Interactive and Diecut Album Covers

I've been buying records since the mid-1970s, when my sister and I got our fist record player: a GE portable turntable that came in its own plastic, suitcase-like box. But in the late '80s, when I started going to thrift stores, I found LPs in the bins for 25 or 50 cents and couldn't resist buying them solely based on the design of their sleeves. The interactive and diecut sleeve designs are my favorites, and I keep them framed these days as works of art!


Rowan & Martin's Laugh-in, with diecut shapes revealing photos of the cast members. (1968)


Led Zeppelin III, features a cardboard wheel, or "volvelles", on the right side that can be turned to change surreal images that appear in various diecut circles on the front. (Designed by Zacron, 1977)


Led Zeppelin Physical Graffiti, features photos of two New York City buildings with diecut windows and images of the interesting "tenants" looking out. Interesting trivia: The buildings on the album cover are the same ones that Keith Richards and Mick Jagger were filmed in front of in The Rolling Stones music video "Waiting on a Friend". (Designed by Mike Doud and Peter Corriston, 1975)


Rolling Stones Sticky Fingers, includes an actual zipper in the crotch and a mock belt buckle, which, when opened, revealed cotton briefs. In 2003, it was named by VH-1 as the "No. 1 Greatest Album Cover of All Time". (Designed by Andy Warhol, Billy Name, and Craig Braun, 1971)


The Velvet Underground & Nico, features a yellow banana sticker with "Peel slowly and see" printed near the tip. If you removed the banana skin, you found a pink, peeled banana underneath. (Designed by Andy Warhol, 1967)


Rolling Stones Some Girls, features die cuts that reveal the faces of the Rolling Stones in drag and select female celebrities in a mock ad for wigs. Lucille Ball, Farrah Fawcett, Liza Minnelli (representing her mother Judy Garland), Raquel Welch, and the estate of Marilyn Monroe threatened to sue, so the album was reissued with a new cover that replaced the celebrities with solid colors and the phrase PARDON OUR APPEARANCE - COVER UNDER RE-CONSTRUCTION (found on most reissues since). (Designed by Peter Corriston, 1978)

Friday Finds: Music to My Ears

1 Boombox and Retro Cassette iPhone cases by Zero Gravity || 2 Yellow Submarine Tea Sub by Monkey Business || 3 RE Record Collection home accessories from Target || 4 Turntable Bloc Ring and Keyboard Brass Knuckles by Plastique || 5 William Kellogg Graffiti Cocktail Shaker from Kikkerland || 6 King of Disco Washing-Up Sponge by StoreBound

Found Paper Color Collages

Lovely color collages assembled from miscellaneous ephemera by Anthony Zinonos of Norwich, UK.

Project Monday: Chalk Lettering Cheat

Well, after waiting a month and dealing with packages of fabric being lost in the mail, wondering if I should reorder but knowing that as soon as I did the original package would arrive, etcetera, etcetera... Finally an envelope came in the mail this weekend that included a swatch for a design whose process I've wanted to share with you so you can do it yourself!

Chalk lettering is all the rage right now, but since the chalkboard wall we have in our house is not quite large enough (and is pretty much at the mercy of a near-three-year-old boy), I found a way to do it on a smaller scale, and with the help of just pencil, paper, and Photoshop. Here is my process:



1. Draw it. Draw your design on paper using a slightly soft pencil (I used an F). Fill in some letters using different strokes or lines (diagonal, horizontal), and don't try to be perfect. Imagine the pencil actually is chalk, and how it would feel in your hand. Keep a pencil sharpener handy for finer lines.

2. Scan it. Scan your drawing, preferably at a higher resolution than you need, so you can enlarge it slightly for a more detailed effect. I scanned mine at 600 dpi, then reduced it later to 300 dpi, but at slightly larger dimensions than the original.



3. Invert it. In Photoshop, make the image grayscale and invert it so everything black becomes white, and vice-versa. You'll notice that inverting it really picks up any smudges that might have been on the paper, which gives the new black background a recently-erased chalkboard look. You may want to adjust the contrast a bit, to really make the chalk stand out.

4. Colorize it. Change the image now to a monotone (duotone, but with only one color). Choose a color that looks like the chalkboard you had in mind, like a really dark bluish-black slate, or a more elementary-school dark green. Then adjust the image to RGB or CMYK and you're done!



This is the printed fabric from my design, which I'm adding to my Woodtype Alphabet collection. It will be in my Etsy shop soon, along with a few other "chalk-lettered" tea towels and prints in other designs.

Friday Fotos and Faves

It was a whirlwind week, what with our local town fair and Thomas the Tank Engine chuffing into town to take us for a ride. Here are some loved links I found in the down time. Phew!

1. DIY tabletop biosphere
2. Trick my kicks!
3. Embroidered newspaper pictures
4. How to make tiny pom-poms with a fork (via Poppytalk)
5. Big display ideas for Instagrams
6. Downloadable papercraft alphabet (via How About Orange)

Enjoy, and have a great weekend!

New iPhone Cases + Free Shipping!

So far I've only translated my pattern design to iPhone cases and skins on Society6. But I decided to try uploading a few photos, and I think I'm hooked! If you follow my Instagram feed, you'll know I like to take pictures of the everyday as much as the kitsch. Here are a few new cases, with more to come! Plus, as a bonus, Society6 is offering FREE SHIPPING through Sunday, July 29th!

My favorite in this bunch: my typewriter. I love that little guy!

Beautiful Boletos: Argentinian Railway Tickets

On Pinterest recently, I happened upon some images from an amazing collection of hundreds of train boletos from Argentina. The site from which they came includes the history of the tickets and the railway system in Argentina, plus images from the 1800s to present. It's written entirely in Spanish, but you'll find it hard to take your eye off of the tickets themselves anyway. So very simple and functional, yet beautiful for the same reason. View the whole collection here.