Studio/Office Open House

This Saturday is the Open House of my Office and Studio. It's the place where many of my projects come to life. I wanted to take an opportunity to show our family, friends, supporters and prayer partners the inner workings of what I do. Angie and I are getting excited as we finish preparing it. We talked about h'orderves last night, which is just another aspect of creating! And in one corner of the office there will be a prayer station. There you will be able to look over a list of prayer needs, spin a globe and pray for various missionaries and people groups around the world.  It's on the campus of Highland Park Christian Church in the 2:20 Center. It will last from 2-4PM and you can come and go as you please. Hope to see you there!

Hello Organizational Project Idea Tracking!

Ever since I started doing artistic projects, long before that became my job/mission, I have searched for a good visual tool for tracking the projects that I'm working on. I think I may have found it. It's portable, completely customize-able, at-a-glance-functional and works as a funnel of the idea process.

I looked and looked and finally figured out I was going to have to make something. The really ironic thing is that I am deep into technological wizardry. I have a laptop, desktop, smartphone (since 2004 or so), mp3 player, tablet computer and graphics tablet, among other things. Usually, the more advanced futuristic, the more I like/use it. However, I came to the conclusion that I needed something more organic, something analog.

So what does this homemade organizer look like? Here's some pics of the tools and how it turned out.

First I bought some Moleskin volant notebooks, 3M bright colorful post-it notes and 3M post-it durable tabs. Of course, you could use any small notebook, but after living in Italy and filling several Moleskin journals, I am a little partial to the brand. Besides they have some new very colorful soft cover styles in the volant line. 

Then I took a tab and placed it on each subsequent page starting with the second. I purposefully skipped the first one, because the cover didn't naturally open to it, it opened to the second page. Every time I placed a tab, I wrote on it the title of a different project that I am working on. After placing a tab and title on each page (I indented the tabs as I went, to make them easier to see at a glance), I put a post-it note on each page.

Then I can write notes on the post-its referencing the project. If I fill those up with ideas, I can place new post-its on top of the originals.

The concept is that when a project is completed, I can take it out, tab and post-its. Then if I want to archive them, and most I do, I bought a couple extra volant matching notebooks (each color actually comes with a second notebook with the same color cover, just darker).


Voila! This does not replace, Evernote, Dropbox and the myriad apps and devices I use, but it does make it so I can quickly and easily scan across all the projects I am working on and determine what needs attention next.

Sleepy Saturday...Working!

So, here I find myself the the fourth Saturday out of five working. I am almost done with the new VBS curriculum I'm working on, JUMP VBS. I have almost 100 pages done and only about fifteen to go. I have really enjoyed designing this curriculum, but I have been working on it for months. Some design and research were done a year ago! So, even though I have enjoyed it, I am ready to have it complete. Usually, after lunch I find myself fighting the natural napping desire. I try different things to get me out of the after lunch funk. I get more Diet Dr. Pepper (cans are kept at the ready in the fridge at my office), I make coffee with my Keurig coffee maker (so I can make one cup of coffee at a time), and I have stood up and walk around in a circle around my office. Well, enough writing, now back to writing...if I can keep my eyelids open.

Newsletter - September/October 2010

And now here's the newsletter you've all been waiting for!  It's our September/October 2010 newsletter.  Our trip back to Italy to pack up our apartment and close out our ministry there is scheduled for October 16-29th.  You can read all about it in this issue of our newsletter...

Newsletter - August 2010

Here's our August newsletter.  Make yourself up a cup of coffee or warm tea and enjoy reading!  Let us know if you want to receive a paper version of our newsletters.

Newsletter - July 2010

Here is our July 2010 Newsletter. If you want to get this in your postal service mail, let us know and we can add you to our mailing list!  Check out the new look as well as the new Project Showcase on the backpage!