The Craft Begins

I always have a hard time finding knitting patterns that I like.  They’re usually a bit too bulky and 80’s for me.  The free ones can be particularly bad.  Which means that most of the time I improvise my creations, to mixed results.  I was excited then to find this massive collection of free knitting patterns from Drops Studio.  Tons of cute and modern knits.

See all of the patterns as well as the yarns that they carry here.  Bonus for non English speakers – the patterns come in lots of different languages.

If you’re like me and you like great mid-century car ads and super creepy other advertisements, you have to check out Plan59 for perhaps the largest, best curated collections of high quality images out there.

images above are from Plan59.

In my massive collection of old paper-related bits, I have a stash of Valentine’s Day Cards from probably the 20’s and the 30’s (I’m guessing here).   Since Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, I thought I would share the wealth!

If you click here, you’ll find a bunch of high-res downloads of the inside and outside of all of my cards.  I apologize that they’re not more orderly, but I don’t think it matters too much!  Have fun using these in artwork, scrapbooking, or just printing them out to make your own V-Day cards!

These fantastic textures would be great in artwork, as a background on your computer or cell phone, for scrapbooking, or any number of applications.  I love the combination of the color and texture.  You can find the free, full-res versions here.  Happy creating!

This is a somewhat older post but I thought it was interesting nonetheless.

If you’re a crafter or seller or creative type, why not create a look book for your product?  It’s an interesting way to show people you meet in person what you do, and it looks very professional.  Plus, creating a look around your product makes it easier for people to relate to how it would fit into their lives.

This look book from by Mary Jane is a great example.  Not too complicated, but you can get an idea of the back-story for many of her products.

I’m working on several right now, but as always, I’m going over-the-top with them so it might be a little while before I get something concrete together.  I’m actually having lots of fun doing it!  I highly recommend you try it.

This great shop is filled with all sorts of goodies, from the handmade to the practical.  Every item is hand-picked and gorgeous.  I especially like all of the lighting options, but the kids toys are pretty cute too.

I think that probably everybody has woken up recently thinking “oh crap, it’s christmas!”.  That means lots of buying presents and most of all, wrapping them.  That time of the year is always fun for me because it justifies all of the wrapping paper and ribbons and stuff I have lying around most of the year.  If you’re trying to come up with creative, interesting packaging without having to break the bank or buy in bulk, why not check out Nice Package?

They’ve got everything you need to create an interesting, etsy-worthy package for giving.  The small amounts mean that you just get enough for what you need.  And everything is so simple and sweet!

Happy shopping!

There’s a store in Savannah that sells art purely made by the students, faculty and alum of Savannah College of Art and Design, or SCAD.  I had heard about this place so I was very excited when I happened upon the shop itself.  It’s stuffed to the gills with artwork, jewelry, textiles, and many wonderful things.  I think that it’s great that they are supporting their students so much they’re even selling their work.  My art school didn’t even tell us how to get into gallery shows!  Lucky for anyone not living here they’ve got a great website that is filled with this artwork so that you can shop at home.  They’ve got…

fine art…

and jewelry…

home decor and lots lots more.  One of my favorite features is the button that allows you to be informed when your favorite artists add new items!  That way you won’t ever miss your next big find.  You can find the SCAD shop here.

Every year I design a holiday postcard to send to friends and family.  Sometimes it’s just a pretty design, and sometimes it’s more relevant to what’s going on at the moment.  I like to send postcards because they’re a lot more fun to design and you save lots of money on postage.  If you’re not into designing your own stuff, I found a great solution for you.

e. m. papers has a great selection of not just holiday cards but invites and calendars and labels too,  all that you can download and print out at home.  Imagine always having the right card there at your disposal for any last-minute purposes, or having a stylish but affordable wedding invitation suite.  You can check her out either online or on etsy.  I especially like the Woodcuts Calendar for next year – simple and chic.

It’s cold and snowy here this weekend, so doing anything outdoors is out of the question. If you’re faced with bad weather this weekend and looking for a little project, here are some suggestions for you:

1.  This one might be good only if you live in an area with a lot of fungal growth, but these mushroom shelves are one of the coolest things I’ve seen lately.

2.  I get hungry just looking at this one – make your own mozzarella cheese!  There’s nothing better in the world than fresh cheese.  Yum.

3.  Why not organize your pantry or office?  Not the must fun chore but it does make a big impact.  These pretty organizing labels make it a more visually appealing task!

4.  If you’ve got photoshop, here’s a quick and easy tutorial on filling text with an image.  Oh, the possibilities!

5.  This one I’ve been dying to make for a while now.  Your very own tabletop letter press.

6.  Well, spring is far gone, but what better reason to fill your house with beautiful and colorful crepe paper poppies than the cold weather?  That’s what I thought.

More free downloads for you to enjoy – this time of an old children’s encyclopedia from the 60’s.  I love the illustrations – they are so colorful and the artwork is just great, not to mention the variety of things that they chose to illustrate.  Find more  of the letter N here.

Same goes for these as the European ones – I’m not sure about the licensing but if you used it for personal work or really changed it I’m sure it would be fine to use them.

I just love the color in all of these pictures – simply amazing!  Click here to see all of the pictures and download the full-res versions.

This one isn’t from me, but it’s fantastic nonetheless.

Zen Textures has TONS of great full-res images of all sorts of things you want and those you never knew you needed.  Tree bark, burnt paper, bubbles, you name it, it’s there.  And best of all, it’s free!  Great for digital scrapbooking, twitter backgrounds, photoshop projects, and the like.  Check out the full collection here.  These are just a few of my favorites:

I’m not sure about what the licensing is on this, but I’m sure if you only used them for personal work or significantly altered them they would be more than fine.

A collection of awesome images from a 1960’s Time Life book on Germany and the Low Countries.  Full res, available for download here.  Even if you don’t have any use for them, the collection is awesome just to peruse – there’s some really odd stuff in there.

Another thing I’ve collected over the years is old paperwork.  I like all of the stamps and old handwriting and typefaces.  I’ve scanned all sorts of interesting tidbits, which you are free to use in any of your projects.  You can find all of the full-resolution images here.

I hope that you make something really fun with them!  All of these images date from the 30’s to the 60’s so you’ll find varying degrees of antiquity.