A Few of My Favorite Blogs

There are a few other blogs I know about that also explore the DIY culture, also from the perspective primarily of re-use and recycling. When I find a blog I really love, I tend to treat it like a must-read novel, starting at the beginning and reading it all the way up to the present, often in a great big glut over the course of a couple of days. Here are some glut-worthy:


Crafting the Web has a really great combination: some projects with tutorials, some product reviews, and the best of all--thoughtful advice about various topics involved in running an online craft business. Her suggestions for advertising an etsy shop are really useful, and it was a terrific post about the possibilities of starting an online crafting information resource supported by ad revenue versus an online retail store that inspired me to start this blog as the first step towards my own online business someday. Her projects aren't necessarily recycled, but since they're mostly paper-based, they tend to support well the re-use of papers.


Some of the projects at the Craftzine blog are too elaborate for me, and some utilize skills I haven't yet learned, but they're beautiful to look at. Many of the projects with tutorials use repurposed materials, and this site also often explores the art along with the craft, with posts about exhibitions and innovative designers.


Dynamite.com has project tutorials, often using repurposed goods, in nearly every post, and they also include workable recipes. They do a lot of fabric, paper, and yarn art, and they also just look really friendly, I think.


Perpetualplum's Weblog also showcases her recycled work, and she works at a level of skill and craftsmanship that I hope I can someday obtain. Her jewelry is intricate and beautiful and vibrant--and often made of buttons! She works with game pieces a lot, too, but her projects are just in a whole different world.


I really ought to submit my stuff to the Re-craft blog, which is dedicated to highlighting those etsy wares that are made of recycled materials. It's useful and inspirational to see what others make and sell, especially since I'm relatively new at online business and all it entails.


The Craftgossip Blog Network also posts primarily recycled products and artwork, but if something links to Craftster, you'll generally find an awesome tutorial and discussion there, and some DIY project books give me more incentives to annoy the aquisitions department at the Monroe County Public Library.

Rostitchery is the most beautiful, most perfect blog ever. I love it--she has a daughter, too, maybe a year older than Willow, and she's a brilliant seamstress, so she keeps me flush with dress patterns. I made a pillowcase dress for Sydney roughly based on one of her tutorials, only where she uses the sweetest, most flowery, and precious pillowcases, I sort of used an old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles one. Sydney rocks it, of course. And it was her post about making her daughter some Max and Ruby stuffed "babies" that gave me the idea to try soon making my girls some stuffed dinosaurs (not like the ones I'd like to sell at the craft fairs this summer, but simpler and more satisfying to little ones, most likely).

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