It's been a long time since I last updated the photo blog. I've been busy working on some Christmas projects including a book design for my dad. He wrote a short story about fishing with his grandpa, which included a brief history of the Ellis family settling in Medicine Lodge. Dad asked me to take the story and some old family photos to create a book.
I thought it would be fun to post some of my favorite photos from the book, a collection of Ellis family photos through the years.
I finished my bottle cap magnet project! I wanted to display postcards that I've collected during my travels, so I went online and got some ideas. I created a magnet board from a canvas and backed it with metal sheets (thanks Martha Stewart!). Then, I wanted to create some custom magnets and got this bottle cap idea from a random blog post. My hubby, Jerry, volunteered to drink Coke out of glass bottles for a month or two so I could recycle the bottle caps. I went through my family photo collection and found photos from my travels over the years. I also received a bunch of old family photos from mom and decided to put them to good use. I printed out the images on photo paper and used a quarter (to you UK folks, that's an American coin worth 25¢) to outline a cutting area. Next, I cut out the photos and glued them into the center of the bottle cap. For the magnets, I found some magnetic strips with sticky backing that was easy to cut and put directly onto the bottle cap.
VOILA - a magnet board to hang postcards with personalized magnets...
A couple of Christmas' ago, I created a photography book of my dad's photography. Check it out on Blub.com.
Here's the intro to the book...
Charles Kator, my dad, was born in 1950 and raised in Dubois, Idaho. He is the proud father of three children – Travis, Corinne, and Kristen (that's me!). He is currently living and teaching in Soda Springs, Idaho where he raised his family.
This book is a collection of my father's photographs taken from 1975 to 1999. Many of the images in this book were found scratched and faded in an old box in Dad's basement. I was determined to save and preserve these photos. After scanning and patiently retouching each photograph, I carefully selected, cropped, and re-colored the best images. I then created a book design and laid them out into the following pages. Now the photographs are here for us all to enjoy.
The chapters in this book are arranged by photographic subject. The chapter titles reflect the interests and hobbies of my dad, who is often found hiking the hills of Idaho, bird watching on the banks of the Alexander, and taking photographs at Mike's ponds.
