Hasta La Ideas

Tomorrow’s my last day at home/work before we all take off (yet again!) for another trip. This time to Seattle to celebrate the launch of dottie angel. I can’t believe how quickly the year has gone since Finley, Glen and I first met Tif and her family at Mossy Shed.

When I look back at the 18 months since Finley was born, I can scarcely believe at how much the magazine has grown (let alone my baby boy!)… and that I’ve also released FOUR books: The Elegant Cockroach, Work/Life 2, A Collection a Day and dottie angel. That’s over 1600 pages of content. People often ask “How do you do it?” The answer is simple and difficult at the same time. I just do. Each magazine issue, each book, has its own set of steps. If I just do one thing, then the next, and the next… just keep going and it will get done. Some of the steps are easy and joyful (design, editing, creating), other steps are long, arduous, stressful and not much fun at all (logistics, bills, shipping). But even when the steps seem painfully impossible, I know that if I just push my way through, things will get done. And so even getting one step done in the long process becomes a reward in itself.

Publishing UPPERCASE magazine and creating books is the road that I’m on. I am happy to be on it! Though I am grateful that I started on this path before having a baby. Being the owner of your own business has the benefit of flexibility. My workspace and worktime have been adjustable (for the first year, I designed the magazine, Cockroach, Work/Life 2 and Collection a Day from my basement at odd fits and spurts between feedings, playing and changings.) Glen and I juggle our creative work time with looking after our child; having a supportive partner like Glen makes my work possible. (Glen has been working hard, too—he has finished writing the first draft of his second novel!)

In some ways, I think that I have pushed myself so hard in a creative and business sense because I had a baby. I did not want motherhood to impede my own pursuits and I set out to prove it to myself. My child benefits from a mother who is creatively challenged—and happier for it. Though I would really like to reduce my to-do list (and assign some of those steps to someone else) to free up more time for thinking, musing, planning, playing, making and doing nothing. Indeed, finding that help is a step coming up on my list.

Step one? Spend a lovely few days in Seattle with my great little family, the wonderful Tif and her clan… rest, relax and have a well-deserved vacation.

If you’re in the Seattle area this Friday, please do come by Assemble and visit.

A digital mockup of the front of the book launch invitation

(Oh, and out of curiosity I’m also going to check out what “big” publishers do and attend the Design*Sponge book release celebration at Anthropologie the night before.)

The dottie angel book has many extra little details that make it very special—and labour-intensive. The stitched scalloped-edge postcards adhered to each cover had to be stitched by machine. With a print run of 3000, that’s a lot of stitches! Over 3km of stitches, actually!

Thank you so much to my mom and to Paige for taking on this arduous task. Mom stitched her way through 2200 postcards, so chances are high that the book you order will be her stitches on the cover.

Above are some images of my mother’s workspace which is just off the family room. The sewing area is designed to fold up and fit behind a closet door, but I can only recall a handful of times when it has been completely stowed away. Which is a good thing because my Mom always has a project in the works.

She recently put up a flannel wall so that she can view her quilts in progress:

Below is a hand-hooked rug that she made. It is one of my favourites; I like the graphic design and use of black.

My Dad holds up a recently completed quilt (he’s got quite the wingspan!:

Finley admires some flowers:

Thank you again to my skilled, talented and hard-working mom.

I’m definitely a collector at heart, which is why Lisa Congdon’s A Collection a Day blog in which she posted a special arrangement of one of her many collections throughout 2010 was such an inspiration. It was so inspiring that I asked Lisa if we could collaborate and turn the web project into a book!

What you might not know is that I procrastinated in contacting Lisa for quite a while. I was expecting a baby and just figured Lisa’s idea was so good that surely a big-name publisher would just scoop it up! My entrepreneurial and design drive weren’t yet dampened by late-night feedings, so I emailed Lisa with my book proposal. I was honoured that she preferred to work with me rather than any other publisher and that we shared a similar vision of what the book could be.

Since Lisa would be busy completing her online project until December 31, 2010, I figured that when the time came for me to design the book, I’d be accustomed to motherhood and it wouldn’t be too difficult to get it all done. I’d design it late that year and just add the final pages in January and off it would go to the printer! Sounded simple enough.

What I didn’t anticipate is that after the initial getting-to-know-you months of having a new baby, and the few months of exquisite babyness in which they lay happily on the ground and stay in one place, is that the growth and development rate is incredible! I would just get used to one stage, and Finley would quickly be on to the next one… rolling over, crawling, standing… walking!

Designing the quarterly magazine plus committing to publish four books (The Elegant Cockroach in October 2010, Work/Life 2 and A Collection a Day in Spring 2011, and The Suitcase Series Volume 2: dottie angel for later this summer) and being a new mom has been a challenge and then some. I’m still in awe that I’m getting the job done—and proud that everything that I’ve released is very high quality, unique to UPPERCASE and most definitely a labour of love.

A Collection a Day and its collectible tin are highlights in my career as a designer and publisher. I hope you’ll decide to add them to your own collection of books. (Available in the online shop here.)

There have been some late nights (and some crying), but the first 16 months of managing a business and mothering a baby have gone pretty well. I think a lot of newcomers to UPPERCASE don’t know that it is still essentially a one-woman operation. (But believe me, I’m exhausted.) Over the next months, I hope to get more help in managing the logistics side of publishing—distribution, circulation, subscriptions—since there really is way too much work for one person to handle, especially since I don’t have as much time as I used to. UPPERCASE is my baby, but it’s getting too heavy to hold on my own.

Anyway—back to A Collection a Day! We’re having a summer blog tour! What better season to start a collection or two? With flea markets and garage sales (and more time for eBay?) now’s the time to add to your collections or start a new one.

Thank you to the following blogs who are part of the tour so far (email me if you already have your copy and have posted about the book and you want to be part of the tour!):

July 6 Design for Mankind
July 13 Cafe Cartolina
July 20 DesignWorkLife
July 27 Poppytalk
August 3 sfgirlbybay

A Collection a Day can be purchased right here. thanks!

Cover illustration by Work/Life 2 participant Andrea D’Aquino

Sorry for the blog silence these past ten days, but I have been a busy busy bee. After returning home from San Francisco (to more snow, ugh!), I have been steadily designing the forthcoming spring issue, number 9. NINE! hard to believe that we’re almost into double digits…

Today was nice and sunny and the snow is starting to melt. And even better, the files have been uploaded to the printer! Please be patient with me as the magazine works its way through prepress, proofing, printing, binding, inserting, mailing… It will be a few weeks yet before this issue is complete in all its print glory. In the meantime, please subscribe/renew so that your name will be on the master mailing list and you’ll be first in line to receive it.

Here’s a synopsis of Issue 9:

Food provides us with so much more than basic survival. From harvesting your own vegetables, shopping at the local farmer’s market or cooking a homemade meal—the day-to-day involvement in the gathering and preparation of food can be delicious and fun. For many, though, a love of food is taken to other creative levels. Through packaging design, food-inspired photographic pursuits, gardening, sumptuous cookbooks or even blogging about what you just ate, we celebrate your passion for the edible. We hope to whet your creative appetite with this food and gardening-inspired issue!

Also coming up: Work/Life 2 is now shipping and the book launch is slated for April 7 from 5-9pm as part of the First Thursday celebrations.

Lisa Congdon’s A Collection a Day will be shipping in April but when exactly is still to be determined. Soon!

Tif Fussell is off visiting her English homeland, but I have the pleasure of reading through her first draft of the Suitcase Series Volume 2: dottie angel while she is away. Tif and I are both very excited that Emily Chalmers will be penning the foreword! I’ve just purchased Emily’s latest book, Modern Vintage Style, and can’t wait to spend time with it.

Each and every book and magazine issue is a deeply personal experience for me. I put everything I’ve got—and then some—into creating things that I am proud to publish. The year so far has tested my abilities and energy on all fronts with two books and two magazine issues to complete in the past four months! Working from home has meant fitting projects in between the activities of motherhood. My baby is now one and quickly switching gears into toddlerhood… there’s a lot manage around here. Thank you to Glen for being so helpful and letting me head down into the basement to get things done. You make the impossible possible.

With issue 9 off to production and (hopefully) a bit more time to breathe, I look forward to springtime with my family. I’ll still be a busy bee—it’s just my nature—but I plan on making time to smell the flowers.

Finley made this arrangement of objects all on his own.

But this was my doing: