The book has six different ornaments made by six awesome bloggers, and each will tickle your different areas of interest. For example, my ornament is crocheted, Kayte and Betz’s ornaments are sewn, Susan’s is made with jewelry/wire techniques, Patricia’s is paper crafty, and Diane’s is straight up crafty-crafty. All use materials that you probably have on hand, meaning you can stash bust and make gifts at the same time. And just in case you’re not familiar with them, e-books are pdfs that you can download and print right after you purchase them, meaning that if you’re ready to start making rightthissecond, you’re good to go.

Each ornament comes complete with step by step instructions and how-to photos to walk you through the project. The ornaments lend themselves to your own personal touches, whether it’s the fabric you choose or what you embellish them with.

I’m really excited that Diane contacted me about participating in this project. If you read her post announcing the e-book, you’ll see that one of her goals was to produce a collaborative project where the collaborators actually get paid. That’s an idea I can support, and I’m proud to be included. And the icing on the cake is that we all agreed to donate 15% of the proceeds from the e-book  to Project Linus, a nationwide charity that distributes handmade blankets to children who are suffering from serious illness or trauma, or otherwise in need.

Here’s a close up of my Crocheted Flower Ornament. Not including my experiments with basic crochet stitches, my very first real crochet projects were these stars made from crochet thread. I’d like to say that the flowers I designed are even easier to make, and  if you have any crochet experience at all, you could hook up a whole batch of these while watching a few hours of TV.  And with a ball of crochet thread running about $2.50 these days, these will totally fit your budgetary needs. Try them out with any weight of yarn (hello scraps!) for a range of colors and sizes. I hope you’ll try them out!

Click here for more info on the e-book.

Yesterday I recieved this beautiful pull toy in the mail from Stump Pond Toys (photo from his shop). I found his store on my daily blog cruise somehow and this was just SO cute. It’s not for my sister’s baby, or anyone else’s. It’s for me. I don’t know why, I just needed it! I love that the guy describes himself as 87 and still kicking! And I’m happy to report that I have begun to see the bunnies on my walk home from work again (I thought maybe they got eaten, but probably they were just cold). Yay for hop hops, which is what I like to call them when I’m being silly.

Now  I have a question for you. Does anyone have any links or brand suggestions for a good, affordable sewing machine carrying case? Ideally I’d like something that is kind of cute (yeah right) and has a shoulder strap, plus pockets for accessories. In reality, this seems unlikely from my web searching. Perhaps I will have to make one, but I’d rather buy one. So, if you know of any, please leave me a comment.

Have a wonderful weekend. It looks like we’re going to be snowed in. Or for me, sewed in. (Dang, I am bad with my puns!)

I spent this weekend sweltering in the Adorn booth and checking out all of the cool vendors at Renegade Craft Fair. It was really fun to meet some new people (some of whom I’ve been reading for years, but never connected with a face!) and have people recognize me from Flickr. I’m going to do a roundup post on the Adorn Blog, but here I wanted to share some of my swag before it gets mixed into the mess that is currently my room!

There were a lot of new vendors this year, which was cool, and also a lot of familiar faces. I tend to buy from the familiar faces (I know what I like, what can I say?), so of course I had to snap up this apple tote from Kayte. I literally squealed when I saw it. I think I’m having a primary-colors crush lately.

I started the first day with a cute sap (right) from Heidi of My Paper Crane. I actually bought this as a gift, but I can assure you the recipient isn’t reading (he/she isn’t born yet). Continuing clockwise, I also got a pair of silo earrings (vendor unknown, but I had forgotten to wear earrings and instantly loved these), and a ton (or, two pounds) of fabric from Repro Depot, including the background fabric. I talked to Djerba, the owner, about business and crafting in general–she’s been doing Repro Depot for 8 years, and it’s the first fabric store I found online. While I think it’s important to support your local fabric shop, I have a lot of love for Repro Depot. I didn’t even know some of these gorgeous fabrics existed before I saw their site, and I love that they’ve started carrying some jerseys and corduroys. Because where do you buy apparel fabric outside of NYC? Big craft chains have some slim pickins, in my opinion, but that’s for another post. Last but not least is a lovely red clutch that replaced my Sew Darn Cute clutch that Susan gave me for my birthday. I overloaded it and broke the zipper yesterday, but I was in the perfect place to buy a new one. I got it from Papi’s Mami. I love the zipper and magnetic closure/flap combination. I will be nicer to this one. RIP Squirrely stripe bag.

And, what craft fair purchase would be complete without some booty shorts? Etsy booty shorts, that is! The heat is getting downright oppressive here, so these will be nice to hang out in at home.

Stay tuned for more on the Adorn blog, probably later this week. We’re closing the next issue tomorrow, which’ll make 8 days of work in a row. So, it may be quiet on all fronts for a bit! Later this week: some exciting news from me. I’ll leave you hanging.

And a supercute stamper necklace friend from one of my favorite crafters, Sarah Neuberger of The Small Object. I kind of dorked out when I met her at Renegade last year in that I-look-at-your-website-all-the-time-but-how-would-you-know-that way. Heh.

And then there are these awesome reusable grocery bags by Susan Bijl. I love that they’re stil lin the shape of a traditional disposable sack. Maybe if I used these instead of my large canvas totes, the clerks wouldn’t look at me like I was an alien and make me bag my own groceries (not that I really mind).

Yay! I had the pleasure of meeting Keith last year and getting a mini-tour of the office– it looks like so much fun. I don’t know how they do it, but I love everything they love. And I love that they’re so supportive of independent crafters. Hooray!