Inspiring blog posts for today
Posted by Leah on Aug 21, 2008
There is just too much good blogging going on these days (which reminds me, I need to finish my post about the Arte y Pico award, kindly given to me by TWO fabulous bloggers, Silver Canyons and Macaroni and Glue - but I’m having a hard time choosing just five blogs to nominate!)
Today I ran across a great post titled “Of Jealous Husbands and Subliminal Inspiration” over at Thyme to Dream. Her post is about Alexander Calder, one of my favorite artists and a definite inspiration for me. Be sure to check out the links at the bottom of the post to learn more about Calder.
Then over at Lucky Girl’s blog, I found a picture of a sterling silver top she found while searching etsy.com. If you have $5400, you could own your very own silver shirt!
Over at the Fabulous Artistic Moms blog, Amy of New England Quilter was kind enough to put together a welcome to our new team members, complete with pictures from their shops.
And here’s a fun demo post of how one artist makes her sterling silver and resin earrings. If you’ve ever wanted to see the steps involved in making metal jewelry, this helps demystify it a little.
Crochet Me
Posted by Leah on Aug 21, 2008
I went to the library in search of new-ish craft books, and they had a copy of Crochet Me: Designs to Fuel the Crochet Revolution
It’s a really fun book, with more fashion-forward patterns than the average crochet book, lots of useful information, and profiles of the designers. I really enjoyed the designer profiles, and appreciate that their website URLs are provided so I can go check out more of their work. A few of the patterns are things I could see myself wearing, which is rare in a crochet book. While I love crochet as a craft, I tend to find crochet garment patterns too…bulky? frumpy? old fashioned? It’s nice to see a collection of patterns that is a little more modern and stylish.
Overall, I enjoyed this book, but wanted just a little more. A couple more patterns, just a bit more of the technical information, and definitely more of the essays and designer profiles which, to me, were the best parts of the book. Kim’s passion for crochet really comes through and makes me want to design something. I hope she will be writing some articles for Interweave Crochet and not just doing the editing, because I enjoyed her writing style and enthusiasm for the craft.
Craft blog posts I love today
Posted by Leah on Aug 20, 2008
Found a couple great craft-related blog posts today & had to share.
This one has great ideas for organizing craft supplies. It’s written for scrapping stuff, but you could easily use these tips for storing and organizing lots of different kinds of craft supplies.
If you love jewelry tools, or were wondering about basic tools to get started making jewelry check out this post from Shiny Adornments. Unfortunately, reading it reminds me that I still really want a circle cutter…you really can’t ever have too many tools.
Posted by Leah on Aug 20, 2008
Have you ever wished you could blog on your cell phone? If so, twitter might be the perfect thing for you. Known as “micro-blogging,” on twitter, people write updates under 140 characters - and often send and receive updates from their cell phones. It’s blogging and social networking in one - you follow people if you want to get their updates, they follow you if they want yours.
It’s a funny system - some people use it mainly for marketing, some people “tweet” when they update their blog to let their followers know, some people tell you what they had for breakfast, and some people have one-line conversations with friends (this reminds me of when I was a freshman in college & my roommate and I would email each other one liners from different rooms in the apartment - email was still kind of a novelty, and this was WAY before texting. We didn’t even have cell phones!). If you want to know more about twitter, check out this hilarious (but useful) article on twitter etiquette.
Want to follow me on twitter?
More Treasury Love
Posted by Leah on Aug 19, 2008
Thank you to Marisa of Elegant Snobbery and Tootsie and Grace for including one of my bracelets in her beautiful fall inspired treasury!
Here’s a screenshot:
Fall Colors Treasury
Craft Podcasts
Posted by Leah on Aug 19, 2008
Since there aren’t many decent craft TV shows on any of the channels my TV gets, and my limited TV time gets taken up watching Project Runway anyway, I like to listen to craft podcasts.
A podcast is basically a radio show that someone recorded on their computer, so that anyone can go to their website and listen. I wish there was a 24-hour craft radio station, but since there isn’t, podcasts are the next best thing. I listen to them while I clean my house, when my son is napping, and sometimes even just as background noise. Before I had my son, I used to put craft podcasts on my i-pod and listen to them while on the treadmill - it made the time go by so much quicker.
Here are a few of my favorites:
- Craft Sanity - an interview show, covers all kinds of crafts. Casual style, and a often a long show (over an hour), with great guests
- CraftCast - another interview show, not quite as long as Craft Sanity (usually about 45 minutes) that covers different kinds of crafts and creativity topics, great guests
- CraftyPod - a little of everything - some interviews, some projects, some technique, lots of different crafts
- Stash and Burn - conversation about yarn, knitting, and occasionally crocheting, by two San Francisco knitters (I live near SF so it’s fun for me to hear a local perspective)
I’m hoping to discover some new ones, so if you have a favorite craft-related podcast, or if you publish a craft podcast, please post a comment and let me know where I can listen.
I’ve done book reviews on my blog, and I think it would be a lot of fun to review some podcasts too. It would give me a great excuse to listen to more podcasts!
Ocean Bracelet
Posted by Leah on Aug 18, 2008
The colors in this bracelet are very watery, and since I live near the coast, I named it after the ocean.
Ocean Bracelet
Available in my etsy shop.
Rusted Olives
Posted by Leah on Aug 17, 2008
Isn’t that a great title for a treasury? Thanks to winklepots for including one of my resin pendants in her gorgeous rusted olives treasury! Here’s a partial screenshot:
rusted olive treasury
Twist Collective
Posted by Leah on Aug 16, 2008
Talk about knitting eye candy - the new online magazine Twist Collective is full of beautiful patterns that actually look wearable. They also look like fairly complicated pieces to knit, so I probably won’t be making anything from the magazine anytime soon, but if you are a more experienced knitter than I am, I bet you can find something there that you’d want to make.
The photography is beautiful, the models are pretty but not size 0, so you can get an idea of what the garments would look like on a real person. Of course the models are thin and look fit, so it’s still an idealized version of a real person, but more realistic than someone like Kate Moss. These models look like your pretty friend in college, know what I mean? Young, fit, and attractive, but real. And unlike a lot of patterns I see in the knitting magazines at the newsstand, I can actually see a young woman wearing most of these.
I didn’t read the articles, except one - the advice column, which was a really fun read. Humorous, well written, and gave some useful advice.
Check it out and let me know what you think - am I crazy, or this a really good collection of knitting patterns?
Know of another craft magazine online that I should review? Let me know in the comments and I’ll check it out.
For the love of etsy
Posted by Leah on Aug 15, 2008
Thanks to Amy for featuring a few of my jewelry items on her fabulous blog, For the Love of Etsy. Three of my items are temporarily featured in the left sidebar - check it out!
