My own little nightmare…

Guess what! This is post three in the “coolest thing I ever made” series.

You’re wondering why I am compelled to torment you with preludes, am I right?

That would be irresponsible.

Really.

You know what wasn’t cool about the coolest thing I ever made. A hare-brained scheme that gave me actual sleepless nights because I did it “bass ackwards.”

The title of this post should be:

“A Nightmare of my Own Design: How I did everything all wrong, but it turned out all right in the end because of the kindness of strangers.” (Wow, just gave away the whole plot, there.)

Not sure that title meets suggested SEO guidelines.

Not sure it meets “Where Bloggers Live” guidelines for this month, either. This month’s topic is supposed to be “Sleep Routine.”

You know what cost me a lot of sleep? This project!

Let’s review:

  • Desire to redecorate my powder room using a Toile print. ✅
  • Complete lack of skillset to accomplish the mission. ✅
  • No original photographs of my own with which to work. ✅

And it was that last one that did, indeed, keep me up at night (not exaggerating here…at ALL!). That was almost the undoing of this project.

This is why I am absolutely thankful for, entirely dependent upon, and incredibly grateful for the generosity and the kindness of strangers.

As noted in the last post, my family has 0 photos of Crystal Beach, and while I can draw a little, I don’t think I could recreate an entire park from memory. So, my only source of images would be the internet.

Let me just say, that source is plen-ti-ful. HOWEVER…each of those images–pasted in a multitude of places on line, usually without any or proper attribution–has an original owner.

Laff in the Dark at Crystal Beach
I found this photo on line, and eventually discovered ot was a vintage postcard by
photographer Thomas Martin Smith.

The Pollyanna approach is that there’s a shelf-life to Crystal Beach memories. The park closed in 1989, so you have to be of a particular vintage to even HAVE a Crystal Beach memory. And memories are for sharing.

Plus, have we met? I am the procrastination queen… I have dozens of similarly hare-brained schemes that never see the light of day. I mean, some days I need a motivational speech just to unload the dishwasher.

If the chances are near zero that your hare-brained scheme might actually work, should you track down permissions from the source of each image if you were likely to never use them?

In retrospect, the answer is definitively “YES.” Getting permission was always part of my plan, just as a basic human courtesy. HOWEVER….Even though there was a slim chance this project would ever happen, asking in advance was the RIGHT thing to do and also would have saved me from a lot of stress and worry.

Instead, taking the bass ackwards route, I began by selecting the images I most wanted to use. The one photo that gave me the most inspiration, actually, was this one:

I had a really fun idea involving this VERY frequently posted, unattributed photo of the iconic Comet sign
(…and I was grateful to eventually discover the original source was Ken Jones, Sr.)

You know that phrase “even a blind squirrel…”? That’s the short explanation for how I used a variety of methods to make my toile designs. Here’s a longer one:

Enhancing resolutions, removing backgrounds, erasing distractions, adventures in vectoring and rasterizing, hand sketching things I couldn’t find or recreating incomplete images, and then trying to make the images look more like related sketches than a collection of napkin illustrations and photographs… It was QUITE a process.

Tom graciously allowed me to digitally manipulate his original photo.

I spent lots of time poking around Photoshop and Illustrator, but when I wasn’t getting the results I hoped for, I also turned to editing progams with which I was more comfortable and experienced. I purchased and have used Lemke Software’s Graphic Converter for as long as I’ve been blogging and it was a very useful tool; and the most helpful editing site for transforming images into “drawings” was BeFunky.com.

BeFunky.com is an extremely user-friendly photo editing site.
There is a free version, but a paid subscription allows access to premium features.

Adobe Illustrator was most helpful was when it came time to turn my collection of individual images into a repeatable pattern…I turned to YouTube for step-by-step help with that. The most helpful tutorials included:

Little by little, I figured it out enough to make a usable pattern… Each of the heavily edited images took a lot of memory individually, let alone when I tried to put them all in the same file. I knew I had started to push my laptop to the limit when every small change would take tense minutes for my computer to complete. Then, each time I closed in on the finish line, my computer would completely rebel and freeze up again and again (x20 …I’m slow to take a hint).

While I would have preferred perfection, I reluctantly realized I had already carried this project further than I would’ve dreamed, and it was time to cut my losses.

One of the draft versions made while my computer kept freezing up over and over and over and……

Was it time to get permissions yet? YES! But even though I made my full pattern and fillers, would the images even line up properly on printed wallpaper? So, I continued with bass ackwards and had sample rolls of paper printed, while simultaneously beginning to go back to try to find the original image sources.

That was NOT as easy as I’d hoped…and though I kept searching, I also kept moving forward…There was still a solid possibility this wouldn’t even work out.

I have to say, not obtaining permissions first really gnawed at me. A lot.

I would. Even with this little blog, I absolutely know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of this kind of thing. I’ve discovered instances where people have taken my entire post content INCLUDING photographs, and reposted it with five small word changes… “According to Em of DustandDoghair.com….”

Hey, thanks. Took me three weeks to put that post together and you couldn’t even ask before you scraped it.

I felt like I was doing the same thing.

Even worse, since last spring, I had invested a lot of time tracking sources and permissions and thought I had all I needed…but there were several stragglers that I thought were likely “fair use.”

Honestly? I’d take it down. Cry for about a week. Delete all related posts. Write a post to tell you what happened…

Fun toile prints, modern toile, DIY toile
Plan B: Beth Norton’s Bigfoot and Friends Toile, via Spoonflower.com

Then I’d put up the Bigfoot alien abduction paper, consider it a very valuable lesson and move on.

(Remember when I said that sometimes the D in DIY stands for “Debacle”?)

In the end, I couldn’t take any joy from the project if I felt like I had no right to do it.

Yeah, I’m weird that way.

But guess what. I didn’t have to take it down. SO…that is why I would like to offer VERY sincere thanks to Kim Carney, Rick Doan, Ken Jones, Jr., Ken Jones, Sr., Dale Roddick, and Thomas Martin Smith, for all their very gracious help with my project. (IF I have somehow still missed someone…please let me know and I will do my best to make it right.)

And… if these gracious folks ever want to collaborate in the future to recreate this idea (or others I have, haha) the RIGHT way…and perhaps to benefit the Alzheimer’s Association or a children’s charity…count me in!

WHO’S ready for the big reveal (finally)!?

ME TOO! (I’m also ready for a nap.). The reveal? You guessed it, next post!

But first, please check in with my blogging buds this fine November day to see if/how anything separates them from their ZZZs. Kindly visit:

Daenel at Living Outside the Stacks
Leslie at Once Upon a Time & Happily Ever After
Sally at Within a World of My Own  
Iris at Iris’ Original Ramblings
Bettye at Fashion Schlub
Jodie at Jodie’s Touch of Style 

Welcome to “Where Bloggers Live.” It’s kind of like HGTV’s “Celebrities at Home,” but…Bloggers! 
Who doesn’t like to peek behind the scenes and see inside people’s homes? 
The second Friday of each month is when this group of seven bloggers link up to share their workspaces, 
homes, towns… or whatever our fearless leader, the fabulous Bettye, proposes.
Make sure you visit everyone to see where the magic happens!

11 comments

  1. Oh, Em, I cannot even imagine trying to figure out how to do this. Your idea is so clever and I really like the screenshot of the images you’ve created. But I don’t know how in the world you figured out how to do this. Just amazing. Can’t wait to see the reveal. You have to share the family’s thoughts and reactions, too!!

  2. I love that you used this prompt to further tease us about your bathroom reno! I think your dedication to finding the “producers” of your images is really commendable. I try to cite my sources, but I’m not sure if there’s a special way to do it on a blog. I hope I’m doing it right.

    One of these days, I’m going to go to Niagara Falls just so I can be within shouting distance of you! I’d love to see your home in real life (it bugs me to use IRL in comments). I think I should do it at Christmas time, though I’m pretty sure any time to see your home would be amazing!

    Now, I’ll be on pins and needles waiting to see your bathroom.

    https://marshainthemiddle.com/

  3. It’s incredible what you do for your home. Absolutely incredible. I think you need to have a huge party and we are all invited so we get to see it in person. SOON.
    XOXO
    Jodie

    1. We’re long overdue for a huge party! (Although one is on the agenda for 2026! 🤵🏻💍.)
      Like you with clothes, I just see the house as a fun canvas to play with ideas… not sure anything I do is official “decor” but it works for us!
      Next project is already in progress! Little hint: you can use it when we have our WBL party, haha!

  4. Em, you crack me up! I’ve turned into a procrastinator since retirement but seem to get a lot less done. What’s your secret? Can’t wait to see the toilet room, what a great idea! Vee

    1. So, it’s “Veronica”! I’ve often wondered.
      You have a beautiful, beautiful name, Vee!
      I’ve been a lifelong member of the procrastination club… good thing, too, because I think I’d’ve been too lazy to fill out the membership application.
      For some reason, I’m just more efficient when push comes to shove. Wish it weren’t so, but I’ve fought it for sixty some-odd years. I also tend to discipline myself via my projects: like, “you can go for a haircut when you finish redoing the guest room.”
      (Ha ha, that could be an alternate explanation as to why I stopped coloring my hair.)
      So happy you share my humor! 🥰

  5. Did I miss The Big Reveal??

    You are an exemplary human, Ms. Mary. If I was just making something for my own home, I would not try all that hard to get permissions…and I also know what it’s like to see your work “borrowed.”

    Did you ever paint those toile pumpkins??

    1. Yeah, I guess I forgot to be a little specific about the reveal…which is the next post. So, I just clarified, thanks to you. Also… you have the actual sneak peek, so at least you know where we’re heading, haha.
      Maybe if I thought that no one but me would ever have seen the images, I might not have been as obsessive (and heaven help me, I have been). Like, does anyone care if I save their images on my computer to appreciate at my own convenience. Although, I’ve come to understand, that’s technically still a copyright violation.
      But with the wallpaper, I was using recognizable images, and they have owners…and I was changing them…so I sincerely felt I needed the blessing of the sources. Everyone was really great about it; most are used to but annoyed by people NOT asking, so I felt pretty good about trying to do the right think where I could.
      The toile pumpkins…Made one, booted the rest to the low priority zone and moved on to a shinier penny! Suprise, surprise….

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