A week (or so) of crafty book reviews

Giveaway is now closed. Thanks!

I love craft books. There is nothing like getting your hands on a book and flipping through it and reading in bed or the bathtub and taking notes and marking pages and all that good stuff. I just like the inspiration. So I'm doing a short series of book reviews over the next few days -- complete with a giveaway. As you know, CSN stores carries everything from the play dollhouse furniture that I reviewed previously to leather messenger bags that you can carry all your crafty books around in. They are giving away a $55 promotional code to one reader. I had a really good experience with this company before so I'm excited to be working with them again.

Leave a comment on this post to enter. When the book reviews are finished, I'll close the comments on this post and announce a winner. Make sure you include your email address in your comment if your profile doesn't link to it.

The image above is a spread I did in a collaborative art journal a few years ago. It was inspired by one of my favorite poems of all time, I Am Waiting by Ferlinghetti. The little accordion folds back down and is held with that little spiral clip.

EDIT: CSN stores does not appear to carry craft books. Sorry for any confusion! Buy a non-leather messenger bag to put your books in. They do have tons of children's books and just about anything else you could want. PROJECT: project does not encourage the wearing of leather as we are a vegetarian blog. Thanks.

Some books

It's been pretty quiet around here. Unfortunately, it's going to stay that way for a few more days. Next week will start a short series of crafty book reviews. If you have a new(ish) book that you would like to review, I'd love some guest posts. Just send me an email or leave a comment.

Don't forget about the BOGO sale in my shop. I was just joking about the "tell me how much you love me" thing. Just put BOGO or something in the box if expressing your feelings like that makes you uncomfortable.

In other news, I went batshit crazy on eBay today and bid on something ridiculous. (Sorry, Sandi, I couldn't resist. You were right. I was wrong and now I have buyers remorse). I'm going to have to make up for that somehow so I'm going to be spending extra time this week listing some de-stash up on Etsy and eBay. Anybody need any handblown Hermey ornaments or Pillsbury Doughboy stuff?

BOGO

As in, buy one, get one free.

I have recently cleaned up my Etsy shop: taken inventory, did some organizing, edited old listings, etc. So here you have it. I rarely have a sale and I generally feel uncomfortable promoting anything I make or do but I have a lot of ideas and I want to make room for them so here it is.

I'm not going to advertise this on Etsy, just here and on flickr. And maybe once or twice on Facebook.

So just pick out what you want and put it in your cart and checkout. There will be a box that says, "Message to Seller" or something like that. Tell me how much you love me and I will send you a paypal invoice for the right amount. Shipping will max out at $5. Everything goes, nothing is excluded. If something you want has just sold and it didn't say, "LAST ONE," shoot me an email and I'll see if I have more.

Feel free to send this on to your friends. Thanks.

Oliver + S Jump Rope Dress . the finale

I finished the Oliver + S Jump Rope Dress a while ago and wanted to wait to show pics of Z in the dress. With Winter, that's just not going to happen anytime soon. One brighter day, I shot this picture of the dress in its current location. It's been hanging there like a painting and will continue to do so until Spring.

If you want to know more, follow the links from this post.

Extending the tree skirt pattern

I took a photo of my tree skirt pattern for different sizes of trees. Christmas fabric is dirt cheap right now so you may want to make a pattern that will fit your tree and head out and pick some up to hoard away for your 2011 projects. The pattern I linked to in the previous post was made from the brown craft paper pattern that I placed on top of the extended version for the photo.

My mom has a very tall tree with a large branch span at the bottom. The bigger pattern is for her. It's about 2.5 feet from the center to the edge. As you can see, the hole at the center is much larger than the one for my little tree.

I recycled used wrapping paper to make the larger pattern. I wrote instructions on it for my SIL who plans to make one for her tree next year. So if you have a big tree, haul some of your wrapping paper out of the recycle bin and flatten it out. Tape my little pattern down and extend the straight lines with a ruler. Use that same ruler to mark your bottom curve.

A little wrapping up (or unwrapping)

Christmas was awesome. It's hard to say more. We had a really wonderful holiday with family. Z got so much loot she doesn't know what to do. Her favorite present, by far, has to be this 5-layer girl puzzle by Beleduc. She has worked it a million times. Each layer has seven pieces so there's more to it than you can see in the product photo. It's very cool. We are learning the names of some muscles and bones and organs (I need to brush up on my terms). The wood is good quality and the pieces are just right for her hands. (Thanks again Auntie Crystal!).

And no, a hurricane did not touch down. This is just the aftermath of the wild child. See the chef apparel on the pandas? I got that for Z and her daddy from an eBay seller. Love. The house is getting a lot of play. It's a bit jumbled but once we move it up to her room, there will be more space to spread things out. You can't tell from this angle but we took the wood that our changing table was and cut two inches off one end. I rewrapped it with some thick cotton fabric to be like grass and we attached it to a shelf/table thing we found in the trash in Brooklyn. (Yeah, we go through people's trash when we travel -- that's how we roll). I'll post some more photos when it's in its new place. I just thought you would appreciate a photo of a messy house and I'll never show you what my real house looks like.

Speaking of a mess... this blog has been a mess. It's been all disorganized lately because the dollhouse reviews took on a life of their own and my job was crazier than usual. I've got some great stuff in the works and things will be more orderly from now on. I've got a week of play food ahead and also a bunch of crafty book reviews. If you'd like to do a guest post on either topic, please comment on this post. I have some awesome bloggers lined up already and I'm very excited about that.

Merry Christmas!

I have finished my first mini project: this tiny little tree that is just like ours! The base is a piece of a branch from our wood pile. We drilled a hole in it and glued a dowel rod in place. Very easy. I took silver pipe cleaners from the dollar store and twisted them around the dowel rod piece by piece. I used pliers to cut the wire to shape it. The garland is Martha Stewart trim from Kmart a few years ago. Next year, we'll make some ornaments.