Craftzine.com blog: January 2007 Archives

« December 2006 | Main | February 2007 »

Archives: January 2007

January 2007 Home | Next >

January 31, 2007

Stitched Mixed Media Art by aquarabbit

Julie of Subversive Cross Stitch pointed me to the beautiful stitched mixed media art by Dana Robson of aquarabbit. From the site, "My pieces start with an idea, a feeling, or just a simple picture, and I like the way they expand and change, showing me what they want to be. I like exploring the intersection of craft and art, always working with the perfectionist's eye gained from my years of studying clothing design. In addition to needlepoint, I also work with acrylics (on canvas, wood, and scraps of paper), watercolor pencil, and painting on glass." Dana's got a show this Friday 7pm - Midnight at Space Gallery (1141 Polk Street @ Sutter) which is a group show benefiting the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. Pictured above is "but will you know me tomorrow?", mixed media on canvas. [ via ] Link.

Beating Soapy Love Heart

From the MAKE Instructables group comes this tutorial from fallscrape on how to make a beating soapy love heart. Just add a blinky LED throwie (minus the magnet) and use a heart shaped soap mold. Link.

Heart Garland Tutorial

Maria of One Hour Craft has a perfect Valentine's Day tutorial on how to sew together paper hearts to make a heart garland. Another great use of paper or ribbon scraps. [ via ] Link.

The Small Object Needle Case

Needlecase1
Check out the cute new needle cases Sarah of The Small Object has made. Sarah says, "Needles are very sharp objects and ones that require a little extra special care. I know you saw it, and now you see it and next you'll sew it. But my friends! The very last thing we need is a needle poking us during the fun. So let's keep it safe and tidy. And no better way than with a cool case. Printed in-house with custom decals." Link.

HOW TO - Use a Transfer Pencil

Transferpencil
Floresita of Things I've Made has a tutorial on how to use a transfer pencil. The transfer pencil is awesome and can help you transform any image into an easy to embroider image. You can get one for less than 5 bucks at any craft or sewing store. I've used this many times and it's perfect when you want to photocopy images in order to enlarge your designs. Here's some tips I've discovered over the years. Make sure you press hard when using the pencil on the paper while tracing. Set the iron to low/medium heat. Press down and pick up the iron to prevent the paper from burning. Hold the paper down with one hand and use the other one to preview under the paper to see if the image is set. This will hold your place to make sure you can iron over to get your image looking good! Link.

Quilted Business Card Holder

Shunklies added this "crazy quilted business card holder" to the CRAFT flickr pool. I love the details of the stitching, button embellishments, and the texture mix of the fabrics. Available at shunklie's etsy shop. Link.

HOW TO - Refashion a Maker Faire Bag

We are really excited about the upcoming Maker Faire! Here's to inspiring more refashioning projects with our Maker Faire tote.

Phil @ MAKE says:

Lenore from Evil Mad Scientist writes - "Last year at the Maker Faire they gave away nifty canvas tote bags that have nice large handles and are a great shape and size. The recent call for proposals for this year's Maker Faire has just reminded us (1) that we need to choose a project to submit (we brought our dining table last year), and (2) that we were going to do something cool with that bag! Some time ago, it was suggested in this instructable that there be a Make Bag Re-Make contest this year. In that spirit, we are providing this guide to improving your bag and making it a little more useful. We have added a zipper closure and pockets and loops for pens, tools, business cards, an mp3 player, and of course, our favorite slipstick." [ via ] - Link. Related: Makerfairebag Refashioned Maker Faire Bag - Link.

CRAFT: Valentine's Day Card Contest

Hey Crafters! There's plenty of time to enter our "Recycle Your Heart" Valentine's Day Card Contest where you can express your true love by creating a card made from recycled materials. Yes, that's right. It's time to check the cabinets, find the old fabric stash, grab yesterday's newspaper and go through the trash bin to make a special Valentine's Day card the way it was meant to be done! You can use and mix any type of craft you wish and don't need to limit yourself to paper crafts. Keep the entries comin'! Good luck everybody!

Pictured above is Virtual Frolic's cupcake card made from magazine clippings - Link.
Check out the entries so far - Link.

Here's the run down of the deets:

Guest Judges:

Megan Reardon, Not Martha
Garth Johnson, Extreme Craft
Tiffany Threadgould, Tiffany Tomato Designs

Rules:

Design a Valentine's Day card that includes recycled materials.
Upload your entry to our CRAFT flickr group and tag the photo craftvdaycontest
All entries are due on Friday, Feb 9th at 5pm PST
Winners will be announced on the CRAFT Blog on Valentine's Day, Feb 14th.

Prizes:
Winners will receive CRAFT:02 and a CRAFT T-shirt!

Fabric Trim Box Tutorial

All Buttoned Up has a great tutorial on how to sew cute fabric boxes that can hold all your sewing trims and whatnot. I love the fabrics and the contrasting trim! Link.

DIY Wall Decals

With only paper and glue you too can make some cool looking wall decals like the ones made by Two Straight Lines. [ via ] Link and Link.

January 30, 2007

Introducing Hackszine

Phil @ MAKE says:

We're pleased to announce Hackszine.com, the new online counterpart to O'Reilly Media's Hacks series of books. Brian Sawyer, Brian Jepson, Jason Striegel and Phillip Torrone will be posting over there and we'll have some more folks / guest authors too. We've developed this site to promote the philosophy of Hacks as a way to gain control of the devices and systems in our lives. To hack something is to make it work the way it should -- for you. This site will bring you the best hacks we uncover in the wilds of the Internet, while at the same time delivering fresh, original content developed by our pool of Hacks authors and contributors. As you'll likely notice in the site's design, the Hacks series is now published by the same team responsible for Make magazine, headed by Dale Dougherty, the publisher of Make and the original creator of our Hacks series. In many ways, we see Hacks as the technological or mental counterpart to the physical DIY space addressed by Make, and our vision is to grow the Hackszine site and its community in the way we have successfully connected "makers" with Makezine and Make magazine. Let us know what you think. We'd love to hear from you. Have a hack? Use the "Submit a Hack" link on the Hackszine sidebar. We're also interested in hearing about the kind of hacks that'd work for you. If you have a specific itch that needs scratching, just click "Request a Hack" and tell us about it. The RSS feed is here - Link.

Here are some great posts just from the last week!

Make Java-based Apps Play Nice with Vista - Link.
Six Tips for Hacking Windows Vista - Link.
Domain Hacks - Link.
Un-Snap Your Hyperlinks (YES) - Link.
Take Slick Screenshots on Vista - Link.
10 Government Hacks - Link.
Map Your Books - Link.
Top 10 Flickr Hacks - Link.
Auto-Correct Typos in Your Address Bar - Link.
Use a Windows-only Printer on a Mac - Link.
HOW TO - Return to "Classic" Google Image Search - Link.
Access Gmail Behind a Firewall - Link.
Shopping Sniper: Score a PS3 or Wii Online - Link.

Last up, we have a Flickr group - feel free to join and post up whatever hackery you think we should see.

Vote for MAKE - The 2007 Bloggies

Phil @ MAKE says:

If you like MAKE & CRAFT please take a moment and vote for us at the seventh annual weblog awards: The 2007 Bloggies - we're nominated in the craft category [ via ] - Link.

January 2007 Home | Next >