Note to self:

Photo made with an Agfa Isolette III

Besides making photos I also like to make stuff myself. For a while I’ve been thinking about opening my own etsy shop where I can sell products with my photos on it. I gathered lots of ideas of products where I can combine my photos with but I didn’t really know where to begin. I thought for a while about which of my ideas are easy and realistic to start with. I like to work with paper, I’ve made some booklets allready for exhibitions and personal stuff so I thought: why not start with some booklets. I went to Amsterdam to buy different sorts of paper to make the first test booklet. I want to sell booklets with not only lined paper but also sketch paper and with fronts printed on two different sorts of paper. So my plan is to make 4 different booklets, each with a different photo. Two of them will have lined paper and a white paper cover and two of them will have sketch paper with a brown cover. I also have some other ideas on the shelf for other kinds of products I want to make and sell on etsy. But for now on I will just start with these booklets.

It has been a busy week. I started by getting rid of the clutter on my desk. I tend to have lots of ideas and start 10 projects at once and then don’t have time to finish them.. So my desk was filled with half-finished projects: Dia-slides from my grandfather which I still have to scan and organize, half-finished letters to my friends, pieces of cool paper I bought for making my own stationary, boring forms about finances I still have to fill in, empty jars and bottles which I still want to paint. A few days ago I put together a small calendar which came with Flow Magazine. Every day has an interesting quote. One of these quotes said: “Te veel mensen steken te veel tijd in het perfectioneren van een idee voor ze het uitvoeren. In plaats van te wachten op iets perfects, begin je gewoon met wat je hebt en verbeter je gaandeweg” / “To many people spend to much time in improving an idea before they actually execute it. Instead of waiting for something perfect you should start with what you’ve got and improve along the way”. Maybe I should do that, instead of trying to do 10 projects at once just start one or two and completely focus on those projects and put the other ones on a hold. In that way I can concentrate better and actually finish a project in a few weeks instead of a few months (what happened when I do loads of projects at once).

So every week I want to chose just 2 projects to work on. This week I chose to focus on my stationary project and my upcoming exhibition. I made a few testprints on different sorts of paper for a small notebook I want to sell on etsy. I chose to start with a set of 4 different booklets. They all have a different photo on the cover and are printed on two different types of paper. Two of them will have lined paper and the other one blank paper. My exhibition is almost finished. I’m showing two different series. One of them is exhibited as a collage containing photos and articles. Four photos of the collage are also shown as large prints. The other series contains of four big photos of several bands. Next week the opening takes place.

I love paper. For my upcoming exhibition I’m going to show one of my series as sort of a collage containing photos, articles and quotes. I don’t like regular photopaper or plain white paper so I want to print the photos on novel paper and the articles on recycled paper. So I went to Vlieger in Amsterdam which is a great store filled paper. You can find all sorts of paper there: regular paper in all sorts of colours, japanese paper, paper with great prints, paper made of wood, paper made of cork, cardboard, handmade paper, neon paper and much more. Besides paper they also have lots of washi tape and other diy materials Have a look at their website: vliegerpapier.nl/ or visit them at Amstel 34 near Muntplein.

So I just went there for novel paper and recycled paper but returned home with lots of other sorts of paper..
I’m probably going to use it for photo-print-projects or to write letters on it to my friends.

It’s a bit difficult to see on the photos but the white sheets have different textures and the square sheet is made of cotton.

Happy 2013 everybody!

I made some plans for things I want to do in 2013:
– Have at least one exhibition > I have an exhibition coming up in februari so that plan is already in progress
– Get my drivers license
– Get my work published in some (online) magazines
– Make a new website
– Start a new big project (still have to think about a theme)
– Finish my grandfather’s-diafilm-project. I already showed some of them on my weblog . I’ve got at least 1000 dia’s to sort and then I’m going to scan them and make double images and see where the project ends :)
– Make a diafilm lamp with the dia’s I’m not using for the dia-project.