las florecitas

So one of my favorite things about Dooce (my blog inspiration) is her “mastheads” page, where she archives, well, her mastheads. Brilliant. So, being the copycat that I am, I’m following suit. Dooce changes her mastheads every month, but I’m much lazier and decided I’d change it whenever I felt like it. Turns out I get tired of my headers after about 60 days, more or less. Actually I get tired of them much sooner, but by the time I get around to creating and posting a new one, it’s been about 2 months.

Some history: the name la_florecita has its roots in high school. I took Spanish all 4 years of high school. Sophomore year a girl in my class used the name “Flor,” meaning flower. We weren’t required to have Spanish names, so I didn’t bother. I just know that if I chose a Spanish name (Mercedes? Gertrudis?), I’d never remember to answer. In my junior year, my dad got a job in Houston and we moved to Pearland, a suburb south of town. In Spanish class on my first day, my teacher said, “Okay, well, what’s your Spanish name?” And she poised her pen to write it next to my name.

Spanish name?! I need a list!! How will I know if I have the perfect one? What if I choose one and then I see a better one? I said the first thing that came to mind.

“Um, Flor.”

“Flor?”

“Sí, Flor.”

So that was the start. This conversation repeated itself when I became a camp counselor. “Well, what will your camp name be?” Yup, Flor. A few months later, I signed up for my first e-mail account of my very own. My dad had assigned me jmschutz11 when I was in high school on our family aol account and I hated it. How dare he decide my internet identity without consulting me?? Anyway, I planned the Most Perfect E-mail Address ever for my first e-mail account of my very own, which of course wasn’t available, whatever it was. Neither was flor, neither was florecita (little flower), so here I am. la_florecita.Which is why all the photos are of flowers. I’m in love with the macro setting of my digital camera, especially for flowers! And as far as design of the headers, that’s a boundary I think I can live with. The only other rule is that the type is white. Anything else is fair game.

Here they are.

March 07

This is the first design I did. I was dogsitting in March and they had a bunch of azaleas blooming in the backyard. My old site was all orange and army green so I liked the soft femininity of this one. Also, I’d been DYING to use this font for ages and ages. But it’s really not legible enough for just about anything. But here it’s just legible enough that people can figure it out.

May 07

Not much to say about this one except that I wanted the summery yellow orange because I was tired of the pink. I took this photo at a cheese factory on the way out to Point Reyes. Hummingbirds like them. The flowers, not the cheese factories.

July 07

Harry Potter! This was the month Book 7 AND the 5th movie came out. So I used Ablefont as a mini HP tribute. The stars are similar to the chapter headers as well. The photo was taken by Dave when we were Enchanted Rock and it was storming. These wildflowers were growing out of the top of a boulder.

September 07

This is a cactus flower. I took this pic in New Mexico this summer. We were driving back from Durango to catch a flight home out of Albuquerque. We were running rather late, but I needed a picture of these!

November 07

This isn’t technically a flower, I don’t believe. It’s a tree. I used to have one out my window at my old place. Just your plain, run-of-the-mill, regular old tree. Trunk, green leaves, nothing special. And then! In the fall, these crazy branches protrude past the normal ones, covered in reddish-peach blossom/leaf things, they’re just gorgeous. I have absolutely no idea what kind of tree this is, but I look forward to the fall just to see these weird almost-flower things. I took this photo about 2 years ago, but these trees just burst forth in their fall glory about 2 weeks ago. I love it.

December 07

I was craving the holiday-ness. Bold . . . red . . . Christmas lights. And I don’t normally post things monthly, but I decided to make an exception in order to get into the holiday spirit. The photo is about 2 years old and the flowers are a plant that was on the table at a Vietnamese restaurant. The Christmas lights I did in Illustrator and the font reminds me of elf shoes.

January 08

I took this photo in Ft. Collins at my cousins’ house. It’s a tulip in the snow. I stayed with them in April of ‘05 when I thought I was going to go to Naropa for grad school, before the universe slammed that door in my face and then stuck her hand under the door to yank the (not) welcome mat out from under my feet. She does that, damn universe.

Anyway, it was a lovely weekend and they had planted all their spring flowers in the yard: tulips, hydrangeas, etc. And then on Sunday it snowed 2 feet.

March 08

So after the holidays I decided I’d go back to changing my header every 2 months or so. And I actually designed this one for March. (Before March, even!) But I just got tired of that snowy tulip. 49 days it is.

The story behind this photo is that it was taken on a hike in Fredericksburg, Texas. I took Dave there for his birthday last year- nearly a year ago. “Hey Dave, let’s do something I’ve always wanted to do for your birthday!” I’m so like my dad.

April 08

I took this picture last spring and I could never bring myself to use it. Too matrimonial, I thought. But now I’ve gone and gotten married. What better time to girl it up with white flowers and curly cues and a scripty font?

I don’t give this header too long due to my sensitive gag reflex.

June 08

This is my new favorite flower. It’s the Ocotillo and we saw them on our honeymoon. When we got to Terlingua, they were everywhere. Turns out they were everywhere in Marfa, too, but they weren’t in bloom so I didn’t notice their existence. (I know, I’m shallow.)

I can’t describe how much I love the lines of this flower. They grow super tall (to 10 meters, according to Wiki) and their arms extend out at strange yet somehow organic angles. (They can also be planted in a row to make a fence.) I took about 50 photos of them only to be disappointed in how flat they look on screen/paper.

October 08

When I went to visit my sister in Amarillo, she said it was really pretty and there were these awesome canyons nearby.

I was like yeah, whatEVER.

I’d just been to BIG BEND earlier this year, one of the most beautiful places in Texas and she wants me to be impressed with Amarillo, where everyone knows there is NOTHING?  But I was wrong.  Palo Duro Canyon State Park is gorgeous.

Some notes on the font choice.  Yes, it’s plain but it has a story. My sister is in a convent in Amarillo.  Yes, by choice. She’s just finished her first vows of the seven it takes to become a nun and was given the name Sister Felicity.  She told us the story of Saint Felicity and how she and Saint Perpetua were tossed into a den of wild animals for being Christian, back when people were into that sort of thing.  (Now “Christians” use bombs, but that’s another story.)  The font?  Perpetua.

December 08

I took this in April 2005 at my cousin’s house when it dumped 2 feet of snow on us. If you live in Boulder, don’t plant your spring flowers until June.

February 09

These tiny green buds would eventually burst into purple flowers that look a lot like lantana, but aren’t. I took this picture when Dave and I went hiking near Fredericksburg.

July 09

Yes, purple again. I couldn’t bring myself to play with pink or red just yet. I took this photo in San Francisco while I was toodling around by myself 3 summers ago. Once the sun started to set, I froze and headed back home. Cold summers are so weird to me . . .

January 10

It’s been a while since I’ve been out and about with my camera taking photos. I used to do that a lot (until I got an iPhone). Speaking of which, this is a sort of monumental occasion in that it’s my first blog header flower photo taken on an iPhone. This hydrangea was sitting in the sun at the Sugar Land Whole Foods. They looked so beautiful I thought I’d try my luck with my iPhone and its version of “macro.” Not too shabby.

July 10

Cactus flower photo I took in Terlingua on our honeymoon 2 years ago, plus cactus spine illustration.

Also, really, Jen? 2 headers a year? I hope this doesn’t become a habit.