emmalaiho.net/blog

by Emerald_.

I have a giant sketchbook that I bought about four years ago and never dared to use. Nothing I’ve ever thought of filling it with, has seemed good enough and it’s been just sitting around, waiting. But yesterday I decided to take the plunge and make it into a collagè book. This feels like another way of things shifting in me.

Have you ever noticed how you CAN’T do collaging anywhere else but on the floor. Maybe it’s about the nonthinking needed with the craft. Floor as a working space has a freeing effect.

P.S. Design is kinky: behind the scenes at Hyper Island.
Holli writes about becoming an illustrator.
Free tickets to heaven, by 14squarefeet, get yours TODAY!

In another life I’d probably:
- quit school
- become a flash goddes
- draw lots of yellow bears and stuff
- apply to hyper island

instead I:
- complete the bachelor degree
- try to find promo illustration work (hey, I even work for free! this is your chance. for fun projects only.)
- buy a badge making machine (thanks, kate)
- read graphic design basics -books in my free time
- draw lots of yellow bears and stuff

If you really want to speed things up, you have to slow down first

I have a terrible habit of trying to do a million projects at once. My home shows the signs. My projects overflow the desk, cover the floor, almost crawl to my bed.. I have to vacate to kitchen to draw. I’ve started dreaming of a working space outside home.

After we did creative things with wallpaper I started to use the leftovers to cover some old shoeboxes, which led to creation of ‘magic boxes’. One thing leads to one another. This is how I work. This is how I work best.

I’ve been tackling a design for a corporate blog site for weeks now and am losing hope. I’ve done the banner five times. The structure ten times. The colourscheme gazillion times. After all this it’s started to look too much like one old project of mine. Inspiration at this point: zero. I guess it was some way to vent my frustration to do a redesign for this site, all in about an hour. Ahh, better.

I need to learn about doing one thing at a time, to actually finish more things. I need to take more time out to just lay about. No matter how fun it is to do stuff. I know that in a way I am running away from things.

P.S. Check out the webby links.

Not lonely but alone.
There’s a difference.
Alone is fine.

I do phone rounds. K has something else to do. And secretly I know what I am supposed to do today: Go buy the poetry book. Go to a cafe you wouldn’t really dare go to alone. You always think about it but never do. Order. Sit Listen. Watch. Draw your coffeecup and don’t care about people staring.

Learn to be.

• to get my finances in order. being able to SAVE some money from time to time.
• get more healthy. sleep more. keep up and ENJOY my exercise routine.
• get our dining room in order. finally.
• quilt.
• flowers. and get over the habit of killing all my plants.
• to be able to treat myself to things I really value, not buy any crap, but things like poetry books, a pin making machine, trip to London.

p.s. my favourite colourscheming site, make a bunny, or an elephant, cool brooches, winnie the pooh is my coworker.

The smallness of our life. The capacity to breathe.

Noticing, seeing: The elderly couple walking their adult disabled child, arms linked, laughing. The blond man with too little kids you deemed as finnish until they start to talk in this singing italian. The five men in suits in the park, sitting in a row on the fountain edge eating their lunch, oddly belonging and not. The drawing of a girl saying “it’s okay� and a white shimmering penguin sticker on an electricity cabinet on the street corner. (oh, of course you don’t have a camera.) Moulin rouge wallpaper costing six euros less. Sale fabric from ikea. The best movie you’ve seen in a year. (the mother sitting on the stairs smoking. that is our world.)

She says “I am happy. Some days so that I feel like bursting. But it took this long.�

The woman saying: you sound so alone. with something like this. And you starting crying.

I fell asleep on migraine pills. I read half the night Sabrina Ward Harrison. I get to grips with fireworks. It’s hot and I am thirsty all the time. I am lonely most of the time. I have more time to breathe and think. I am really scared over something. I try to bury some dreams even further. It feels like having to grow too fast.

by Emerald_.

by Emerald_.

sometimes prettiest things happen when you are concentrated on something completely else.

by Emerald_.

happiness is:
- new pens and green book for scribbling
- drawing in a bar
- a walk around the neighbourhood in sparkly turquoise slippers
- good dreams amidst the weird ones
- inspiration everywhere
- onni (the dog) staying for a week
- thursdays like this