I have some exciting news to share! I am going to be in the December issue of Real Simple magazine! I have been keeping it a secret of sorts but just heard the issue is already out (on November 10?!) so I figure now is a good time to share.

Here is the story. In early September I heard from a writer for the magazine. She was working on a feature about women who had done creative family history projects. They were looking for one more woman to profile, and did I possibly have any personal family history projects that might be a fit? Um, yes.

Within a day we were scheduling a photographer to come photograph me, my project, my workshop, and even my Grama (of course it’s a family affair!) And I started answering all sorts of interview questions about the project.

The project they featured is one I made in a collage class in LA, before I even started Good Stock. It is not a book and I didn’t touch a computer while making it. So in some ways it’s different than what I do now. But in so many ways it inspired what I do now.

I call the project my Grandparent’s Story Box. I took old maps from places my grandparents liked to visit and collaged them into a handmade box. Inside, I made loose-leaf, oversized pages that tell different stories about my grandparents. For materials I used old photos, a thrift store typewriter, my grandparent’s maps, our family tree, old papers, and all sorts of vintage looking string and grommets.

And of course, because I always think in chapters, I divided the story into 4 chapters:

1. My Papa’s Story Growing Up
2. My Grama’s Story Growing Up
3. My Grandparent’s Story Together
4. My Own Story of My Grandparents

For my own story of my grandparents, I wrote 2 pages about their influence in my life and my memories of them. I gave them a typed copy of my story for Christmas that year.

What touches me most about having this project featured is I have always loved it! It was such a personal project for me, and I still add things to it when I come across something from or about my grandparents. In fact, my Grama uses it for reference sometimes because she knows I have so much of her history in there!

So that is my Real Simple story. I thought about taking photos of the box to share here, but our good cameras are currently in Nepal with my husband. And besides, the Real Simple shots will be so much better anyways. So I promise to post them here when I get my copy!

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This entry was posted on Monday, November 10th, 2008 at 4:23 pm and is filed under press. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.