Susan's shared items in Google Reader

Cotton and Paint

(author unknown) — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 08:20:00 PDT

Shared by Susan
Check out the mugs! So cute! I want to make 20 of these for my kids' markers and pencils!

Pictures from issue 20: bunny softie, wooden figures, and hedgehog softie

and 21: cover, phone charms, sheep bag and tiny drawers, and Russian doll stamp carving posted by Candlemomo

more pictures from issue 20: cover, bag, bunny, hedgehogs, and zakka page from Mrs. Pilkington.

pictures at Six and a Half Stitches: chairs, mobile, stamped fabric, sewing kit, lamb, fabric blocks, train, and pin cushion.

pictures from #21 (Fall 2005) at Mrs. Pilkington: gallery, embroidered book cover

bag from issue 18(?)

and bag from issue 21 by Craftapalooza

pictures from Fall 2005 issue and bag from summer 2005 issue at Little Purl of the Orient

pictures from vol. 22 and pictures from vol 23 at Molly Chicken

finger puppet, tree

penguin bag

cup with elephant embroidery

cup with puppy embroidery

lunch bag

and dog, all from vol 22 (2005) by Bohemian on the Edge

Pictures of issue 2007 03 at Red Instead

Pictures of issue 2007 12 at Molly Chicken

Bird Mobile

(author unknown) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 04:19:56 PDT

Shared by Susan
Cutest thing I've ever seen. I'm making a bunch of these!

Michael really outdid himself with this beautiful mobile. He had come up with the pattern for these little birdies when he used to frequent the craft show circuit, and shared it with us when he started here at Spool. We had been toying with the idea of a mobile project and these birds seemed the perfect fit. I knew it would be adorable! What I hadn’t expected, though, is how some tree branches and a few carefully placed eye-hooks would transform this project into a work of art!

This would be a welcome addition to a baby’s room or a great project for a baby shower. A single bird would be a whimsical way to highlight favorite prints around your home. Since all this birdie takes is two pieces of fabric and a needle & thread, it makes a great travel project. There are many possibilites, plus they’re just so darn cute!

Let us help you get started on your flock! Handsewing is relaxing and rewarding and a small project like this is a great way to learn. This a free pattern from Spool, and we will be offering demonstrations on how to stitch these little guys throughout the summer. Enjoy!

P.S. You can now download a pdf of this pattern from our sidebar. Have fun!

Watercolor Techniques

Cassi Griffin — Fri, 23 May 2008 00:54:03 PDT

Camp Creek Press has everything you need for you and your children to get started with watercolors. My children and I went through each technique and it was extremely helpful, thanks Lori!

No Strings Attached

Amanda Kingloff — Tue, 20 May 2008 12:14:13 PDT

I just couldn't help myself... these yarn and string holders by The Small Object are too cute! To be a copy-cat (which I totally plan on being), all you need are wooden beads, paint, glue, and a twine dispenser. Paint on a simple hairdo and some basic facial features, glue your bead to the top of the lid and voila! No more tangled up yarn in the drawer. (To make a top hat, paint a metal washer and a snippet of a straw and glue to the top.)

You can use this for gift wrap ribbon, household twine, or cooking string. Go ahead and leave them out on your counter—these are brag worthy.

Put Nighttime Battles to Rest

Janna — Wed, 14 May 2008 07:21:11 PDT

This cute, clever pillow set could be the perfect way to stop the "It's YOUR turn!" fights between you and your husband in the middle of the night (found via Ohdeedoh). Simply flip the pillows every night to remember who's "On Duty," and you won't have to argue about who gets the baby bottle or who has to check under the bed for monsters.

Red Tail Beadworks - Native American Beadwork

(author unknown) — Sun, 18 May 2008 08:31:09 PDT

Shared by Susan
Amazing work.

Debbie of Red Tail Beadworks has been a customer of mine for many years now and I'm a bit ashamed to admit that I had no idea what she did with all of those beads. Yesterday she sent me a link to her eBay store and I was thrilled! She does Native American beadwork that is so cool! Lots of fringe and lovely colors make these items stand out in crowd.

She also has some 'pick your own colors' items that she'll custom make - what a super idea. I love the little Indian Maiden earrings (eBay item 230096120317) that any little girl would adore.

Debbie sent me a short bio:

Thought it was about time to introduce myself. My name is Debbie Noonan, also known to others as csmmema, Mom, Mema, Deb and who knows what else I might answer to. My passion is beading (DUH!), my driving force is my children (all 6 of them), and my husband is the love of my life.

I have Native blood in my veins (mostly Cree) and Native ways in my heart. My husband is also Native (Chumash and Apache). With rich cultures to draw from, my beadwork is never lacking inspiration.

I have just opened a store, designed with my loyal Ebay customers in mind. I often have requests for various items and thought this would be a good way for customers to browse my vast "bead your own" library of earrings. The store is http://www.redtailbeadworks.com/ and you can find me close by most of the time. Drop me a line at dknoonan@sbcglobal.net

Debbie's beautiful red tail hawk set is gorgeous - you'll find similar work on her site and be sure to look at all of the mouth-watering Native American silver pieces at very reasonable prices.

Breaking! Robot Cupcakes! Interchangable!

Judy — Thu, 15 May 2008 17:41:39 PDT

Really these are the best. Thank you neatorama (go there to find out where they hail from).

Can You Read Me Now

Kathy — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 07:52:40 PDT

I recently conquered my laser jet printer woes and I’m so darn excited about it I wanted to share what I did.

I self-print my pattern instruction booklets on an HP Color LaserJet 2550. My booklets are all black and white. When I first started doing this I tried switching the setting to ‘Print in Grayscale’. The print quality was awful (the blacks were sort of light splotchy black, not crisp and saturated). I left it on the default color setting to get the quality.

In one year’s time I’ve gone through more toner cartridges than I care to reflect on (tax time forced the issue!) The problem is I’m having to replace the 3 color cartridges along with the black. Since I’m not printing much color at all I went on a fact finding mission to figure out why I’m using so much toner.

Let’s just put the ink cartridge “scam-a-ram-a conspiracy by all large printing companies” to the side for a moment. Believe me, I know it’s happening, there’s no way in H-E-double-toothpick that I’ve printed that many pages and used that much toner contrary to what the machine sensors claim.

I called HP to discuss my issue. “I like the print quality A LOT, I just don’t like the cost of the toner cartridges, what can you recommend?” The sales person was extremely helpful. Hint: I called the sales line to ask my questions in the context of selecting a new printer, not the technical support line.

She told me that even though my document was black and white, since I had it on the color setting I was getting some CMY (cyan, magenta, yellow) spit out along with the K (black) to produce such a lovely, crisp document. She suggested that I switch to ‘Print in Grayscale’ but modify some of the other settings under Document Options and Printer Features. Oh yeah, the ones with names that I have no idea what they do.

I implemented the advice and guess what? I was able to produce the same quality in ‘Print in Grayscale’. Yippeee! Yes, I live a very simple life and this made me extremely happy! I haven’t been printing this way long enough to have conclusive results about my color toner cartridges but those little lights have been on for over a month so they don’t appear to be part of the usage equation.

These are the settings I changed for my printer (while not universal, most laserjet printers have some form of these options):

- Printer Properties / Advanced / Document Options: Color Printing Mode set to ‘Monochrome’

- Printer Properties / Advanced / Printer Features: Print All Text as Black set to ‘Enabled’.

- Printer Properties / Advanced / Printer Features: Raster Compression set to ‘Best Quality’.

- Printer Properties / Color / Color Options set to ‘Print in Grayscale’.

The Print All Text as Black resulted in a nice saturation of all my text, especially the bold headings. The Raster Compression, really a quality setting, produced clear line detail for the illustrations.

We operate a second, lower end black and white printer, an HP LaserJet P2015. I was able to improve it’s print quality by changing the following:

- Printer Properties / Advanced / Document Options / Printer Features: Print All Text as Black set to ‘Enabled’.

- Printer Properties / Paper/Quality / Print Quality: Set to ‘ProRes 1200 (180 lpi), the highest quality print setting.

Happy Printing!

Day Twenty-Three-Happy St Jordi's Day

Kleas — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 13:30:16 PDT

Today is one of my favorite holidays. St. Jordi's Day or La Diada de Sant Jordi. If you are ever in Barcelona on the twenty-third of April, you will understand why. The streets are packed with vendors selling roses and books. Similar to Valentine's Day, it is a holiday to celebrate love. The tradition is, a rose and a book are given to your loved one.

How did this tradition begin? Legend has it that in Catalonia, there was a fire breathing dragon who had an insatiable appetite. He ate all the animals in the small kingdom and was still hungry. So to keep him happy the King decided to feed him one of the people in the town. A name was chosen by lottery and it so happened the King's own daughter's name was drawn. As she faced her doom and went off to meet the dragon a charming Prince came along to slay the beast. When the dragon's blood spilled a rose bush grew and from there the Prince plucked a rose to give to the Princess.

Thus the rose. And why the book? It just so happens that Barcelona is the publishing capital of the Spanish-speaking world and as a way to honor the nearly simultaneous deaths of Miguel Cervantes and William Shakespeare on April 23, 1616, the tradition of giving a book was born.

For many years I traveled to Barcelona for work and had tried, in vain, to find a children's book celebrating this sweet holiday. Imagine my pure joy when Papa came home from his trip and my new dear friend had sent this book for the boys.

Happy St. Jordi's Day!!

All in a Day’s Work

jennifer — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 21:34:36 PDT

The quilt top is done! There’s still tons of work to do, but I feel good about this progress. (You’re right, that’s not the finished top in the photo. Keep reading for the details.)

I didn’t want to try to take a picture of the finished top indoors after dark. So I’ll be photographing that out on the lawn in the morning. The photo above is the one I took before dinner out on the driveway after I finished squaring up the blocks. I ended up adding strips of muslin fabric in between each block to spread them out a bit more. I think it’s shaping up okay. We’ll see if I still love it in the morning. : )

I can’t wait to show Abby & Amelia.

A Tasha Tudor Valentine

Green Kitchen — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 21:15:33 PST

This is a valentine card I made for my mom about twenty years ago. The idea and instructions came from the wonderful, but, sadly not-in-print book Drawn From New England, by Bethany Tudor. She's the daughter of children's book author/illustrator Tasha Tudor — who's about 93 by the way! Each flower or tree can be pulled out of its pot where a hidden Valentine message waits.

I used to spend a lot of time with this book dreaming about all the crafts, seasonal celebrations, and old-fashioned farm lifestyle this creative family experienced. Now that I have children I'm even more amazed at the life that Tasha made for herself and her family. If only I could accomplished a fifth of what she did/does...

Read more about the Tudor Family at their website, where you can also buy things directly from them, including Bethany's book.