This is the summer issue of the Embroidery magazine. It is the second issue that I’m involved in making and it shows this time. Just look at that cover! I love the theme, which is The Creative Process, a theme that I feel very close to. I wrote an article about what is involved in our creative process. I did a lot of research and tried to say something profound, but felt that writing about this huge subject was difficult. I wanted to say so much, and it made me I feel I knew nothing about the creative process. I was very happy when I finally finished that piece. I managed to put something together, but I will have to return to the subject again.

I also took the cover photo. I illustrated the theme with items of creativity in this photo and I think it turned out quite cool.

I staged the photo on the table, and in it you can see quite a few of the ingredients I think are important to the creative process. Even music (my pink head phones) and nature (the vase of flowers) are represented in the photo, all important to inspiration and creating.

I also put together a page with books about creativity that might inspire to research the subject further, mentioning (among many others) Danny Gregory’s books and Julia Caprara’s Exploring colour that I wrote a whole article about:

To collect colour, an article about one of my favorite inspiration books. After reading it I continue to explore colours and think about them in different ways. Recently I’ve even made a new blog category called Exploring Colour. Categories help you find topic’s you’re interested in and me to feel more organized.

Here are a few more pages from Broderiakademin’s magazine (not written by me):

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A computer terminal is not some clunky old television with a typewriter in front of it. It is an interface where the mind and body can connect with the universe and move bits of it about.
Douglas Adams

Do you read the e-zine The Art Journal Journey? You should, it is really cool. I feel some of the pages are quite busy, but the content is inspirational and fun. I got a free issue a while back because I’m published in it. Marney emailed me and asked to include my blog post about Black backgrounds.

The May issue (#18) is over sixty pages jam packed with goodness, tutorials, articles and inspiration. This e-zine is created by Marney Makridakis of magic Artella Land. In the shop you can also find other art related publications.

The zine is all about ART: A - Advice and Inspiration for Creative Well-Being, R - Resources for Art Journalers (featuring product reviews especially relevant for art journalers) and T - Tools, Tips, and Techniques for Your Pages. It’s available for 7 USD from

I really like the information tag Try this that you find on quite a few pages. Including “paper looking” items in print is so cool, I want to experiment with that in some form soon.

After being published in the book Craft Corp I think I need to be adding a page to the blog where I show all the various places that I am published at. I am always impressed and quite jealous when I see those kind of pages, but now the iHannaness is spreading in the world. I feel proud because mostly it has been me sticking out my nose and saying; Hey, look at what I’ve got!

Though sometimes you are asked to be featured, and that is an honor in its own way, knowing people like what you do. I only wish “the asking” would be followed by a pay check. That would be even more nice.

Schmap app

A while back I got a flickr message that a company wanted to use a photo of mine in their “app”. I did not get payed but my name and a link to my flickr page is featured with the photo, so I thought it was a fun thing to say yes to. My photo is from the Day of the Dead exhibition at Etnografiska in Stockholm. It is now featured in the app Schmap that I think you can download for free to your iPhone if you are a lucky owner (I wish i was!).

Schmap has lots of maps in apps, this one is of Stockholm. Rather neat, huh?

If you are coming to visit the capital of Sweden, Stockholm, you should read iHanna’s guide to Stockholm (with just a few of my favorite places), and also Decor8’s great Stockholm guide by guest poster Joanna Swanson. Recommended!

How long have you been Art Journaling? My answer:

I started Art Journaling shortly after starting my blog back in 2004. It was then I entered into the magic new world of online creativity, craft, art and mixed media adventure. I bought Lynne Perrella’s beautiful book Artists’ Journals and Sketchbooks from Amazon and read it several times before I jumped in and started my first art journal, a big spiral bound book that was filled with sturdy papers.

Read the rest of the interview with me over at Connie’s inspirational site 30 journals in 30 days, go read it!

If you’re here for the first time, from the interview maybe, check out my category on art journaling and make a hello-comment! :-)

Have you seen Vickie Howell’s new book yet?

It came out in May 2010 and it is called Craft Corps - Celebrating the Creative Community One Story at a Time. Great title and nice book cover & logotype (plus I’m in it!):

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Making a zine is a lot of fun, and it includes many steps even after all the text is written, edited, layouted and printed…

Decorating the covers of the first batch with scrapbook leftover papers, sewing on papers like it was fabric patches.

Stapling together papers with a stapler that does not open wide enough.

Cutting out backside blurb to glue onto the wallpaper cover.

Then printing and cutting out the title label for the front of the zine…

Indeed, there are a lot of steps when making each zine. I noticed this again while making a second batch of zines for my Etsy Shop once batch #1 was sold out. And I noticed that I enjoyed each step. The machine sewing, the cutting up wallpapers, the paint splattering and colouring. I think it was calming to me, knowing the steps. Thinking about it mindfully and as a labor of love. I was so mindful the second time when making it because I know how to assemble everything already.

I know what to do, and still altered the process slightly because I could. And yes even the address label writing and envelope folding and taping was enjoyable, because by then I knew that the zine had been sold. I knew each zine would be sent out into the world and read (!) by someone who is interested in the same thing that I am interested in: Art journaling. And that is knowledge is extremely nice and a powerful feeling.

As previously promised, and for those of you interested in zine making, I have written a bit about the creative process of making a first zine. It’s not a tutorial because there are plenty of those around. I’m a beginner, no expert. A happy beginner mind you. So read on for some more thoughts from yours truly.

Mulling it over

I have been thinking about making a personal zine for several years now. A few years ago I bought Teesha’s zine Play, and since then I’ve gotten a zine here and a zine there in swaps, giveaways and blog contests. All of them unique and interesting. The idea of my own publication have been percolating in my mind, simmering around…

I recently finished writing an article about The Creative Process. In the research for it I learned more about the importance of mulling over creative ideas for a while. It is a big and important part of the process that we need to allow time for. Without time the idea might not be ripe enough or we ourselves not ready to birth the project. The mulling over sometimes takes part in our subconscious and maybe even in our dreams. I’ve called my slow approach to some ideas procrastination and even fear, but maybe it is just how it should be… I have recently learned that I am too hard on myself and don’t give myself enough credit for the things that I do. That will have to change! The zine swap really helped to push me into action with a firm deadline!

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Every man’s work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself.
/Samuel Butler

I have wanted to do a zine of my own for a few years now. It’s been a longing in my chest that could not be silenced, that shouldn’t have to be silenced. Its not a big dream to make a small homemade publication, right? Everyone who loves to publish should have a go, at least once, that’s what I thought. I’ve hesitated to post about it for a while, but now its time. I have made a zine! Big news!

I wanted it to be mostly filled with my own writing and also a bit of professional layout. I am a writer at heart after all - among many things. I chose a subject that I’m passionate about, Art Journaling, and opened a document and started writing. Just wrote, and then wrote some more. I’ve already noticed on my blog that when I start to write about this subject I’ve got a lot to say!

My zine is very personal. It has a very distinct iHanna tone and it’s about how I got started with Art Journaling, a bit about my process of filling a page and what it has come to mean to me. Me me me, yes it’s true. It’s my personal Art Journaling Story so to speak, and I realize I could’ve done this zine in many ways, but my story is as good as any and it’s the one I know best. Start where you are, and right now I’m here. With a huge love for mixed media art created inside a bound book, and a willingness to share that love with you and the rest of the world. So why not publish a zine?

Set your goals

I read a lot about setting goals and how important it is to your success. In Lisa Sonora Beam’s book The Creative Entrepreneur she talks about being SMART about your goals. That means your goals should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Timebound. I think that is so smart! My goal while making a zine were simple but huge (and oh, I never set time boundaries and that is a big problem, but anyway…):

1) to write extensively about a topic that I’m passionate about (the first issue is about my love for visual journaling, next issue if there is one might be about something else)

2) to experiment with desktop publishing and layout (I made my first zine using Adobe InDesign)

3) to make a interesting & fun little publication that you would want to save and maybe even keep & re-read (zines are such a cool art form)

and

4) to give the reader a lot of information and ideas away from the computer (oh, yummy text), something that inspires (including prompts, ideas, images and words, but still keep it b/w and simple)!

Illustration close up.

I must say I’m both excited and proud about my first zine. Inspired by zine-sisters (like Sister Diane who makes a Christmas Digest, a zine for her friends each December, and by Alma Stoller who crafts her beautiful Odd Ball Charm among a few others) I’ve longed to make a zine of my own for years! I know many of you have this dream too. For me the time to make one was now. Participating and signing up for the zine swap at iheartzines.com helped push me to get going and to finish a zine. Plus, I got mail art zines and other cool zines about art in the mail which was a big bonus!

A bonus in each zine is always fun. In my zine you’ll get some fun papers to play with, each zine will be slightly different and you might get pages from Swedish interior design magazines, pieces of wall paper, vintage labels, prints, or some other bits and pieces from my (too large) stash of papers. I hope they will evoke you to do some collage play in your own Art Journal.

A peak inside. This is the table of content on the right and the Editor’s (thats me!) Letter! :-)

Please note that the zine I made for the swap was printed at home but the copies I’m selling will be photocopies in black and white print only! Although when printing it again I couldn’t resist using colored papers here and there… hehe. Just for fun.

I will write more about the process of making this zine next week! For now, feel free to order your copy in my Etsy Shop, I just added it this week. :-)

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Question and answers today!

I ♥ this layout. Another grid example from my photo book. I love to snap photos of new “stuff”.

Thank you for all your kind comments on my Photo Album Book with A years worth of photos. Also check out my photographic inspiration book because 2 is better than 1 that is for sale on Blurb! I got quite a few questions in the comment section and thought I’d answer them today.

Amy:
Would you mind sharing how you set your ID document up? I am not super familiar with the program and was wondering - did you set up each page as it’s own file, then convert all files to PDF when done? Then upload to Blurb? Also, are you happy with the softcover? Does it open fairly flat?

My answer: I downloaded a inDesign document via Blurb that had the right size and formating guidelines that show you how big your images can be etc. It only has one spread, but then you just duplicate that spread as many times as you want pages. You can move your pages around, delete or rearrange them at will. You can add many photos in a grid or just one big. The possibilities are endless! I love working in this way!

You can also set up a A-template and apply specific elements like page numbers or a header to “all pages” and then continue to fill your spreads until you are done. So one document for the whole book, and then another one for the cover downloaded separately. There is a “export setting” to download so that your PDF document gets saved correctly. Easy to do but a big document will take some time to save.

To your last question: I wanted the softcover because it makes the book lightweight and easy to carry with me. It opens up well but does not lay flat because of the glue binding, but I don’t mind that. If I make a memory book for a kid (or a book that would need to take more wear and tear) I would not chose the glue binding - but it’s of course cheaper. :-)

♥ More photos in a square grid from the book:

Ingrid:
How much does it cost? it looks like it’d be super expensive…

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Book making combines almost all of my passions in life; being visual, inspiring others, planning/thinking of creative adventures, writing text, documenting life and enjoying beautiful smart books in general. It’s all there!
/iHanna

I’m reading my own post How to make a Blurb Photo Book published in April last year and I realize I’ve already discussed most of the methods of making a book using InDesign and Blurb there, but never showed you images from inside the Diptych book! It’s for sale at Blurb and I think it’s a great little gem of a book. It would be a great read if you want to do a photographic project together with someone else or as a gift to a friend who is into photography!

It’s a square book 18×18 centimeter (7×7 inches) with 70 full color pages on premium paper (a 100-pound text silk-finish paper that provides, according to Blurb, stellar image quality)! I wrote a few pages about the project as a foreword in it, and ended with resources and further inspiration - just like a real book!

An excerpt from my foreword

This book was born out of my need to inspire others as well as myself. In a way this is a small contribution to the world saying it’s possible to sit by yourself at home and still not be that lonely. There are like minded out there. You can reach out, grab someone and ask for friendship. I was lucky this time and was grabbed. I was smart this time, and said yes please.
You don’t have to be single or alone to feel lonely sometimes. As a creative whirlwind and introvert person I know this. It can be a mindset hard to shift.
With this project, for thirty days, I felt that my mind did shift. I couldn’t even meet Sophie but as my brain was occupied with our project I felt the togetherness of a joint venture.
It is a small project yes, but one that reminded me of how much I enjoy everyday photography, creative collaborations and the power of friendship. As you look through the book, I hope you will feel this too.

I then go on to explain how we got started, how we set up our project and what a diptych is and invite the reader to join in and do a similar project.

If you’re shopping at Blurb maybe you would be interested in other books there? I haven’t bought them but if I had money I’d add these to my shopping cart:

• Number 47 - a personal art journal by Becky New
• I can’t Apologise Enough - humorous sketches by David Fullarton
• Me time self published drawings by Danny Gregory
• Hats for Haiti - silly beautiful self portraits from flickr with people in hats (you can preview the whole book, nice! I love silly portraits like these!)
• Oh, and don’t forget because 2 is better than 1 - 30 diptychs to inspire creativity by iHanna. Yeah, add this one too! ;-) You can preview it below!

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If you too have ever asked yourself What to do with all your digital photos you need to know that publishing your own Photo Album is possible! I did mine using InDesign, Blurb.com and my growing layout skills! I published a years worth of photos (from 2008) in one book, exported the PDF, uploaded it and ordered it online.

The whole book is a giant experiment with different layouts. My favorite are grids of all kinds, influenced by Ali Edwards hybrid scrapbooking. This is kind of like scrapbooking, but made on the computer - no home printing, no glue, no embellishments or pretty papers added.

Me pretending to be a stylist or home decor photographer. I loved this flea market - I love this spread!

I have played a lot; with black line borders, round corners, text overlays, dotted divider lines, close up photos, three different fonts and a huge variety of photo sizes. I haven’t done much of this kind of work before, but I know what I like. When I got the book I was pleased with the overall feel. I think the book composes well. I’m just going to share a few of the many spreads in the 180 pages book.

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I hope you’ve been reading along at The Archive-Along this week?! I think it’s a fascinating series of posts and a important topic, archiving your stuff.

The Archive Along is a blog project with articles and tutorials on how to make sure your online content doesn’t get lost in cyberspace. Diane and Rachel suggests that we keep our content safe by doing backups, making link archives, best-post-zines (love that idea!) and publishing books etc. Because documenting is one of my great passions in life I’m really digging this project, and thought I’d join in with a few thoughts on my own archiving process. For example, I’ve got folder upon folder with photos in my computer… I bet you do too?!

So the question is…

What should we do with all the photos we take?

I’ve been taking digital photos for over six years now and the system I have of filing them in date folders is working great for me, because I love things that are ordered chronologically. It’s the way I archive my diaries and it’s the way blog posts work too. So I store them by year, and plan to make a few backups of documents and photos to another hard drive soon. But when and how will I ever look at all these photos?

I sure ain’t no scrapbooker even though I used to glue photos onto cardstock and make big heavy Photo Albums when I was younger, but I don’t any more. I think it’s because the amount of photos has grown exponentially with the digital era. I can take as many photos in just an hour now as I did in three months with film. It’s just not possible to print all these pictures any more, they weight me down and I can’t afford it. It could easily take over my day making pages with all these photos…

But what if I still want to be able to have an archive of them in my hand? I think a digitally put together album, that was professionally printed and full of my own photos would do the trick. So my answer is of course to make a annual photo book!

Answer: a print-on-demand self published photo book

And that’s exactly what I have done!

I’m a sucker for making books, as you know. An archive for me would have to be something tangible, something away from the computer. One printed book, or several because I’m quite productive. I love everything about books, and I enjoy the process of making them. I made a book from one year of my blog back in 2006. It’s called A Creative Year and it’s published at Lulu where you still can get it. It’s about time I do a couple of more of those blog books, don’t you agree? I would love to have my whole blog as a series of books, but making books takes a lot of time as I talk about in the interview over at CraftyPod three years ago. So while not tackling that yet I’ve started another series of books just for me! They are photographic memory books, or you could call them plain ol’ Photo Albums, coz’ that’s what they are. I say “they” though I’ve only printed one so far, via Blurb. I’m now working on both 2009 and 2010 at the same time.

I decided to do a year of photos in one book, and just pick the ones I liked most and use those. Not concentrating on a theme or do a specific photographic project, just that one place to view a years worth of photos. Mmm! I will show more images from the book and write a bit more about the process of making this specific book later. This one won’t be for sale because many of the photos are too private (of family and friends). But I must say I’m in love with it, and had to share it with you. I hope you will be inspired to make a book yourself.

My family have been looking through it several times and I’ve received such nice reviews from them that make me extra proud. A photo archive in book form is a great project for many reasons, happiness being the largest part!

As my favorite author Gretchen Rubin of the Happiness Project wrote:
Happy memories of the past are an effective way to make yourself happier in the present, and things like photo albums, mementos, and one-sentence journals are great ways to keep happy memories vivid.

One problem is that the minute I put one album together, it’s time to start the next! After I do my next one, I think I will create some sort of schedule – to work on it for an hour once every two weeks – so I feel like I’m on top of it. Finishing mini-steps will make it easier to finish a major projects.
[quote from Rubin’s article Finish The Projects You’ve Started. Or Call an End to Them.]

My photo book makes me happy

• Having a record of one years worth of photos reminds me what I did - and didn’t do.
• Making a book and doing layout for each page is creative and fun
• A photo book is a great way to evoke happy memories
• You can easily share your memories with friends by bringing the book with you to a coffee shop or dinner party…
• …and it’s easier to share it with older relatives who doesn’t use email or a computer

So run along now, to read some posts at The Archive-Along, for example Diane’s post Making a book from your blog or have a listen to my silly voice the interview Diane did with me at CraftyPod: Making a blog book with Hanna Andersson! If it rains tomorrow too I’ll be back then. If you wan to get started right away you should visit Blurb where you can print your own books, and check out their video Using InDesign® to Make a Blurb Book. That’s what I did.