Lisa Congdon's book, A Collection a Day launched this spring and as I mentioned last week in a post, publisher UPPERCASE is holding a mini summer blog tour for the book.  The book which I wrote about here and I'm sure in a few other posts this past year is a daily documentation of arrangements of Lisa's collected items she photographed (and some imagined and illustrated) everyday for one year last year.  The book comes in a fun tin too - perfect for holding your own collection.

Fun fact:  Check our collecting tag here which started back in 2008 where we featured Lisa's collections among with many other online artists' amazing collections!  It's a treasure trove if you like that kind of thing. (Be sure to go all the way back to 2008)!

And hey, we somehow managed to fandangle a copy of the book to giveaway here on the blog!  (Thanks Janine) - so one of you will be winning it!  Just leave a comment here at this post with a link to your favourite collections online.  Maybe it's at one of Lisa's or my posts here or maybe it's one of your own, or a friends, we'd love to see!  We'll announce a winner come Friday, July 29th/11!  (The giveaway will run till 9pm Thursday, July 28/11 )!  Good Luck!

In the meantime, check out the blog tour (check here for dates) if you will or buy the book,  it's a collector's item in itself!

Contributor post by Lisa Congdon

I'm back this month with an up close look at some of my kitchen collectables. As I mention in my book, A Collection a Day , my favorite collection is probably my mid-century kitchenware -- most of which is Scandinavian and Japanese. I love the colors, the designs, the simplicity.

photo by Philip Maisel

I started collecting kitchenware about 10 years ago. It began with a Catherineholm piece I found at an antique mall, and it grew from there. Much of my vintage kitchenware I don't use -- it's either too fragile or too precious to me, so I display it in my kitchen instead.

photos by Jen Siska for Dwell Magazine

Recently I did an interview with Drew of Kitsch Cafe about collecting. In that interview I talk a little bit there about taking good care of your collections, which in many cases means not using them (or at least not using them for every day use) to protect them from wear and tear.

But I do use several of my kitchen collectables! In fact, you can see many vintage things in my kitchen thrown in with every day spoons, pots and bowls.



Lisa Congdon is an artist, author and prolific collector of old and unusual things, including bits of nature, and surrounds herself with these things in her home and studio. In 2010 she chronicled all of her collections in her Collection A Day 2010 Project. That project is now a book, published in March 2011.

Site: www.lisacongdon.com
Shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop/lisacongdon

Cafe Cartolina

Lisa Congdon's book, A Collection a Day launched this spring and for fun this summer, publisher UPPERCASE is holding a mini blog tour for the book.  It's launching today over at fellow Canadian blog, Cafe Cartolina where Fiona is showing off some of her own pretty amazing collections.  We're also included in the tour (visit here July 27th for a special post) along with design work life (July 20th) and sfgirlbybay (Aug. 3). A Collection a Day is available online here.

Today (Friday, March 18th/11) is the reception for Lisa Congdon's book, A Collection a Day. It will be held at The Curiosity Shoppe in San Francisco, from 6-9pm. See the exhibition (many of the collections and drawings she photographed during this past year) and celebrate Lisa's incredible project and book. Below sneak peek photos (taken by Lisa) from the exhibit.  The book can also be ordered online through UPPERCASE.

Love this collection of vintage class pictures that the folks over at Love It Alot recently hung in the stairwell of their home. Not only a great display but I'm drawn to the different shades of wooden frames along with their rectangular shapes. Usually one sees photo's hung in stairwells with the longer part of the frame going vertical (as most photo's are taken that way - portrait style I guess); but because these are class pictures, the "landscape" direction is a fresh alternative don't you think?

Apartment Therapy

I love this collection of drawers don't you? (You can read more about them here). They're inspiring me to collect some drawers of my own. I'm not sure how easy that is going to be, without buying heaps of dressers, but I'm thinking the process could be interesting. Are you collecting something? 

Photo credit: Anna Hoffman for Apartment Therapy.

Earlier this summer I created a new flickr pool called "Collecting Nature" where I asked readers to join me in uploading all our summer nature collections with the promise that we would meet again after summer's end to possibly create things with them. And what a wonderful collection you have shared! So now that summer has ended, lets meet again over at the pool at a new pool we created for projects, to share things we will now do with our collections. Maybe you've displayed them in a special way, or have created an awesome piece of art or craft with them and wish to share with us, or even a tutorial perhaps. We will feature some here on the blog as they are uploaded. Personally, I hope to make something with driftwood! Here are a few links for inspiration: Summer Collection Box, Kid's Collector Desk, Vacation Memory Jars, Seashell Lights, Shell Wind Chimes. (Happy making!)

Update: Please upload your tutorials, projects to a new pool we created for this here.

Row 1: knitalatte11; knitalatte11; knitalatte11; NoTyourrunofthemill; Cori Kindred; Cori Kindred
Row 2: otchipotchi; Hindsvik; flowerpress; Maria Apostolou; knitalatte; Ashley E.
Row 3: Mundo Flo; meeni2010; Hannah Mayo; knitalatte11; knitalatte; ginettesqulette
Row 4: wild goose chase; wild goose chase; Marta Miguel Martinez-Soria; Staci; Marta Miguel Martínez-Soria; ethanollie
Row 5: christinecho1; knitalatte11; lorena.arance; sue.h; Maria Apostolou; wild goose chase

I'm amazed at this collection of ocean pottery uploaded to our Collecting Nature pool this week by Marta Miguel Martinez-Soria. Found treasures. Here is a list of the 10 most read posts this week (in case you were away):

1. Fresh From the Oven: Bijan Berahmi
2. Porcelain Wallpaper
3. Home Sweet Home Tour No. 4: Bodie and Fou
4. Peacock Cake
5. Weekend Project: Ruffle Up A Shower Curtain
6. Sunday Reading: Why India?
7. Over It
8. Bring the Baja to Your Kitchen
9. DIY With Bookhou: Woven Lamp
10. Link Love

Cori Kindred

If you missed our post over the weekend we're collecting nature over the weekends this summer with hopes of making things from our finds come fall and sharing them here in the blog. We're inviting you to join us by uploading your collections you find over the summer to our new flickr pool. Hope you'll join us, even just for the beauty of nature (no pressure to make anything)!

Speaking of PATCH NYC (see post below), one of PATCH's designers, Don Carney's illustrations was included in an exhibition this past winter at Le Bon Marche in Paris which was curated by Benoit and Ivan, the creators behind Astier de Villatte. And subsequently from that exhibit, Don's illustration was featured in this piece in French Marie-Claire. I'm not only loving Don's piece but all of this together. A beautiful grey display of reinvented curiosities. Love the bottles by Boutique Porcelaine Virebent (center of page - No. 6; named Eta and Delta). Via PATCH NYC.

I am one of those people who always has to have some sort of creative project. For the most part, my creative projects are built into the way I make my living: preparing for art shows, collaborating with other artists, working on illustration projects for clients. This year, I decided to motivate myself even further to be creative every day by inventing for myself a daily project for 2010. On January 1, I launched A Collection a Day, 2010 .



A Collection a Day, 2010 is a project that will span exactly one year, from January 1, 2010 to December 31, 2010. On each of those 365 days, I will photograph or draw (and occasionally paint) one collection. Most of the collections are real and exist in my home or studio; those I will photograph. Some are imagined; those I will draw or (occasionally) paint.




Since I was a young girl, I have been obsessed both with collecting and with arranging, organizing and displaying my collections. (You can see a profile here on Poppytalk about my just a few of my collections from 2008). This project is my attempt to document my collections, both the real and the imagined. Some of my collections are so large that I will need to photograph them separately over several days. I will likely not attempt to photograph collections in which the individual pieces are large in size or awkward in shape (i.e. my art collection or vintage enamel dishware collection). The only rule is that I must photograph or draw a whole or part of a collection each day for 365 days and post the result here on this blog.


The practice of collecting and documenting collections is as old as the hills. I want onlookers to know that I do not profess to be doing anything new or unique or ingenious. I am embarking on this project because I love my collections, and I want to document them in a way that makes sense to me, and share them with whoever might be interested in looking at them.


Yearly projects that folks share via the internet are also not a new concept. Countless creative people have been individually and collaboratively launching year-long, 365 day, or 52 week projects and sharing them through Flickr and through blogs over the past several years. Yearly projects help us to stay focused, tell our story in a structured way, and keep us motivated to live a creative life.
Will I run out of stuff to photograph or draw over time? Will it remain inspiring and enjoyable? Only time will tell. I hope if you are interested you will come along with me on A Collection a Day, 2010 . What project(s) have you started this year?

kershlock

I missed posting my final write up on collecting this week, so here it is. I decided to go with all the colourful ones and thank all of you who participated by uploading to our Collectors Pool at flickr. Hope your weekend is turning out well! See you back here monday with our new online Holiday Market!

svankatwijk

rossignolfoto

kershlock

kershlock

Cori Kindred

Thursday's edition of our "collecting series" this week. We've had some beautiful entries and look forward to posting the grande finale tomorrow. Thank you to everyone who participated, and if you haven't there's still time to upload your's to our Collecting Pool. The theme today seems to be "things on shelves".


Cori Kindred



abbytrysagain



wardomatic



comfies