It’s a lazy Saturday today, a bit humid with intermittent showers, but my mind is on summer sunshine and our upcoming annual cabin retreat at Backbone State Park in northeastern Iowa. Hope you enjoy these two summer treasuries that feature handmade items from my fellow Blogging Business Artisans team members, as well as other Etsy …
I have a number of cutting mats that I use for both paper crafting and sewing and didn’t think I needed another, but I was wrong. A few weeks ago I spotted a magnetic, self-healing cutting mat at my local scrapbooking shop, and got pretty excited about it. I didn’t absolutely need it, but I’m …
When I first began making books, I used stacks of books and magazines to press covers flat after adhering paper to chipboard. This definitely worked, but I’m afraid it left my kitchen table in disarray much of the time. “You really need a book press,” my husband said. “I’ll make you one.” As it happens, …
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I’ve made case bound books before, with my own version of stitched pages, but not classic kettle-stitched signatures, so I decided it was time to learn how to assemble a standard text block. If you’re not sure what a case bound book is, basically it’s a hardbound book where the pages are sewn together in …
One day about two years ago, I received a direct mail piece about a literary magazine called The Sun. Because I subscribe to several writing magazines and most publications sell their mailing list to other so-called “partners,” I just assumed, at first, that it was another piece of mail I’d be round-filing. But out of …
This is the first time in nine years that John and I are not spending the week before Memorial Day in Knoxville, Tennessee, volunteering as Destination Imagination Global Finals Appraisers. Although there are more than 500 volunteers needed for this international competition that will host 1,413 teams this year, Destination Imagination, Inc. has a pool …