I think I love this little tutorial on making mushrooms with crochet and pretty buttons from resurrection fern.

...has a couple of really good articles up today.



This one on fabric markers and this on sewing machines (focuses mostly on quilting).

I apparently need to start reading this site again. The site has a few interesting posts about selling your designs.

I will be adding this to my daily reading list.

In researching beads for my friend Mar, I realized I hadn't listed my favorite bead suppliers here before.

Living in LA has some definite fringe benefits for us crafty people - one of them being the plethora of jewelry suppliers in the Jewelry District in downtown. One of my favorite finding stores is located in this area as well. Luckily, if you don't live in LA like me, you can order online from Bella Findings.

My favorite online suppliers are Art beads and probably the most famous e-tailer of beading and jewelry supplies, Fire Mountain Gems.

She's probably going to kill me for that photo up above - but isn't she pretty?!?!?!?! Mar is one of those ladies that I show my work to before I show anyone else. We used to work together on the same team and we started talking creative stuff about two years ago when she was prepping for her wedding.

I love her dearly, she's a great friend.

I found this through True up again...

Daisy Jane talks a little about her design process and shows off a few color variations of her design. pictured below. (I've copied the image from her site only to avoid bandwidth thievery)



Check out her other blog, Scoutiegirl, too.

I'm sure this has already made most of the big blogs already, but I thought this would be fun to post.

Creating Plaids for PhotoShop

And just because I have an Irish/Celt/English background does not automatically mean I like plaid... I'm REALLY picky about plaid and don't generally like the patterns. I do like Black Watch and the Cunningham family tartan (Convenient because my husband's tartan is similar to a combo of both).

What's a design need that not being met?

I have a tendency to create floral or swirly designs, but what else can I do? I want to stretch my drawing skills...

I'm thinking architectural and home/everyday objects are what I might start with. I took tons of photos of architecture on my last few trips and it's what I like to photograph at a non-macro scale.

On the macro scale, I've been taking pictures of textures which I want to use as design inspiration as well.

I found a fabric similar to the one I spotted in Japan. It's by Alexander Henry called "Perfect Pattern."

Found via True UP

Kingdom of Style is one of my favorite fashion blogs. The Queens are witty and funny mixing DIY and high fashion in a fun combination.


Kingdom of Style

I think I like them so much because they aren't as crazily unviewable as most fashion sites. User Interface design is not what Fashion people excel at and they should all fire their web designers to start all over again.

I really believe that fashion sites are why the technorati are all up in arms about all flash sites (that and all the accessibility issues - that aren't really a problem if you do it right).

Not sure why I have posted these links before but here are a few of the sites created by my fellow Los Angeleans:

L.A. Is My Beat - knitting, crochet and general cool LA stuff.
Miriam Dema - Prints and other Cool LA stuff
Sommer Designs - crafty business and great product photos
Paper Olive - my buddy and paper goddess.