Friday Blogs

Every now and then, on the rarest of occasions, Willow and Sydney will forget to fight for a while. I'll be loading the dishwasher or folding clothes or whatever, and a silence will suddenly descend upon the house. My ears might ring for a moment, unused to the lack of "Mine!" "No, it's mine!" "I win!" "No, I win!" "Top it!" "No, you stop it!" I will, obviously, fear that the children have suddenly died. I'll tiptoe around the corner and sneak a peek, and see the girls not wrestling, not playing tug-of-war with a coveted toy, but reading books together, or playing with their toy cars, or having a dinosaur puppet show. When this happens, I consider it a holiday, and I immediately stop whatever drudgery I'm doing and go do something fun for myself for 15 minutes. Often I'll sit down and eat something (my favorite activity), or work on an art project for myself or the girls or a craft fair, or read a little, or mend some things, or check out some things on the world wide interweb.



Some of my favorite things to check out on the interweb are craft-related blogs--they're updated often, so there's usually something new, entries are short enough that I can get through them in the fifteen minutes before the books or cars or dinosaurs start flying, and I like seeing new stuff and techniques and ideas that other people come up with.



So here are a few of my favorite blogs at the moment (I might have mentioned a couple of these before):

• Crafting the Web: This blog focuses on handmade cards--lots of embellishments, sophisticated colors (I like myself some brown), and techniques.


• CraftStylish: This is more of a company effort--craft fair reviews, a variety of tutorials in a number of disciplines (teeny hat! wedding band pendant!), and references.


• Craftypod: This author is knowlegeable about art and local art happenings, is interested in gardening, and regularly shows off her project ideas and projects (I realllly want her to give me some of her Lily Pulitzer quilt pieces), sometimes with tutorials.


• Craftzine: There are a lot of really sophisticated objects and advanced tutorials here (Crafty Baby Mobile? Mabye not. Felt Doughnut? Awesome!), with looks at some really exceptional crafted products.


• Elsie Marley: The author writes about a number of her sewing (we both heart Built by Wendy) and home dec projects, many of them for children. She also creates some really fabulous stuffed animals for her etsy shop.


• Fluffy Flowers: I might have written about this blog before, but I can't pass up those cute stuffed animal close-ups.


• Hello! My Name is Heather: This author is living the dream as a professional crafter. Check out her tutorials, handily located on a sidebar.


• Little Birds: This author has great craft finds, inspirational personal projects, and fun photos of her kiddos.

Know more? Share!