I love books.  I revel in their weight in my hand, the texture of their pages, the ink and paper smell that escapes when you crack one open.  They are my most favored possessions and instead of tchotkes, I collect books.  Beautiful ones with classic, concise covers and bright ones with bold spines and clean fonts.  I am in in love with the possibility that comes with each one I bring home and comforted by their presence when I’ve finished them.  When I read, I feel more like myself than I do when I am doing any thing else and so, I prefer to surround myself with them instead of any other thing.

This is why I love, love, love this gorgeous poster from FloraFauna. Designed for the band, The Books, FloraFauna elevates PR to the level of art.  If you’ve never seen their stuff before, I highly recommend that you take a twirl around their website.  They produce some of the most incredible show art around.

Last summer, I organized the repainting of our director’s office. The big, yawning space was dingy and crowded with piles of paper and previously important things, but I was convinced that it was recoverable. Our building is an old, once beautiful house and over the years, many of the rooms have been painted improbable (and sometimes disorienting) hues like butterfly yellow or an ashen lavender. It is a hodgepodge that you see at first, but like most details, begin to tune out over time. My boss was hungry for some kind of a fresh start and so, we volunteered to make the change as painless as possible for her. After picking a warm, rich maize, we spent a day taping and putting down a tinted primer. A second day was all we needed to get a few coats on and everything cleaned up. The room looks completely different and I think it really did feel a little bit like the fresh start she’d been hoping for when we’d first considered the idea. As a thank you for getting the ball rolling, she gave me a wonderful gift. Twenty-five dollars to spend at one of my favorite stores in town, Home Ec.. It took me an unbelievable nine months to spend it, but I found this absolutely gorgeous yarn and fell in love. Thank you’s can only be spent on things you cannot live without. The color and softness of the kettle dyed merino yarn from Malabrigo Yarn is bright and comforting and its potential for beauty, endless. Maybe it will be a little bit of my own fresh start.