Today's blog comes from David Ramsey, Central Library staff:

In this era of digital photography, when you are snapping shots of everything (because you can), what do you do with all those pictures? If you secret them away in a computer file, they are soon forgotten. And huddling around a monitor to see all those family photos isn’t everyone’s cup of tea.

However, if you compile those images into a printed book, you’ll have something unique to grace your coffee table. It is not an inexpensive venture - but think of the money saved by not having to print every picture before seeing it. There are local photo shops and online companies willing to help you and a new book in our collection to walk you through the process.

Create Your Own Photo Book is the new title by Petra Vogt. She starts by providing all the good reasons for making one and suggests project ideas. She gives an overview to photo albums in general and lists the pros and cons of working with different publishers and service providers.

Vogt goes into every aspect of production, including shooting and selecting pictures, scanning old images, and creating page backgrounds. She talks about the addition of text and graphic elements and provides tips for quality control. For those wanting to sell their work, she gives advice. The last chapter is devoted to concrete examples: 5 photo books using a number of the previously discussed publishers.

After a European trip with the Calgary Concert Band last summer, I discovered photo books and used an online publisher to compile my own. The cover of my book, on the left, shows a convent where the band festival was held reflected in a tuba. Above right, you can see some pictures from our tour of Rome. Note the natty airmail-paper border.

It was an interesting and rewarding project that produced a wonderful memento of my trip that is easy to share with family and friends.

- Dave

If you’re looking for quick ways to add a little pizzazz to your palace, check out the new title from Sunset: Make it Your Own Paint & Color: 50 easy weekend projects. For the most part, they mine familiar DIY veins; but some of their projects are eye catchers. All of them are well illustrated with step-by-step instructions. These are some of the things I liked the best:

• A painted stair runner pops some colour to the climb and coordinates with the area rug at the foot of the stairs.
• A pretty, girlie room has a floor painted with broad pink, rose and mauve stripes.
• The blackboard wall is a staple that is more or less attractive depending on what has been chalked onto the surface. Here they offer a formula for creating a chalkboard with any colour of paint and show a lively chalkboard wall in soft green-gray.
• A simple leafy branch is stenciled onto a plain white roller blind.
• Maps cover a wall like wallpaper in a patchwork pattern. (I’m always attracted to projects featuring maps.)

I’ve said it before and I still believe it: happiness is a can of paint and a brush.

- Jane

A dear friend recently celebrated a significant birthday which called for a gift up a notch or two from the usual cheesy trinkets I toss her way. She had often admired the home-made water fountain on my balcony; so I settled on the idea of making one for her.

She can’t manage storage for a large heavy pot like the one that forms the base of mine. Hence, I decided to look for smaller pots that would fit together and then disassemble for winter storage.

I gathered up parts from many places. The pump, two of the dish containers, flower pot and bamboo came from Golden Acre. I found the heavier vase-shaped pottery piece at the Crossroads market and a sack of polished black stones at Canadian Tire.

I cut the bamboo into suitable lengths with a handsaw and mitre box and lashed them together with garden twine that I had on hand. The piece of bamboo with the largest diameter became the spout which fit snuggly onto the plastic tubing (left over from building my own fountain).

You can find step-by-step instructions for fountain making in my earlier blog. From the picture, you can see that some of the parts function simply to make the fountain taller. The upper part, which is the heart of the fountain, could sit on a table top.

The Sunset book pictured above - our newest on the topic - includes a lovely container fountain on page 118 with a bamboo spout and a miniature umbrella water plant.

Recently, my friend told me that she has been rearranging the parts to give it more splashes, setting stones on the bamboo to prop up the spout. I like that. The best part about home-made fountains is you get to play with them.

- Jane

Today's blog comes from Candace Weir, Central Library staff:

How do you enthuse about a book that is black and white, except for the cover, when it is written about Matisse, a master of colour? Matisse on Art is a new book where the artist’s language provides the colour. It arrived at the Library at the same time as the lavishly illustrated new book, Picasso and Maria-Therese: l’amour fou.

What have the two books to do with one another? I believe that Picasso owed a great debt to Matisse. It was Matisse who wrote, “The effort needed to see things without distortion demands a kind of courage; and this courage is essential to the artist…” Both artists had a great deal of courage when it came to creating bold and innovative styles of expression with paint. It was like developing a new language and having to educate the viewers.

After all, paint is paint; it is never the object it represents. Therefore, it has to be true to the artist’s vision and not the preconceptions of the viewer. Matisse worked on some of his paintings through hundreds of hours until they arrived at a stage where they spoke truly to him. I believe that slowly and methodically Matisse broke down boundaries in art.

Learning from this approach to truth in painting, Picasso explored it through a prodigious number of works. Some of the most captivating were paintings of one of his mistresses, Maria Therese Walter. They remained remarkably gentle in ways that the paintings of his other mistresses – or wives – never did. These are just thoughts, but don’t take my word for it. Check it out for yourself.

- Candace

Have you heard the one about living in a place so small that you have to step outside to change your mind? Well Janet Lee has. She is the author of a new book, Living in a Nutshell: Posh and Portable Decorating Ideas for Small Spaces. Lee is an expert at finding or developing unusual DIY projects that make the most of little homes.

“In a nutshell, my mantra for small space design is to delight, dazzle and divert,” says Lee who describes herself as a serial small space nester. Her concept is to turn the quirky demands of small space living into appealing decorative features.

Got a refrigerator that lives in the hallway because there’s not enough room in the kitchen? Cover it with a pattern of vintage bottle caps and clover decals and drape a bold curtain that can make it disappear completely.

She wraps a file cabinet with adhesive plastic that mimics the pattern of expensive designer luggage. A folding screen wears a graphic stripe on one side and is hung with shoe bags on the other; it becomes an instant closet. Snappy orange industrial C-clamps are mounted on the edge of a shelf to hold coats, bags and umbrellas. A refurbished chair stores books; the ends of its legs are painted bright red to dance on top of a boldly patterned rug.

Where colour ends, whimsy begins. The heads of stuffed animals are mounted to make “faux taxidermy” and poetry peeks from mirrors.

These fun-filled projects are sure to bring joie de vivre to tiny rooms.

- Jane

Today's blog comes from Linda Bolstad, Central Library staff:

I went through a period a few years ago when I was quite obsessed with being green. My husband and I purchased a Smart car, installed solar hot-water heating and bought new energy-efficient appliances and low-flush toilets. We got an energy audit done on our home which led to a new efficient furnace and triple pane, low-e argon filled windows.

I refused to go on a holiday that involved air travel because that was one of the worst things you could do in terms of participating in the emission of greenhouse gasses. I tried to use public transit as much as possible and planned the use of my car so I could do many of my errands during the same trip. I stopped using my dryer and began hanging our laundry to dry. I continually hunted for ways to reduce my eco-footprint.

Well, lately, I’ve decided to lighten up. In the past months, I have used the dryer a few times. My mother is in a care facility where I drive to visit and take her out two or three times a week; so I often end up driving from there to work.

We’ve also come to realize that some of our sustainable choices are not as great as we thought they would be. Our solar hot-water system has not really saved us much as we don’t use a huge amount of hot water – mostly because our new energy efficient washing machine and dishwasher pre-heat the water! Those planes are still flying whether I’m in them or not.

Do I think it is still important to be green? Of course, but in what I would call a gentle, non-obsessive way.

Here are some books which may interest the eco-friendly crowd:

Green Interior Design by Lori Dennis

Green Decorating & Remodeling by Heather Paper

David Suzuki’s Green Guide by David Suzuki and David R. Boyd

Green Made Easy: the Everyday Guide for Transitioning to a Green Lifestyle by Chris Prelitz

- Linda

I have a wardrobe of accessories for my home that I change seasonally or according to mood. The backbone of my décor is neutral to allow me to do this. My rationale is that I wouldn’t wear the same blouse or scarf every day and that is exactly how I feel about cushion covers.

It does, however, make me an uneasy participant in consumer culture. When you review the shelter magazines regularly, as I do, you trip across “must-have” lists of new items that are intended to inform you about current trends and surely keep their advertisers happy.

There was a time when I asked my Mom’s opinion about a new acquisition that I thought made a vast improvement to my décor. She replied, “It’s not better or worse, just different.” Initially, I was dismayed by her response. Now, it seems to me that it is a good yardstick for judging proposed change.

I am ready to spend more money to do things that make an improvement; but I’m less enthusiastic about dropping big bucks just to make it different. That’s where flea markets, second-hand shops and discount stores come in.

Dan Ariely, Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics writes about “The Hedonic Treadmill” in his fascinating book, The Upside of Irrationality. Apparently, it is hedonic adaptation that causes us to tire – or fail to notice – things that once delighted. A good read for anyone contemplating major purchases.

PS Don’t you just love the new shawl draping my chair? $15.00 from Winners. And, by the way, it’s a rhetorical question.

- Jane

Today's blog comes from Candace Weir, Central Library staff:

Who doesn’t dream of a secret hideaway in some remote spot, where you are surrounded by the beauty of nature? More fodder for those dreams is encapsulated in one small book entitled Under Arizona Skies: the apprenticeship desert shelters at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesen West.

It starts, “Tucked away in the desert surrounding Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West is a landscape of architectural experiments.” For seventy- five years, students from the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture at Taliesen West have been building and living in experimental designs. Conceived as an alternative to dormitory rooms, they are spaces where students can experience the natural environment and learn to design in response to it.

Some of the more adventurous students have taken the miniscule start-up money provided by the school. Then, they scrounged materials from the School junkyard, from the surrounding desert or found builders to donate materials for these fascinating little shelters.

Some of the shelters are identified by the name or nationality of the builder like Lath Shelter or Japanese Shelter. Other names refer to the type of structure or place like Desert Perch, Lotus and Ironwood. The Brittlebush Shelter really caught my eye with its graceful amorphous canvas roof, elevated sleeping platform and fireplace. I also found a blog which offers an in depth perspective to the design.

It is nice to dream and maybe plot and plan. How lovely it would be to live in a climate where an open-sided tent seems like a great idea for most of the year. Sigh.

- Candace

Many of our new books are beautiful. In fact, that’s the norm in the Arts Department at Central. But, from time to time, we get bizarre and goofy too and that’s a lot of fun.

Susie Says is an adult picture book by photographer and doll collector Gina Garan. Garan takes a 70’s fashion doll, “Susie Sad Eyes”, dresses her up – and down – and takes her on the town. Or to the beach, the park and the mountains. Mostly it’s urban Susie; but some of her streets are mean ones.

At times she’s ravishing with glamorous outfits, big hair and makeup. She has outings with cute friends to happy places with sunny skies. Other times she’s wasted and hung over. But she’s never short of pop philosophy.

The words of wisdom come from performer Justin Vivian Bond who supplies Susie with a voice to suit the outfits and the setting. Susie’s outlook ranges from cheery and optimistic to wistful and gloomy whenever she trips over life's hard truths. Her impressive mood swings are a large part of the appeal.

Garan has made a career out of vintage fashion dolls and has collaborated on the design and production of several new ones. If you enjoy Susie, check out Blythe.

-Jane

I love the beautiful decorating books in our collection and enjoy reviewing the new ones. Many of them are glossy and shallow confections which I still appreciate if I like the design style portrayed. A picture says a thousand words and all that.

Every now and again, one of the pretty ones offers a little more than I expected and that’s a treat. Like this one.

Bringing Nature Home is a new book about flower arrangement that combines the talents of a lifestyle photographer with floral and prop arrangers.

They have chosen common flowers from garden and meadow, arranged them with inspired simplicity and placed them in lovely, uncomplicated room settings which are as intriguing as the arrangements.

As well, they provide information about the historical cultivation of the flowers and their place in art and literature.

A graceful branch of bleeding heart is tucked into each of a pair of modern white vases that complement an art grouping. Bleeding heart is combined with daffodils, pansies and Solomon’s seal for another charming kitchen bouquet. You see it again mixed with tulips, crab apple blossoms and geranium leaves in a sturdy pottery container set on an end table.

Along the way you learn, among other things, that there are more than 25,000 cultivars of daffodils and have been reminded of a famous Wordsworth poem.

The book is a beautiful page turner with arrangements organized by season. And it all looks so effortless.

“This would make a great gift book,” said Janet, an Arts Department colleague. I agree.

- Jane