Great Job Paul...Much Ado About Awesome Lighting

This is Paul's final semester to finish up Grad School at the University of Connecticut. It is a bit of a bitter sweet moment. We have been in school since we got married and have really enjoyed having long breaks for Christmas and being able to travel for the summers. At the same time we are so excited to be moving on to the next chapter. With Lady El here and after so many years of living on the bare minimum, moving around so often, we are really looking forward to setting down roots and moving on to the next big thing.

This post is going to be a bit different.....it's all about Paul and his designing talent. Last month his final show and thesis project opened, Shakespeare's 'Much Ado About Nothing.' Thought the whole process he talked about how much fun it was to work with Paul?????, the director. They also had a great crew of Grad students doing the designs for the show.

Director: Paul Mullins

Scenic: Joe Keener III

Lighting: Paul Yeates

Costumes: Tiffany Deligatti

Sound: Michael Fryer

During this past fall semester Paul taught an undergrad class about intro to lighting and sound. As we left the theatre after the opening performance a lot of his students were out in the hall. I over heard one of them tell Paul, "That was Much Ado About Awesome Lighting." I could not agree more. There were so many different moods, scenes at different times of day and even different weather settings. Paul pulled them all off wonderfully.

He asked Mark Stanley, the Lighting professor at Boston University and Lighting Designer for the New York City Ballet, to come and adjudicate his design {basically someone who comes to nit pick apart one aspect of the show, in this case, Paul's lighting}. He loved the show! While he had one or two suggestions to Paul about different things he only had great stuff to say about the show and Paul's design. It seems that the favorite part for everyone was the how he was able to pull off the cloud designs on the back drop.

A couple weekends ago at The Hemsley Review in NY Paul had the opportunity to meet Broadway designers and other big names in Lighting design. They were all interested in his designs and of course it did not hurt to have Mark, who coordinates this huge event, talking it up to everyone since he came and saw it.

These have been a few of my favorite shots from the show. To check out all the photos find them on Paul's website here.

Canister Labels

The other day I went looking through my baking items and found one of my peppermint baking bars nibbled all up and down the sides. Breath. Do not freak out. Aahhhh!!

Naturally the next step is to re-organize the closet and put just about everything in a canister. 

I love creating designs in Silhouette Studio and this would be a great chance to see what I could come up with. As well, this would be my first time cutting vinyl. *So excited*

First thing is first: Deciding what will all go into canisters so I know how many labels to create and what size to make them.

Choose the colors: For Christmas we got a little bit of spending money from family and I told Paul it was time for a change in our kitchen decor and colors. The vinyl for the labels will match the new colors so well.

Items needed:

Canisters {purchased at Wal-Mart}

Vinyl in color{s} of choice

Clear Contact Paper

Small clear Omnigrid rulers
Cut file*

Tip: For something a little more worthy of the counter top check out this

Oggi 4 Piece Stainless Steel Canister Set
or

Oggi 4-Piece Locking Acrylic Canister Set

I used the 2 1/2" x 2 1/2" square ruler from this Ruler Value Pack
 and the 1" x 6" ruler from this Basics Ruler Set

First wash the canisters. After they dry use rubbing alcohol to clean the surface where the vinyl will be placed. 

Design the labels or purchase a cutting file. Here is the label design* I came up with for my canisters. I love how they turned out and they were actually pretty easy to create. Give it a try, after seeing your first design come out you will be hooked.

Cut the design into the vinyl then weed out the parts that you will not be using. Since I am not a very avid cook I also have solid labels for the backs of the canisters and I will be putting the expiration dates on them to remind myself when it will be time to switch out the contents.. A dry erase marker can be used on the vinyl so this will work out perfect.

Tip: on some of my vinyl pieces that had a lot of negative space I cut a bunch of 3/8" circles so that Lady A could use them as stickers. We ended up using the green dots on a simple white bedroom clock. After we used the dots on our clock project I weeded out the rest so they would not get in the way of transferring the labels.

Tip: on smaller vinyl images and ones that are not to intricate I use normal clear contact paper that comes in a huge roll. While it is not as 'sticky' or as thick as transfer paper, it works great on these smaller projects and costs a lot less.

Bring the vinyl up with the clear contact paper. Then center on the clear ruler to the height that you want the label and let your clear contact paper stick to the ruler. Line up the ruler to the center of the canister and simply press the top of the label onto the canister, making sure to start from the center and smooth out the label so no air bubbles get trapped. Remove the ruler and press the rest of the label down, then remove the clear contact paper

It gets just a little bit trickier when placing the labels with words. If the lettering lays over the clear ruler at all they will want to stick to the ruler. Expose the bottom of the label so that it can still be lined up on the ruler. Leave the vinyl baking where the lettering is. Follow the same process as above for centering and placing the labels but be sure to remove the vinyl baking when the ruler is removed.

Finish pressing/laying the vinyl into place and remover the clear contact paper.

TaDa!! Nice wonderful canisters labeled and ready to go in the closet.

The colors turned out great as well and will match the rest of the kitchen. 

*Eeek*

If you have a Silhouette machine but are maybe a bit intimidated by it like I was {this is my first electronic cutter of any kind} I would suggest watching the introduction DVD that comes along with it. Seriously, it helped me so much, with just enough instruction on how to use it and a lot of the different features ~ now there has been no stopping me.

*Download files are not to be sold, redistributed, or altered without permission. Items using this cut pattern are not to be sold. Please send your friends and family to my blog if they want a copy as well. Thanks! I am excited to see what everyone come up with.