Let the countdown to Homecoming begin!

I finally bought my plane ticket to go back to OU for Homecoming, and in the wise words of Becca Warhola, "It's my thing to look forward to."

While I am loving Des Moines, and my new life here, it is still difficult to leave behind my life as a student and Young Life leader at OU.  The past 18-ish years of my life have been spent in the structure that comes with being a student, but in June, that phase of my life came to an end- at least for now. For the first time in my life, I do not have a timetable for the next phase, and I will admit: that's pretty scary. 

When I thought hypothetically about where my life would be going after graduation, it was exciting to think about the lack of boundaries I would have. I could go anywhere and do anything.  But that was all hypothetical.  Now it's real. I could go anywhere and do anything. Sounds exciting, right? Maybe it should be, but I find it a bit terrifying.

For the most part, I have always known what the next year would hold for me. I knew how long it would take me to finish high school. I knew that after high school I would go to college. I knew (or assumed and prayed) that I would finish college in 4 years, and then begin my job search. Now I only know what I am doing right now. I know that I am currently living in Des Moines, Iowa working as a newspaper designer.  There is no roadmap or Cliff's Notes for my life.  Although, I guess it has always been that way.  I could have been in an accident that prevented me from graduating high school or run into financial troubles that forced me to complete college in 5 years instead of 4.  These things were never "givens," but I had assumed they were. Life seems so much more real now.

I actually don't mind working eight hours every day. I expected that to be a lot more of a shock to my body than it turned out to be.  I was ready to be done with school and put all my learning to practical use.  The most difficult thing about moving into this next phase is that my friends aren't as accesible as they have been for the past 4 years.  I don't live within a half square mile of everyone I would possibly want to hang out with, and I don't have time to hang out until 4 a.m. every night of the week, or any night for that matter.

I'm still trying to get into a rhythm with my daily schedule. Working nights can be difficult because my schedule is the exact opposite of most people's, which means that when I'm not at work, everyone else is, and vice versa. I sleep a lot, and I go shopping a lot.

It's not that I'm lonely, just lonelier.  Over the past few years, I have become accustomed to hanging out with my friends every day, but no matter what career or life choices I made, this was going to end when I graduated college.  I miss hanging out with no particular plan- wandering into 11 Stewart Street, knowing that there would be a friend or two or ten or thirty sitting in the living room.  I spent at least 25% of all my time in college at this house, and probably 75% of my best memories took place there. Where else would you find someone over the age of five drawing cat whiskers on their face with a marker completely sober (and it wasn't Halloween either)? In fact, the summer before senior year, I definitely spent more time at 11 Stew than I did at my own house. Way more.

I have been so lucky to have this place and the people that frequented it in my life. It was my source of entertainment,  my method of procrastination, my support system, my home and family away from home. Life is a lot different without it, but more importantly, my life is different because of it. So here's a shout-out to everyone who's ever been in that house: I love and miss the crap out of you, and am so, so, so grateful for you. To the people who live there: Thanks for the enormous sacrifice of privacy, alone time, and peace and quiet you have made by opening your home. It is so much more than the typical, structurally questionable college house. You preached the Gospel through your hospitality, showing Christ's love to everyone who walked through the door. Way to be.

"They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved." Acts 2:42-47

Never have I seen this lived out so well.

So let the countdown to Homecoming begin! 15 days...

I've been playing with pen and watercolor sketches lately, so here's an early one. I bugged my friend Tim repeatedly to send me a picture of his house, which he finally did, but then of course I accidentally deleted the text before I did the drawing. Therefore, this one's from memory, so it's not quite right, but close enough!

Whew, that was a long one!

Fun fact: A middle school teacher once offered me a whole bucket of candy not to talk for the rest of the day. I talk that much. (And yes, I did it.)

On today's episode of Crafting Redemption...

You may well remember my last attempt at painting furniture. I do. It's still sitting in my garage. Despite my previous epic disaster, I decided to try again.

I had been looking for something unique to serve as my bedside table, and found this perfect little cabinet at a great place in the East Village called Found Things (http://foundthingsdsm.com/). I could spend hours wandering around in there.  The cabinet was just what I was looking for. It was clearly homemade, and the wood was unfinished with a few marks on it, so I thought it would be perfect to paint. First I sanded the cabinet, wiped it down with a damp cloth, and let it dry. Then I began to paint it with a paint/primer mix that I had made at Home Depot. It's a little hard to tell from the photos, but it's seafoam green. It's a nice accent to the black and white of the rest of my room.

I was shocked that it turned out so well. It's the perfect place to set my books, phone, glasses, etc. down at night. It's definitely better than the pile of stuff that was accumulating on the floor next to my bed.

On the other side of my bed I have a much simpler, but still fun project.  I bought this bookshelf at Target, and put it together. Before I nailed on the backing, I Mod Podged scrapbook paper onto it. Easy and adds a bit of color!

   

Two successful projects. Ahhh...Redemption.

Some Recent Pages

Still trucking away in Des Moines!

Here are some more front pages that I've designed over the past few weeks.

___

This page might be my favorite I've done so far.  It is definitely right up there with the "Splash" page. Kind of a fun story about a father and daughter who have been riding bikes together for 20 years.

This page had pretty uninteresting art- a static family portrait. It was a pretty interesting story about three young brothers who have all decided to be Catholic priests, which is very rare these days, so I wanted to do something more interesting with the treatment than just running the portrait.

I thought these two bad-ass fourth graders deserved a pretty bad-ass design.

A Treasure Hunt!

So I've been in Des Moines for about a month now, and I have been meaning to take a day to just wander around the city with no particular itinerary.  I was waiting to choose a day that was a nice walking around kind of day, but clearly after a straight month of 100 degree weather, that's not going to happen anytime soon.  So I thought, what the heck- I'll go today.

I started wandering around the East Village, a great area that has a lot of boutiques and interesting shops.  I went to a few really neat antique and vintage shops in which I could easily spend hours upon hours exploring.  I had a few good finds, including:

an old rake head which is now holding jewelry in my bathroom

some awesome old printing press letter blocks

(of course I spelled out my name-What else?)

And a print from the coolest store I've ever been in

The store is called Domestica, and it sells all kinds of jewelry and accessories, but mostly they sell really neat prints.  I spent so much time in there, but only walked out with one print because I was so overwhelmed by the sheer awesomeness of the place.  There were so many to choose from, and as much as I'd like to, I can't buy them all.  So I chose a small one that I liked for now.  I will definitely be back.

Here is their website:
http://www.ilovedomestica.com/

Here are some of my personal favorites:
http://domesticaprint.bigcartel.com/product/blue-edition-artcrank-2010-basemint-design

http://domesticaprint.bigcartel.com/product/usa-map-hey-day-collective
http://domesticaprint.bigcartel.com/product/andrew-bird-boats-methane-studios
http://domesticaprint.bigcartel.com/product/it-s-not-that-far-really-postcard-rar-rar-press
http://domesticaprint.bigcartel.com/product/peacock-methane-studios

Either the map or the blue bike art will probably be adorning the walls of my room soon...

A challenge

My junior year of college I took my first newpaper design class.  Let me tell you- I was not looking forward to it.  Everything about newspaper design to me said boring, boring, boring.  When I thought of newspapers, I thought gray and boxes.  That's it.  I remember on the first day of class our professor, the wonderful Julie Elman, said that in the past she has had many students who began the class completely uninterested in newspaper design, but left loving it.  Of course I thought, "Well that certainly won't be me."  Technically, it wasn't me- yet.  It took another year before I realized it, but I did fall in love with newspaper.

I am incredibly competitive, and I love a challenge.  Winning is thrilling.  That's what newspaper design is- a challenge.  Finding a way to make newspaper design not gray and boxes is a challenge, and it is what makes my job so fun.  Some days are more challenging than others.  Like days when your A1 centerpiece art is 3 photos of dogs that look like they were shot with the first camera ever made and are all cropped in the strangest ways possible.  Finding a unique solution to this challenge is exciting.  And on top of that, each day is a new page, a new challenge.  If you fail one day, it's okay because you get to do it again tomorrow.

Also, I think it's making me better at puzzles.

The paper I work on the most often is The Fond du Lac (that's in Wisconsin) Reporter. 

Here are some of my pages from the past couple of weeks:

This "splash" page was really fun.  I love how the water is spilling over into the other stories.  It's surprising.  I was given decent art, but wanted to do something a little crazy. Hence, the giant splash of water over the whole page.  I also worked with the editors to write a new headline to echo the feel of the rest of the page.  Fun

I thought the art for the story was pretty cool- great colors, interesting content.  The story was about a world Atlatl competition.  It's similar to javelin throwing, but using a thing called an atlatl, which is an ancient Aztec hunting tool dating back 25,000 years.  The headline was pretty basic, so again I worked with the editors to create a head and subhead that would fit with the feel of the art.  I thought the most interesting aspect of the story was the backstory and uniqueness of the atlatl rather than the competition itself, so we worked with that angle.

Day 6: Make Life Colorful

Day 5: Happy Independence Day!

It's been forever since I've posted a hand-lettered thing, but I WILL NOT LET THIS PROJECT DIE!  

Happy Independence Day everybody! (Please excuse the typos, er, write-os?)