Happy Halloween!

Halloweeeeeeen and things!

Happy Halloween everyone! Here at the office we are very excited to see the kids in their costumes! I love when people get inventive with what they wear--much better than just going with the ol dependable white sheet!

Photo cred!

Way to make an effort there! I've seen pictures of this costume a couple times while browsing the web and it cracks me up every time:

UPROXX.com

There's some commitment to the holiday if I ever saw some! This being said, however, not many of us have much time to throw together such a complicated costume, myself included. Because I've been so busy with the movie premier and the book launch I haven't even decorated yet and I feel a little terrible about that. However, Pinterest to the rescue! I was perusing pinterest the other day and I saw the cutest Halloween decorating idea that uses only toilet paper rolls and glowsticks! It's cheap, it's easy and it's on my creative level.

Thrifty Crafty Girl

Absolutely easy and amazing!!

John the intern and I spent a large portion of our day fixing the categories on the Irish Photo Archive website (you're welcome). Hurricane Sandy knocked out the power to our website provider and sent our folders and files spinning! Things have settled down now a tiny bit over here about the messy categories but they're just heating up about the "Charlie is My Darling-Ireland 1965" film premier tomorrow! We are very excited to attend and to pay homage to those glorious gods of rock and roll: The Rolling Stones.

Then next week things get even crazier as we put on the exhibition for our new book "The 1950's Ireland in Pictures"! Woohoo! We have a lot to finish up on that but we are excited and we are ready for the challenge!

Have a very safe and very fun Halloween everyone!

-N-

Tuesday Tribulations

Good Morning Everyone!

Our hearts go out to those on the East Coast of the United States, please take care of yourselves these next few days. If you would like more information on the status or the impact of Hurricane Sandy you can click this link or if you would like tips on what to do if your area is affected, please visit this link.

In lighter news, congratulations to Karen Reilly for winning the caption contest!

Still can't 'figger' who put the figgin' figs in the fig rolls!

Karen has won two tickets to the premier of the Rolling Stones' film "Charlie is My Darling-Ireland 1965". The premier is this Thursday, the 1st of November, and will take place at the Lighthouse Cinema! Here's the trailer for the film! We're so excited to go see it we've seen it about a billion times    : P

Wooohooo! Any excuse to dress up and talk about The Rolling Stones all night is a great one! : D The film is available for purchase November 6th, pre-order to guarantee a copy for yourself! We have quite the busy week ahead of us! Tomorrow is Halloween, Thursday is The Rolling Stones film premier, Friday we start having a weekend-long panic attack about "The 1950's Ireland in Pictures" Book Launch, Monday we start running out of paper bags to hyperventilate into and Tuesday is we officially launch the book!

hyperventilating gif pics on Sodahead

In all seriousness, everything is going to be fantastic. All our little ducks are in a row and we are extremely excited to launch the book! The exhibition is going to be lovely and we are pleased that our distinguished guests are going to be able to attend.

We would like to reiterate that if you are affected by Hurricane Sandy please be safe and take pictures from the inside of your house or bunker or wherever you're set up. Our hearts and prayers are with you all and we hope that the storm passes soon.

-N-

Trainees from Germany!

Today is our first day at Lensemen. After 3 days at school here in Dublin we started our first day for the next 4 weeks in Ireland.

We both come from Dresden, Germany and we are doing a Training as an Design-Assistent and an IT-Assistant.

On our first day we worked with Photoshop, HTML and some social stuff.

We both are here in Ireland for our first time and we like the country and the people very much.

We are very excited about the coming days here in Dublin and we look forward to working with Lensemen.

Liebe Grüße,

Susi and John. :)

Fairytales of New York!

Finally, the much anticipated pictures from our New York Trip!

Photo Credit!

This is Susan Kennedy and Sean Walsh, the owners and operators of our little archive, posing at the film premier of Charlie is My Darling-Ireland 1965.

There are millions of things to do and see in New York; it would take a lifetime to do them all! All things considered, we did pretty well. Our favorite was obviously going to the New York Film Festival!

However that's not to say that the Empire State Building and Ellis Island weren't absolutely incredible as well.

Note: Not our photo ; P

We also snuck in a few Irish pubs here and there (shocking), one of which had only recently opened. We had an interesting conversation with the barman/owner there. He was talking about how difficult it is to find decoration for the walls of the pub. The bar itself was well put together but the walls were a little bland and he wanted decoration that would celebrate the Irish roots of the pub.

How serendipitous! Irish Photo Archive to the rescue! We gave him our card and he was pleased to get such an easy solution to his problem but that makes us wonder, how many other bars have tragically naked walls because it takes so much time and energy to find decent decoration?

We've done our research (hard work) and there are more than a few bars with sparse decoration. What is this epidemic?! We're interested in your thoughts-are there naked walls where you're at?! Send us pictures via twitter or facebook and we'll see if with our powers combined we can't remedy the situation!

-N-

Rolling Stones Film Premier Tickets!

Hello all!

Hope you had a great Wednesday, our business day is just wrapping up here at the Irish Photo Archive. We held two contests today to give away tickets to the Charlie is My Darling film premier in Dublin November 1st!

The first photo was of Miss Maeve Allen at the Dublin Zoo in 1962 with a five-day old llama named 'Snowdrop'.

Irish Photo Archive

It was captioned by one Gillian Currie on twitter as thus: "Llamas lay eggs, I know they do if I just squeeze here!"

Well done Ms. Currie!

Our next caption contest picture is of Jim Figgarty in 1969, go at it, win those tickets!

Irish Photo Archive

I am particularly excited for this event because (there will be refreshments afterwards) I get to go! : D I've never been to a film premier before and it sounds like a fantastic excuse to get dressed up and wear impractical shoes : P

Photo Credit!

Ok maybe not that impractical but they always seem to feel like that by the end of the night. We promise to take tons of photos the night of and post them here Friday morning! : D

Lucky people that we are, we have the book launch the following week! We are very busy people! Photos from that event will be posted here as well of course, we'll hopefully be meeting the Taoiseach! The book we are launching (I'm sure I've already told you about it) is The 1950s Ireland in Pictures and it's amazing going through all of the past events and people that were in Ireland in the 50's. Here's a sneak peak of one of my favorite photos in the book!

Ploughing at Stoneyford 1953

Until tomorrow!


-N-

Win Free Tickets!

Good news!

We have four extra tickets to The Rolling Stones Charlie is My Darling-Ireland 1965 movie premier! Even better news is that we're giving them away! ; P

We're holding a caption contest with four different photos (one ticket each!) and the first photo is already out and about! Caption away, friends!

Dublin Zoo in the 1960's!

We already have several entries so hurry and get to our Twitter, Facebook or Tumblr pages and enter your amazing caption : ) The other pictures will be release periodically throughout the day so keep your eyes peeled! Best of luck everybody!

-N-

History of the Archive

Hello all,

With all of these changes happening (the leaves, the American government, our Book Release!) we thought that we would take it back to basics. Back sixty years ago of when our little company began with a couple very young and very talented photographers: Andy Farren and Padraig MacBrian.

These young men started a legacy that we all can appreciate and benefit from and today we are doing our best to get the word out about their incredible efforts and photos. The Irish Photo Archive is a tribute not only to their abilities as photographers but as highly organized individuals, as their diaries are the only reason we are able to caption those photos with any kind of efficiency.

The archive came into our hands when we bought the photography company, Lensmen Photographic Agency. At the time we had little inclination to go through all of the boxes stored on and under tables throughout multiple buildings and on multiple floors of those buildings! However, after the fall of the Celtic Tiger we found we had more time on our hands and then began our story.

Out of these boxes we pulled decades worth of memories and history. Today, after scanning them and cleaning them up, we have been able to compile these precious pieces of Irish history into photographic books. Our first book, The 1960s Ireland in Pictures took us through celebrity visits, political events and cultural festivals.

Purchase Book Here

The book introduced us to President Kennedy during his visit in 1963 and then reminded us of his untimely and tragic death later that year. Andy and Padraig beautifully documented countless celebrity visits.

Eamon De Valera and John Fitzgerald Kennedy

The 1950's book takes us back even further into Irish history and we are very pleased to announce that we will be having a book launch to celebrate the completion of The 1950s Ireland in Pictures on November 6th.

Purchase Book Here

We are incredibly proud of the Irish Photo Archive and hope that you take it upon yourselves to go to our website and have a look around at our photographic history of Ireland.

-N-

Halloween Plans and Pictures

Halloween is on its way!

And I couldn't be more excited! I love how crisp the air is (but not too cold) and watching the leaves all turn color and fall to the ground. Sneaking a peek at what the Archive calendar has in store for the upcoming holiday I found this picture of Halloween in Ireland in the 1950's:

Om nom nom!

Absolutely adorable for several reasons, one of which is the fact that it looks like they're wearing doll clothes. I want one of those little vests so bad! You can see the love that was put into those little outfits and it kills me. All the photos of old Irish clothing that we have are interesting to look at, at the very least, but for some reason these little outfits are the absolute best. Maybe it's because small things are always adorable

I dare you

to not love them!

I still don't know what I'm going to be for Halloween (no I'm not too old) but I think I'm going to try and sneakily make it something warm. Like an eskimo or a polar bear:

smartmascotcostume.com

Halloweencostumes.com

I had to search men's halloween costumes to find these babies because whoever designed the women's costumes didn't do any research on what eskimos and polar bears would actually wear. There was a lot of bare skin that I'm pretty sure would turn blue on a real eskimo/polar bear. Curious....

Anyway, this weekend is Halloween and regardless of what I end up dressing up as, I'm sure it's going to be filled with sugar and scares : ) 

See what I did there? Scary...sugar....bwahahahaha!
Photo credit

It's been a while since I've allowed anyone to photograph me at Halloween (or any other holiday) but it's not difficult to appreciate the efforts of the Lensmen Photographers who have documented over sixty years of Irish holidays and events. Irresponsible amounts of my time has been spent on their Archive web site flipping through decades of people and places. The photo find of the day, and what I'll leave you with, is this photo:

Christchurch Cathedral 1971

Just kidding one more thing! : P

We've been googling ourselves (a dangerous pastime, I know) and we're even more famous than we initially believed! ; P British Photographic History and Irish Central both have written articles about our archive! : D

Don't worry, we won't let it go to our heads ; )

-N-

Archive Dive

Hello!

I have been madly working on a calendar of all of our photographs of Ireland from the last 60 years, or at least all of those that we've had the opportunity to scan onto a computer! Going through all the pictures of celebrities and places and events was tedious, yes, but also very rewarding as I was able to see a slideshow of some of the coolest things to happen in Ireland in the past 60 years. For example, imagine my surprise at stumbling across a photo of this gorgeous politician while thumbing through the sixties!

Who doesn't like to golf?

Evidently President Eisenhower enjoyed golfing! In Ireland! This particular political picture (see what I did there?! So many p's!) was taken on August 17th, 1962 and it looks like Ike was having a great time : )

I also found this picture of a celebrity in Ireland from June 9th 1964:

Dublin on mmyy miiinnnddd!

It's Ray Charles at the Gaiety Theatre filming a scene for the film "Ballad in Blue", I had no idea he had even visited Ireland!  It's amazing to me that very few other people have ever seen these:

Rock of Cashel 1957

Images of the Irish countryside never get old and always manage to look mystical and fabulous. Some of these pictures just take your breath away. I think Co. Tipperary must have gotten distracted and looked away the moment this picture was taken because it is the kind of stunning that only comes candid.

Then of course we have the ones that are painfully adorable:

Ya I made this huge because it's super cute!

How much does this make you want to adopt tiger cubs?! You don't even have to do anything because the family dog will take care of them! Just kidding, don't actually do that but Dublin Zoo in the 50's sure knew how to problem solve! I feel a little bad for the poor confused puppy sleeping by the tiger butt. I'm sure he's fine and I can't imagine he'll ever get bullied in doggy obedience school considering who his brothers are : P

Well tomorrows Friday and I'm pretty excited. Do I have plans for the weekend, you may ask? Heck yes I do, it's called sleep and I've heard it's fantastic! ; P I'll have to let you know how the whole 'sleep' thing works on Monday but ta for now!

-N-

Irish Castles, Shows and Launches

Hello Everyone!

Had an amazing Monday night watching The Picture of Dorian Gray at the Abbey Theatre! Coincidentally, it's Oscar Wilde's birthday, so happy birthday and great show!

Dublin Theatre Fest for life!!!

Halloween is coming up! I haven't decided whether or not I'm going to dress up (I'm totally going to) or I guess it depends on whether or not someone throws a Halloween party (I'm dressing up regardless). I'm thinking this for a costume:

It's Dobby!

Ok so maybe not but I want to be something castle themed because there are so many castles in Ireland! It's weird, coming from America where I believe the only castle we have is Disney Castle, to turn a corner and basically run into a castle. 

Kilkea Castle, Co Kildare

Picture of an Irish castle from our archive! Super Halloweeny : ) The images of the Irish countryside and castles that we have in our archive are absolutely amazing. Not all of them remind me of Halloween (Just the castles) but some of them absolutely scream Irish countryside to me:

Irish Ponies!!!

How amazing is this photo?!?! A Connemara mare and her foal in Malahide, just looking fantastic and adorable on the beach. Touché Ireland, touché. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with Irish geography:

Google maps!

Connemara is the green dot on the left and Malahide, Dublin is on the right! It takes about four hours to drive from one to the other and the Irish pony pictures were taken in Dublin although they are Connemara ponies. I've linked the photo captions to the website so you can see all the pony and castle pictures you desire! Ten year old me would be so proud : P

Halloween idea?

I'm freaking out about our book launch November 6th! I'm going to get all artsy and dressed up and meet and greet until I die from either happiness or the unreasonable heels I probably will be wearing. It's going to be quite the event as well, the venue is the Royal Hiberno Academy which is an amazing art gallery-I scoped it yesterday. The Taoiseach of Ireland, Enda Kenny is going to say a few words at the launch and it is going to be really really cool to meet the Head of the Irish Government, what what!

(© Getty)

I'll keep you updated on the absolute drama of trying to throw a book launch, it will be like our own little reality show here at Irish Photo Archive! : D That's it for now folks, signing out and wishing you a marvelous Tuesday!

-N-

Tragedy Without the Truimph : P

Tragedy has struck with my crafting efforts.

Things were going fine, the base coat of the paint didn't look the way I wanted it to but it still looked nice so I was willing to go with it. It took ages to dry which was annoying but I was totally willing to let it go. And then I got to the actual difficult part...the lettering.


It went horribly. I know the picture is weird-side-what because I'm just using my mac camera but you get the idea. I think what happened is that I tried to free hand the letters (first mistake) and then I wanted to make the lettering really nice and black so I used loads of paint and it dripped into the little creases of the frame that you don't notice are there until they are filled with paint.

Also, the paintbrush I have was too long and bulky so I had my boyfriend use his box cutter thing (I can hardly be trusted to use a paintbrush, let alone a blade) to cut the bristles. Thinking, in all of my ridiculous optimism, that I would then have a nice short bristly paintbrush edge that I could use to be more exact with my painting. But it was not to be so, and the bristles were unruly and rude and didn't cooperate at all.

But I did get to catch up on the new season of New Girl that I had been missing out on due to my lack of internet and cable. Absolute hilarity, Zooey Deschanel is a goddess.

Bambi eyes!

I believe my craft blunder can be fixed! A friend of mine recommended getting a different color to outline the words with (in marker) so that the lines look cleaner. I like that idea. I think I'll also use sandpaper (found out we have some at home) and not the cheap Euro Saver scrubbies cause they leave a weird blue residue everywhere. And I'll use it to make the frame look rougher and then maybe my terribly attempts at lettering will make more sense artistically if the whole thing looks rough and rowdy. We shall see. I still have to tackle putting the hooks in as well. I have a lot of television to catch up on and a lot of weekend a head of me so if I don't finish it off by Monday then I'm lazier than even I imagined!

-N-

The Quiet Crisis

Good news and bad news, but good news first!

Our Christmas cards are out! We know it's early but can it ever be too early for Christmas?! The cards are from a collection printed by Kelly Cards and part of the proceeds go to Focus Ireland.

photos courtesy of irishphotoarchive.ie

Remember the O'Connell Street photo?! I blogged that earlier because I was starting to get that Christmas itch and lo and behold, it's being used on our cards! I didn't know, I swear! And it's a slightly different view than the one I posted but it's the same idea : )

We are gearing up for The Gathering here in the office and in our excitement we came across an interesting article by The Independent. Some of you may remember the film The Quiet Man because it's extremely iconic and features John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara, others may know of it because of the amazing little cottage in North Connemara that is featured in it.

The cottage in 1951

Regardless of what you associate the movie with I'm sure you will more than a little upset, as I was, to find out that the cottage has been allowed to crumble into ruin by a Mr. Gregory Ebbitt. The cottage was purchased by Mr. Ebbitt in 1985 and locals were led to believe that he was going to restore and maintain the iconic building and the surrounding 11 acres. Mr. Ebbitt also led the locals to believe that he had been born in the cabin and that his grandfather was of Irish descent.

The cottage today

Mr. Ebbitt's claims have proved unfounded as the locals later discovered that Mr. Ebbitt has never had family from Ireland and he has let the cottage fall into ruin. Efforts by both the Irish government and the people of Ireland to buy the cottage back from the eccentric man have proved fruitless as he refuses to sell even when offered generous prices. There is a great sense of bafflement by the Irish community as to why Mr. Ebbitt continues to refuse to sell a property he so obviously cares little about. Groups and Committees have been established in an effort to convince Mr. Ebbitt to sell the property but to no avail.

Mr. Ebbitt agreed to sell the property last August as was reported in the Irish Central but he has once again changed his mind to the great disappointment of locals and film lovers alike.

Why the California resident continues to jerk around the Irish government and people is beyond our understanding but we sincerely hope the property gets returned to both the Irish people and the film's fans and restored.

-N-

Trial and Error

Crafting is just as difficult as I remember.

Slightly disappointing update on the crafting, I've only finished the first coat of paint because it definitely took more than one drink to dry and we just got internet yesterday so I was a little distracted!  : P
I took some terrible photobooth pictures of the supplies I used and I've listed how much they cost and where I got them. That way if you find yourself in Dublin and you have a burning need to create this little craft you'll know where to get the supplies!

Woohoo Supplies! 

I went to several shops to try and find all the things but Euro Saver was the best for the random assortment of supplies I needed.

Euro Saver:

Frame 3.50

Paint brush 1.50

Dry erase 1.49

Antique Pine paint 2.50

Euro Shop:

Yin’er scourer pads 1.00

O’Briens Hardware Store:

Paintbrush 1.90

Black gloss paint 3.90

Small screws….?

O'Briens Hardware Store was very cute and the lady behind the counter was super nice, I'm not sure how much the little screws were but they couldn't have been that expensive-I don't think I spent more than six€ at the store.

Slight win with the painting of the frame. Nothing terrible happened but it didn’t turn out like the pictures and I'm shocked! : P The varnish I got is just like a primer or a coat of shiny or something so it doesn’t look old and loved it just looks extra new and nice. It was super sticky and stinky and took forever to dry so that was the extent of accomplishment last night : P Meh. No one got hurt and I didn’t spill paint everywhere so I’m going to consider it a win.

Super shiny!

 I'm going to try and use the scrubbers to make it look a little dirtier but that may backfire terribly.

Also. Slight modification on the optional beverage, I’m drinking Harp because making crafts and going through the extremely torturous process of trying to find margarita mix in Dublin just seems like too much for one day. 

Make sure to open a window when you’re painting because this was extremely smelly.

Don’t know if I’ll still need the scrubby sanders substitute but I’m going to use them anyway cause I bought them and they cost a whole dollar!!!!!! : P

Tonight I'm going to try and conquer the lettering, I think that's going to entail me penciling in the letters and then tracing them with the marker and then painting them. You'll be pleased to know that I've chosen "Home is Where Your Keys Work". It fits nicely on the frame--'Home is' will go on the left panel, 'where' goes on the top panel 'your keys' goes on the right panel and 'work' on the bottom.

-N-

Craft Wars

Today is launch day for Craft Wars: Part 1!

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away

Craft Wars

It is a period of boring walls.

Rebel crafters, striking

from a hidden base, have won

their first victory against

the evil Bland Decorations

Yea I'm getting a little nerdy about this! It's Tuesday!

But seriously, today is the first day of preparations for our battle against boring! I've compiled a list of things we'll need for the first episode of our little saga:

1. Cheap (emphasis on the cheap) wooden frame

2. Paint brush

3. Paint of some sort of color (what color?!) 

4. Creative crafty thingy for the corner of the frame (getting off to a great start here)

5. Photo for the frame

6. Small hooks for keys (X3)

7. Blender

8. Margarita mix

9. Tequila

10. Limes

Numbers 7-10 are optional but they are recommended. 

I've been having a hard time coming up with an appropriate color for the frames and I recently came across this interesting little project: 

Source: homespunhappenings-tammy.blogspot.co.uk via Irish on Pinterest

What a cool idea! It looks a little complicated with the staining and the sanding and the charcoal but we'll see if we can't take a couple shortcuts!

*Please note: This is where I always get myself in trouble. 'Ah this is taking too long, I'm going to take a shortcut' and 'Naw this looks too complicated I'm sure there's a simpler way to do it!' often lead me to disaster. Feel free to ignore this when doing your own crafts.

But seriously guys I think we can make this easier.

Step One: Stare suspiciously at the craft materials, optional margarita in hand. You know they'll do their best to mess this up somehow, you're just not sure how they'll do it yet.

Step One and a Half: Was just writing Step Eight and thought of something: maybe put some tape on the edges of the glass so that part of the frame doesn't get painted?

Step Two: After finishing said optional margarita begin your craft war by painting the frame a stone color. Leaving the edges a bit rough sounds lazy and awesome and looks fabulous in the picture so we're going to stick with that.

Make sure sides are big enough to write on!

Step Three: Now, I'm not too excited about using charcoal to rub off on the wood by tracing the letters, I'm not a wizard or a pilgrim or whatever so that sounds and looks difficult. I think I'll just use my best handwriting and a ruler (I also don't have a printer) and trace some letters and then fill them in with black paint. Right? There's no way I could mess that up : P And I don't feel bad about purchasing a little thing of black paint because I feel that will come in handy for future projects.

Copy of my handwriting (what could go wrong?!)

Step Four: Wait for paint to dry and work on optional margarita number two.

Step Five: So we've painted the frame and watched paint dry (literally) and I'm sure it will all look lovely and worn and super realistic. Now we're supposed to sand down the paint a little, I'm probably going to try and be gentle at first and then get frustrated and really go at it. You do what works best for you : P

Step Six: Now she says to stain the whole thing with a 'dark walnut stain' but I'm not going to do that because I've already used a paintbrush a couple times today and those margaritas will probably be starting to kick in. So that's step six, avoiding work.

Step Seven: Screw in or nail or somehow jimmy-rig the hooks into your picture frame. We have a slight issue in that the blog that was attached to the picture of the picture frame craft has been taken down so I'm going to wing it from here. If things haven't gotten interesting by now I'm sure they will soon.

Step Eight: Avoid using doily thing in corner. We have letters on the frame now so adding a corner thing would make it a little busy, right? Or maybe buy old cool-looking key and somehow glue to corner.

Keys!

Step Nine: Put picture in frame

Step Ten: Hang on wall and BAM! You've just crafted your way through several (optional) margaritas and into the world of stylish!

This is the optimistic plan for what is going to happen tonight. Hopefully I make it in to work with all my fingers and some exciting/hilarious pictures of my success!

-N-

Historically Speaking

Happy Anniversary of the 1871 Chicago Great Fire!

Though I'm not sure 'happy' is the most appropriate way to describe that type of anniversary. And technically it would be tonight. Ah well, here's a cow anyway:

Not the Original Offender

Poor Ms. O'Leary's cow! Legend has it that the cow kicked over a lantern in Ms. O'Leary's barn and that's what set the town ablaze. Other accounts say that it can't possibly be proven and that all cows should be innocent until proven guilty. Overall, I think it's safe to say that too many people have spent too much time trying to decide the culpability of the cow.

Our crafts have hit a slight bump in the road. Not the funny 'what have you done to that poor piece of cloth' or 'how in the world did you manage to maim yourself with a single sewing needle' sort of bump in the road but more the 'wait, where do I buy crafts and how much do they cost?' sort of issue. I promise to have it handled by Wednesday! I'm optimistic that things will go swimmingly by then and I've got the internet on my side anyway so I should be able to figure it out.

This is my plan for the initial craft, it was shown in an earlier post:

Source: itsacraftylife.blogspot.com via Irish on Pinterest

My little apartment has a lot of greens and reds and whites so I was thinking that I'll use bright paint for the frame to help it stand out. I believe that is called an 'accent piece' in the art world : P
However, as always, I'm not really sure what I should go for. It would also look really nice to keep the frame a neutral color and then do a lot of color on the inside. Advice is always very welcome and very much encouraged, don't make me do it alone!

I also am going to avoid doubling up on my crafting by simply buying something to decorate the corner of the frame with. I don't know if the right side of my brain can handle the additional stress of trying to make a little felt flower : P

I've been categorizing all the photos on our extremely extensive archive (you're welcome) and it's amazing seeing some of the pictures. Some of the things in the photos have changed so much-hairstyles, clothing, technology-and others look exactly the same.

I absolutely love this picture. It's 1961 on Grafton Street and it's obviously Christmastime. The Wine and Coffee Bar sign looks so out of place on an otherwise very familiar street. I love it, I absolutely love it. Though I suppose my recent (re)obsession with Midnight in Paris may have something to do with that. Pictures are the best for that kind of nostalgia (unless you can go back in time...that would obviously be the best) because they are like little windows into the past. I've always enjoyed the simple, subtle poetry of framing pictures similar to how you frame windows.

But let's not start talking about Christmas just yet--we have several holidays to make it through, waistlines and wallets intact, before we can start to absolutely explode with Christmas crazy. But we'll get there, and just imagine the crafts when we do!!

Countdown to Crafty: T-2 days!

-N-

Fantastically and Finally Friday

It's Friday!

We've all survived the first week of October and fall is really and truly upon us. We've been celebrating here in the office by listening to music all morning, though there have been some disputes about what we should listen to. We started with some Rolling Stones (naturally) and then took an abrupt left and ended up at Bob Marley. The only really tense 'what are you doing to us' moment came when I put on Fairytale of New York by The Pogues. It's a great song, I don't care what anybody says and they're lucky I didn't put on Rebecca Black!

I'm a little anxious to start my craft-ventures. I was looking around the apartment the other day and I realized that I really don't have that much space. Though I saw this picture today (on Pinterest of course) that makes me feel better about potentially completely covering my walls

Source: funnypics221.net16.net via Irish on Pinterest

That doesn't look too bad, right?! I can't get over how much I like the concept of varying the frame sizes and shapes. It makes it look so much more...textured. And the contrast of the hard line where the wall meets the ceiling with the jagged edge of the frames looks absolutely fabulous : )

I'm thinking I'll scour the 2€ shop (that's the european equivalent of the dollar store) for next weeks foray into frame-making. Crafts are supposed to be craftily inexpensive and I'm going to stick to that to protect my artistic integrity (also to protect my wallet).

Couldn't find a picture of a 2€ store but you get the idea ; P

We have a guest here in the office, his first day was yesterday and he is from Italy!

Bam! Google Maps to the rescue! His name is Giommaria and he is from the island Sardinia! He is saving our lives and categorizing the pictures into different dates so we can send out a picture a day! There are some crazy pictures in there--the fifties were a crazy place. Here kids, gather round the wild big cat!

We can only hope the cat was well fed

Well we could sit here and chat all day but we've business to attend to and music to bother our co-workers with! We leave you with this quote:

"It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt"

--Mark Twain--

We'll show ourselves out.


-N-