Magazine covers these days are laden with so many numerals that you can't pass a newsstand without feeling like you're in a second-grade arithmetic class. HOME COMPANION is as guilty as every other publication. "137 fabulous holiday finds," boasted our December/January issue. "47 ways to put a little love in your rooms," proclaims our current cover. 

“Tell the truth: you guys just make those figures up, right?” a friend asked recently.

I wish it were that easy. Here at MEHC, executive editor Barbara Elliott Martin, art director Angela Harbison, and yours truly go through each and every page of the magazine, counting, losing track, and recounting.

Naturally, we count each craft project, like the ballet slippers in Handmade, the embellished folders in Pins and Needles , and the wall of fluttering butterflies in Out On A Whim.

                            

Also tallied in are the products in This We Like. But we also count inspiring ideas, like the scrapbooks in Paper, Scissors, Crop , even when they don’t come with step-by-step instructions, Often, these ideas (like the rustic painted bench at the foot of the bed in the feature “It’s Time to Lighten Up”) don’t get mentioned in the copy or captions, simply because there isn’t enough room.

It won’t surprise you to learn that, at various stages of this fun-filled process, Barbara, Angela and I come up with different numbers.
     
My initial tally is often ridiculously high. I’m not a seamstress or a crafter, so everything looks like a dazzling new idea to me. By the second or third round of counting, I’ve revised downward, so Barbara (a former photographer who’s visually oriented) usually comes up with a higher number. Angela’s number is usually the most conservative. She’s immersed in the photos and artwork from the moment they’re chosen to the end of the production process. She often skips what I would interpret as an idea or a project, simply because she’s looked at it so many times, much the same way that I neglect to catch a missing comma in an article because I’ve read the copy so many times. 

Here’s an idea of what our back-and-forth emails look like after the third or fourth go-round:

ANGELA TO BARBARA AND TONY: I come up with 39 projects and ideas.

BARBARA TO TONY AND ANGELA: I count 47.

TONY TO BARBARA AND ANGELA: I come up with 42; 43 if we count the closet door idea board in Lotta Jansdotter’s studio.

It’s not a crafts project like the ones in Whim and Handmade and Pins & Needles, but it’s a great idea and something that anyone can do.

BARBARA TO TONY AND ANGELA: Let’s everyone count again, this time making a list of every idea in every story.

ANGELA TO BARBARA AND TONY: Look, could the two of you make up your minds and agree on a number? I need to turn the cover in by three o’clock.

In the end, we usually settle on a compromise among the three tallies. But it never ceases to amaze us how much inspiration gets packed into each issue…even if we don’t always agree on the exact amount.