around eleven or so, and we get to do the whole thing over.


This Christmas we even had an awesome ukelele jam with Dave’s sister Erna, Sadie, and our niece Lisa.


Theo received a drum set from Daves brother’s family (it used to be Lisa’s – after the piano, and before the uke…) So he had his own “rockin” Christmas.

On the 24th I managed to bang out yet another birdhouse.

This one in the form of a skunk, for my skunk happy sister in law.

I also stitched up a Hello Kitty barette for niece Lisa.

The next day we left for my mom and stepdads house in Bishop, CA.

The kids had a fun week of playing in the snow,

Making cookies with grandma,

And we went up to Mammoth for a day of ice skating.

While at my moms house, I took a photo of this photo of one of my first Christmases:

That’s me on the left with the crossed eyes.
(Glasses for the next 12 years corrected that problem…)

I also took a photo of this photo of Theo’s first Christmas.
So cute, if a little blurry.

Then it was back home for a week of printing and sending out cards
(7 new wholesale accounts- YEA!)

Then came the crazy rainstorm week of 2010, where we who never get any weather had it up to our eyeballs, and hail to boot.

Dave got a month of work with Disney as an Imagineer around Christmas. That modeling project ended, then he had a week off and was called back for another week, and then that ended too. Hopefully this will not be the pattern for the year, but at least it’s better than nothing I suppose.

Now I go back to teaching, and juggling life, this Tuesday.
Wish me luck!

So many possible titles with this post:
Stockings hung with care! or How lovely are thy branches!
But really, all this Christmas decor just brings me loads of joy, and I can’t wait to share some of it with you.

First something I’m really quite proud of – the stockings!

These were made over the course of several years. Each is made with a different colored velvet for the background, and felt and beads and sequins all over.

I made Sadie’s beginning the year she was born, and finishing up the second year. Her design was the easiest, and I just came up with it off the top of my head. Then Theo was next, the images in his design I modified from pictures I saw on some wrapping paper. His took the next couple of years to complete.

Daves was started, but put on hold when we began our remodel
(and yes, it will be a New Years resolution to finish up that story I started way back when.)
So the year after we finished the house, I was determined to finish his, and I think mine too, which about killed me. (I finished at 4:00am on December 25th, having been up all night. I can be frighteningly determined when I set my mind to something.)

Daves stocking seemed like it should have Santa on it. The polar bears were an idea from yet more wrapping paper. My stocking idea is mice stitching up Christmas stockings. (That would be me you see, the creature stirring, bound and determined to have her stocking finished for Christmas morning).

So, there you have my lovely stockings, sewn with no pattern, but lots of love. Awww

Now for the joy that is my Christmas tree!

Swoony isn’t it?

I have a rule for the ornaments that go on the tree. They all have to be glass. The more precious go towards the top, to minimise the possibility of loss. (Isn’t that a nice way to put it? I couldn’t bring myself to type that B word.)

So here is some lovely close ups for you, because I just know someone out there is dying for a closer look.


The photo on the right shows Radko’s astropup, and is signed by the man himself. (My husband Dave used to work with a guy who was dating the mother of Christopher Radko’s god children. How is that for a convoluted connection? Anyhow, Dave got to meet him. He was apparently not interested in being our godfather.) On his right and left are two from Slavic Treasures. Blue horse is vintage.

The photo on the right has two vintage finds on the bottom. The frog is Slavic Treasures, and the Cootie I believe is a knock off of the S.T. Cootie line.


Here we have on the left a stupendous Slavic Treasures elephant, and bug. The fairy I bought at ABC Home in NYC. I love her glass wand!

On the right are two vintage cuties.


Here are two more examples of vintage goodness on the left.

This guy on the right we fondly refer to as “Tumor Head Clown”. He appears with yet another from Slavic Treasures, this time a cootie bug. they are waltzing below a vintage santa moon.

That is all the shots worth showing of the tree. Now I will leave you with the weeks craft project. The kids and I were so inspired by our birds we bought from In My Blue Room, that we thought we’d make some ourselves.


I made the one on the left, Sadie made the one in the middle, and Theo made the guy on the right. This was a three day project for us, and let me tell you, at the price I paid for the one I bought from I.M.B.R. it was a steal! They take a ton of work, but the kids were happy, I’m happy, and the birds…?

Super happy!

Merry Christmas everyone!

So I don’t know about the rest of you with kids, but sometimes this season can bring out the worst in mine. Perhaps it’s the excitement, perhaps they are just really hopped up on candy canes. Anyway, this weeks “naughty” came in the form of Theo spitting gum into his sisters hair. I heard the commotion as something like this:

S: Sniffle, sniffle, I’m telling mommy!
T: Just let me get it!
S: No! I’m going to mommy!

At which time I walked into the hall to see Sadie with gum in her hair, being chased by Theo, who was HOLDING SCISSORS!

As part of his punishment he had to write 5 reasons it is not a good idea to put gum in someone’s hair. In the true spirit of the season, I am now sharing that excellent piece of writing with you.


I just love this, I hope you do too. And if you are wondering, gum comes out of hair with a little peanut butter.

The mad dash from Thanksgiving to Christmas is always a crazy one isn’t it? I haven’t blogged in a while, so this is a bit of a catch up post. We have the holiday season parties, shopping, and cooking, as well as wrapping up the end of the semester at my work, and usually a kid school project or performance thrown in for good measure.


Thanksgiving was a small family affair. It was just the 4 of us, but I like getting out the fine china, (vintage Franciscan “Platinum Band”) and setting a pretty table.

The day after Thanksgiving when the rest of the world was out shopping, we started our “low budget black friday craft” of designing birdhouses. Each family member came up with their own design idea, and we cut them out of 1/4″ plywood. The kids each cut out their own, with some help from dad, and I was mainly in charge of the painting.


Sadie did a Gnome, Dave made a rocket,

Theo an apple with a worm, and I made an owl.

We wrapped them up for the Emery family Christmas party gift exchange. I think they were a hit!

Soon after, we took the kids for the annual trip to see Santa.

Sadie asked for a sleeping bag, while Theo for the second year told Santa to “surprise him”!!!

The next family project was a diorama Sadie needed to build of the Eastern Woodlands Indians. I don’t know if I have mentioned it before, but my husband is a Visual Effects Modeler for the movie industry, so he was able to show Sadie some tricks of the trade.

First he had her go use her Playmobil to set up what she had in mind. After a few hours in her room, this is what she came up with.

Awesome! The princess dome was a stand in for the wigwam, and notice the guys carrying the deer back from the hunt, and the spear fisherman.

Then it was time to recreate it.
My husband had her carve the hills and waterfall out of 6lb foam, and taught her some paint techniques including spray and washes. They also used spray glue to put down some “grass” of dry cilantro leaves. (It was the greenest herb I had in the pantry!)

I taught her to make indians out of pipe cleaners and sculpey clay. She went on to make bows, arrows, fish and pots. We also made corn and a deer out of pipe cleaners. For the wigwam, a palm tree mat was used over a cardboard base.

The end result was fantastic.



The night we were baking the sculpey indians, I was also getting ready to go to a “Julie and Julia” party. This is basically a party where you invite 6 friends, each is responsible for a different part of the meal, and cooks a Julia Childs recipe. You then eat while watching the movie. (our fine hostess set up the fine china on TV trays!) I was in charge of baking the dessert, and came across her Calfouti recipe here. I decided to make it with blueberries, which I already had (frozen) on hand.


I then took this amusing photo of the indians, hot from the oven sharing the stovetop with the start of my calfouti.


Here are more shots of the clafouti in progress. I finished it up with a dusting of powdered sugar on top. Seriously, if you ever need a delicious easy dessert, try this. It is unbelievably easy and SO good!

Yesterday we had the annual Dickens Day at the International Printing Museum. As museum volunteers, we help the patrons with some of the more simple presses to print christmas images. Theo and I were also the “poster children” for the event this year, as our (silly) photos made it into the Long Beach Press Telegram and the Daily Breeze.


Here is docent Marjorie Wilser demonstrating the 1850’s Parlour Press, and Museum Director Mark Barbour, dressed in Dickens era Holiday finery.

My fellow etsy seller In My Blue Room was selling holiday goods at the event as well, and I just couldn’t keep myself from buying these adorable birds, garbed in vintage scraps, fur and feathers. Notice the tiny skates around the neck of Mr Bird with their paperclip blade- too cute!

So that’s some of what we’ve been up to since Thanksgiving. I also had a couple more parties I attended, Finals for my classes at the university, and Sadie had a concert at school. Yes, it’s been a busy month.

Hopefully later this week I can get time to show you some of the holiday decorations, as the house is looking quite jolly!

So those of you who know me and mine know that my husband has been out of work since May. This being Thanksgiving week, I thought I would put a positive spin on a bad situation, and share with you what good has come out of this forced “time off”.

Project 1: Olie Olds

We are a bit of a car family. (That’s a bit of an understatement) My husbands recent car “favorite” is his 1956 Oldsmobile 88 convertible. We found it in Michigan through Hemmings Motor News and had it shipped here to California. It had a few dents, and some bubbling of the paint from rust in spots, but wasn’t half bad.


It originally was an all black color scheme, but somewhere along the way had been painted black and white. The interior also had been poorly and incorrectly redone, but it drove, it was cool, and we had fun in it for several years, always knowing Dave would eventually get around to it’s restoration. We had accumulated most of the necessary tools while he was still employed, he had the talent, and then suddenly had the time!


First he did all the body work, rust repair, and replaced the doors. Sanded. Sanded. Sanded.


Then primer, (more sanding) and paint, all of which he accomplished in the driveway. (Told you he has talent!)


Then it was off to the upholstery shop for new carpet, interior, and top.

Thanks to a tip from a friend we found a great shop to do the work, at a fraction of what some other shops were asking.


So now “Olie Olds” is looking beautiful, but sadly I didn’t even get a good finish shot of him before he was garaged for the winter so Dave could move on to…

Project 2: My Dream Car

So being that he is “car inclined” Dave has subscribed to Collectible Automobile magazine on and off over the years. Way back in August of 1993, (I know this because the issue is for sale on ebay right now) they did a feature on the Austin Atlantic. I saw it. I was smitten.

The Austin A90 Atlantic was a British car produced by the Austin Motor Company, and was designed specifically for the American market. Unfortunately it didn’t take hold in the states, and only about 350 of the 7981 produced were sold here between 1959 and 1952. (350! Thats it!)

Well, I never really thought I’d have one, or even see one for sale. In about 2002, we did see one for sale, and fairly close too, within driving distance anyway, but at that time we were just getting ready to start our house remodel. We tend to be wildly impractical at times, but even we thought it would be a bad idea to spend the money on a car when we had a house waiting for a second story.
(And yes, this is reminding me I need to get back to blogging about our house remodel someday.)
Anyway.
Dave wouldn’t even take me to go see it, because “If we see it we won’t be able NOT to buy it.”

Forward to about October of 2007, when another A90 surfaced on ebay. By then the house was more or less done, and a new project seemed like a fine idea.


We had her shipped from her former home in Fargo, North Dakota, and by November she was here!

In this photo you can see the beautiful lines of the car that I fell in love with. And notice the cool flying A’s on the fenders!


Speaking of fenders, they had to be removed to get at all the rust the car was unfortunately full of.


Rust was ground back, and in some cases cut away completely. Dave made patches, sometimes making cardboard templates first to insure proper fit.

Somehow he found a neighbor who had been itching to buy a welder, and didn’t mind if we used it first.

(Don’t you love neighbors like that?)

So this is where the project stands currently. Dave is still out back everyday keeping his sanity by throwing energy at the car, looking for jobs when the sun goes down.
And I’m still finding plenty to be thankful for!

So if you’ve poked around here at all, you might get the idea that I’m into vintage graphics. Especially vintage children’s graphics.
Well, right, and right again.

The internet is a wondrous place with a load of great imagery to sift through of course, but a jem of a website that I came across a few years ago is Kiddie Records Weekly. Basically once a week for about 4 years, these awesome people have been uploading a vintage children’s record, complete with graphics to this site. Not only can you have a look through their archive of album covers, but you can download or stream the audio files ABSOLUTELY FREE!!! How awesome is that? (Ok, I’m listening to the “Flying Mouse” as I type this)

Here are some of my favorite images found in the archives of Kiddie Records Weekly:

Say what you will about Disney, they have a long history of amazing graphics. “the Flying Mouse” and “Elmer Elephant” are two of my favorites.


I love the flat graphic quality of this Eagle and the Thrush cover. The birds of course are lovely, but the bunny and pie-head squirrel are equally great!

Grumpy Shark is awesome! Is it the illustration of the shark, the border or the color scheme? I don’t know, but I may be listening to this one next!

Here is a beautiful Christmas cover. I love the line art in the wings.

More freaky than anthropomorphic fruits and vegetables are these anthropomorphic clothes, shoes and socks. Look how happy the family is. You think they would run screaming. I mean my room is generally a mess, but when the clothes get up and dance by themselves, it is WAY PAST time to clean! (But a fine use of the typeface “Hobo”!)

This is another really outstanding cover. The juxtaposition of the line art with the filled in bear is really fabulous. And is the girl with the bear? I may need to listen to find out what is going on here.

After all of the brightly illustrated covers, this one stands out with it’s simplicity. A simply beautiful cover. And orange. With polka dots. And monkeys. What’s not to love?

Okay, those are my favorites. Now go download and listen to a few yourself!