My Daily Reads

There's nothing I look forward to more on a working morning than checking my email for new posts from my favorite bloggers. The blogs listed below are my must-reads. I hope you find in them a blog you love too!

Craft Blogs

Petra does a lot of crocheting and sells her patterns online. Right now she's doing a 365 photo series and I like seeing what she's working on each day. Zoom Yummy

The Hawthorne Threads blog complements their online fabric store. They show what's just arrived in their store and some projects they're working on. Hawthorne Threads Blog

I originally started following Suzanne's blog because she does a lot of pattern making and sewing clothing. Now she just purchased a house, so there are many home DIYs on her blog. Adventures in Dressmaking

This blog has cute crochet projects, inspiration, and some craft business info. I love any modern crochet blog. The New Crochet

Random craftiness, including her recent office interior designing project. She's a sparse blogger (like me!) but I like reading her posts when she does write. Compulsive Craftiness

Novita, who lives in Tokyo, blogs about sewing projects. Most of the posts I've seen have been for pretty undergarments. VeryPurplePerson

The latest textile trends and releases, both domestic and international. She provided a really extensive review of the new lines at Quilt Market in the fall.  True Up

Food Blogs

Andie is literally the only blogger whose recipes my husband trusts. We regularly make her meatloaf, chicken parmesan wrap ups, favorite meatballs, and alfredo sauce. She's super great. Can You Stay for Dinner

Kristen is a really fun blogger and I've found several recipes of hers that I like. Her blog is a good daily read. Iowa Girl Eats

The name says it all. Yummy treats, including one I'll be making soon: Lemon Lavender Cookies. My Baking Addiction

Lifestyle Blogs

Elsie and Emma have a great blog about everything: food, style, DIY,  etc.  The best part is they often post up to three times a day. A Beautiful Mess 

I love reading about Kristy and her family in New Zealand. She also has great cookie recipes. Paisley Jade

Business Blogs

Everything Etsy really has something for everyone crafty, but I have this under business because I receive her business newsletter with posts about photography and selling on Etsy. Everything Etsy

Seth Godin's blog has thoughts on marketing and business. I'm personally inspired by his emphasis on being creative, and I always have something to think about after reading his blog. He has some great TED talks too. Seth Godin

DIY Little Wooden Houses

Here's a cute tutorial that's super quick if you have a compound miter saw. Ours is being loaned to us by my husband's parents while we build our coffee table, and I think I might get one since it's so handy! You can also use a jigsaw (as shown in this tutorial, which was my inspiration), but the compound miter saw will allow you to have exact angles ... just how I like them.

Supplies
1-2x2 piece of lumber
Compound miter saw or jigsaw
Fine sand paper
Paint

1. Measure to the middle and make a mark at each end of the board. Draw a faint pencil line lengthwise down the center of the board.
2. Set your compound miter saw to a 45 degree angle. Place your board pencil line side down on the saw base and cut across the board near one of the ends.
3. Flip the board over. Find where the angle you just cut meets the pencil line on your board. Line up the saw and cut so the pencil line is at the peak of the little house's roof.
4. Set your saw back to a 0 degree angle and cut off the board however tall you'd like your houses (mine are approximately 1.5", 2", and 2.5" tall).
5. Sand sharp corners and pencil marks.
6. Paint the roof.

Anthro Display Hack: Hat Stand

I'm planning on adding hats to my Etsy shop soon, and have been searching online for inspiration and advice for photography. One site somewhat obviously suggested checking out companies whose product photography you like, and I immediately thought Anthropologie. Their product photos are taken on a white background and use few models, which is what I like in my photography. Here's the hat stand I came across that I fell in love with, and is also my model for my copycat stand:

Cute, right? A simple wire hat stand. I found the original source to buy one, but it was almost $25 including shipping. Call me cheap but I'm not willing to pay that, so I made a trip to JoAnn's, picked up some wire, and made it yesterday evening. Here's what I came up with using $2 of wire:

Boom. Mine is shorter and appears larger in this photo but it works. I have to work on getting a few kinks out of the base, but overall, a success. See the quick tutorial below. I wasn't planning on this being a tutorial, so if you have any questions, please leave them in the comments.

Click on photo to enlarge.

1. Get your supplies: Tape measure, 12 gauge wire (two 3 yard rolls), wire cutters, and a bowl that measures approximately 18" around.
2. This is the wire I purchased. It was $1.99 a roll but with two 50% off coupons from JoAnn's, it was $1.99 for two rolls. You don't want any wire much thinner than this or it won't be able to support a hat.
3. Cut four-one yard long sections of wire. Measure to the halfway point (18") of each section. This will be the top of the hat stand. Mold one piece of wire around the overturned bowl until it intersects. Twist to hold in place. Measure 2" down from the circle you just created and bend the wire outward. Using the bowl again, bend the wire down until it forms a half circle. See photo. Repeat until you have four shaped wires.
4. Set your four forms inside each other and fan out until it resembles a sphere. Attach them together at the top with a small piece of wire.
5. Wrap wire around the top and bottom of the straight section to hold in place.
6. Cut a piece of wire approximately 20" and make a circle around your bowl, wrapping the wire ends around each other to hold the circle's shape. Wrap each of the end wires of your stand around the circle and trim.
7. Cut another piece of 20" wire and make another circle around your bowl, wrapping the wire ends around each other to hold in place. Connect around the middle of the sphere in four places.

That's it! I think I'm going to use these at an artisan's market this spring and fall to show off my hats! Might even make some taller and shorter to complete a display. I haven't decided yet if I want to spray paint the stand, leave as is, or do something fun like wrapping strips of fabric around and gluing. Such a fun project!

Friday Findings

I'm going to start including more neat tutorials that I've found in the course of the week here. Doing is better than just looking, right? Hubba and I just bought the wood to make the coffee table! There are a lot of other plans on Ana White's website, too, if you're looking into making furniture.

DIY Coffee Syrup :: DIY Felted Billy Buttons :: Coffee Table Plans :: Stripy Cowl Pattern

Make a Light Box for Under $20

Winter makes me lazy. I get out of work and the sun has already set, it's cold, and I just don't feel like doing much of anything. The only free time I had to take photos in natural daylight for my shop is on the weekend (which I never think of doing at the time) or on my lunch break. And the lunch break photo session doesn't happen often. So when I came across this tutorial to make an inexpensive light box, I made it right away. No more excuses, laziness!

Here's what you need and about what it'll cost you:
A big box, the squarer, the better (Free)
A piece of poster board ($1 at Dollar Tree)
White muslin fabric to cover the holes (I already had this but you can buy $2 a yard cheap stuff from JoAnn's)
Two lamps (Standing lamp was $5.99 and clip on lamp above was $9.99 at Target)
Daylight bulbs - 60 watts ($5 for a pack of 4)
Box cutter, tape, scissors

Buy your lamps before getting your bulbs so you can check the maximum wattage your lamps can handle. I bought 100 watt bulbs before finding that the only lamp that could support that bulb would cost $30.

Follow the tutorial here to put it all together!

Here's the first photo I took without any adjustment:

And after a little adjustment in iPhoto to brighten it up:

Not perfect, but it'll get there. I might take the photos into CameraRAW or Photoshop to lighten up the shadows more. But overall, it's a success!

Friday Findings

Embroidery :: Flowers :: Cowl :: iPad Case

Fabric Love - Pure by Stof House Designer

Modern designs, simple color pallet, large, simple prints .. ahh, this is my kind of fabric! Stof House is a large fabric distributer in Europe based out of Denmark. It was hard to find information on this collection specifically, but I think it was designed by one of their on-staff designers.

I'm working on my first quilt (eek!) and am using the seed heads in grey (bottom right corner) as one of the fabrics. It is beautiful in person .. high quality quilting cotton and just perfect.  I'll fill you in on the quilt soon, but as my mom said, "I've never heard of anyone starting to quilt with hexagons." Should be interesting!

To order some of this collection, which was just released recently, visit Hawthorne Threads. They have more color choices then what I have displayed above. For more on Stof and their fabric collections, click here.