Crafting a Patterned Home Out in the World + 5 "Cover Tries"

It's official. My latest book Crafting A Patterned Home is now available out in the world. The publication date was yesterday.  It was a bit of a nothing day if you want to know the truth. Shipping and packing books. Chasing down some more books with the book warehouse. Starting to clean up the studio which is in dire need of a deep clean. 

I thought today I would share a little bit about the making of Crafting A Patterned Home. I worked on this book for a year and then some. I thought it would be easier than my first craft/interior decorating book Crafting A Colorful Home but it was actually a ton more work. In the first book, some of the projects were already completed - over the years - and thus I only had to write the directions and build templates. This time round, I had to do all the work with the exception of three painted wall treatments.

When it came down to photographing all the projects, Rikki and I set up three different multi-day shoots. Since we had been down this book road together once before, we tried to anticipate what extra images we could give the publisher to make the second book even better than the first. 

We decided to give the publisher - Roost Books - several cover tries so that they would have lots of image ideas to pick from. It is hard to determine what the publisher will like best so we tried to make them varied. The idea was, as with the first book, to show several projects from the book in a setting in our farmhouse. 

With cover shots, you have to think about leaving space for type. A title, a sub-title and then the author name and photographer name. That space should be relatively free of visual clutter. Of course, lots of magic can happen with clever layouts but that isn't up to me - that is up to the cover designer. 

Here are the four alternate cover shots we took:

This one is in the living room. 

This one is also in the living room against a dragged wall treatment. Do you see the kitten on the arm of the chair.

This photo is taken in the library. There was lots of possibilities with this image - type on the ceiling, type on the woodwork above the mantel, type below the woodstove. I liked the warm glowing quality of the candles and the woodstove.

This kitchen image was much lighter and brighter. It featured lots of space for type on the ceiling and on the textured wood floor. I thought they might like this one best because it was lighter and brighter but for me, the colors looked similar to the first book cover. 

This image was shot on a wall in the library. We gave an option of white space on the top via the ceiling. We took the artwork off the walls to give more of a blank space too. And the rug would be a perfect place for some knock-out type. 

This one was the winner - it was definitely Rikki and my favorite but we had no control over what the publisher might like best. I guess you could say we got lucky this time. Here it is with the type laid onto it and the cropping done. I like how the title block has a bit of a translucent look to it so that there is a bit of the wall treatment coming through. 

I am super happy with the cover - I think it speaks for what is inside the book. I think it looks really colorful and full of warmth and personality and handmade goodness.

Hope this post is interesting to you and brings a little of the behind the scenes of book production to you. You can order Crafting A Patterned Home on my website or on my Etsy store. I will include some fun freebies and I will pay the shipping. Thanks for helping to support my family, my art making, and work. 

My website here

My Etsy shop here