Monday, January 23, 2012

Current Projects

I always have a few projects on the go, things I do when I have downtime. Last week that time was dominated by decluttering and culling while SJ was away. Now the apartment is in a decent base state of organisaion I can get stuck into a few projects.



Project 1 - Photo for the Walls

Our walls are so bare. We've intended to take photographs to put on the walls (wanting local Melbourne landmarks) but haven't gotten around to it yet. Photos for the walls are now a priority. I have started looking through our extensive collection from our travels and hope to find something soon and get it printed on vinyl. I love this one from The Wall Sticker Company, my thought is I can get 3 pictures 130x80 and then cut them up myself. Much cheaper than their smaller sized options. Just have to decide on and appropriately edit the pictures. My biggest issue is that we have a lot of great pictures but they are dominated by either blue/green (lots of landscapes) or orange (from our NT adventures). Since the apartment is black and white with splashes of red, I think we need a black and white print...so I'm searching for good photos with high contrast. Harder than it sounds, a lot of my favourite photos aren't the same without their colour...like this one for instance...
Which also reminds me, I do want to post some of my previous travels on here. Really should get around to that.

SJ and I are also considering a full wall height picture that will be a mosaic of a lot of our family photos. I'm stuck for ideas for displaying them otherwise when we have no table space and can't put hooks into the wall (considered the removable ones but I think I like the idea of vinyl better).
  
Project 2 - Photobooks

I made a great photobook of my Europe trip and it has become a great way to share my photos with family/friends (even though my trip was years ago). It has helped me to appreciate how bad we are at sharing photographs now everything is digital. So I want to make more photobooks, one per year of all the little places and things we do. Figure our future kids will thank us for it. Still deciding if I should start with 2011 (no big trips, most recent memories) or 2009 (3 big trips and lots to talk about). Stay tuned :-)

Project 3 - Historial Timeline

This is joint project for SJ and I. And a long term one (literally and figuratively haha). In the last few months we have started discussing 'when things happened' and have been trying to put things inot perpective. This has come about mostly from watching (the TV series) Hornblower and listening to a few audiobooks (Scarlet Pimpernel and Pride and Prejudice) and trying to work out how far apart they all were. And comparing them to other books and movies we've seen.

If you're interested, Hornblower is based between 1793-early 1800s, Scarlet Pimpernel is set in 1792 and Pride and Prejudice was published in 1813 but set 'at the turn of the 19th Century).

So the idea came about that we should put together a timeline of historical events and add to it fictional events. Firstly because it would help everything make sense, but mostly because it will be fun.

We're such geeks.

So I started this a little last week while SJ was away, put together a spreadsheet of the centuries and made a few columns for different categories. So far it looks like this...
I imagine it will take us quite a while to put together our little database. Then, we ultimately want to be able to represent it graphically and put it on the wall...though it might take up the whole length of the room :-S

And the future mother in me is seeing how something like this could be really educational for helping a child born into the modern technical age understand how long ago it wasn't that things were so very different. It really does blow your mind.

9 comments:

  1. Dude. That historical timeline idea is GENIUS. Also, I now want to watch Hornblower. But my brother has it :( Also also, that photo of the Houses of Parliament is so pretty!

    Oh, and if you need any help filling in the Australian colonial history bits of the timeline, let me know! :)

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    1. Well do you have any suggestions? Feel free to email me (missdirections@gmail.com) since we're not really sure what to add yet and will probably google an awful lot.

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  2. The timeline sounds brilliant! What a great idea.

    I love photo books too. They are definitely worth the effort!

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  3. You have just inspired me to put together a photo book of my pregnancy for my bubba.
    And I think your timeline idea rocks!! I'd love one for my wall!

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    1. I think that's a great idea. I love the old school album my mother made for my first few years. I do feel bad for kids who can't access their histories easily.

      I also love the idea of a personal one, written to your baby. Great if you can express how you feel at different stages of pregnancy/their life :-)

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  4. That's a gorgeous photo!

    I've got a little stack of canvas prints that we don't currently have room for, just awaiting the purchase of my new house so they can go on display!

    My favourite newest one is a Melbourne landscape of a different kind - it's an alley way covered in graffiti with skips lining it also graffiti'ed to the max! Liam is an avid graf art fan, so we decided to get some printed onto canvas :)

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    1. Oooh that picture sounds awesome :-) Something like that was our original thoughts for our wall. And the Royal Ex Building, it's my favourite. Also thought of photographing oursevles in the distance in shots, me wearing a red jacket, and b&w everything but the jacket.

      We probably should still do something like that.

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    2. Liam's folks have something like that on their wall! It's a picture in Bali, where they go on holiday once a year. There's this long pathway, and way in the distance you can see the two of them walking along holding hands. It's really sweet!

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