Make Custom Color Chalkboard Paint

From Martha Stewart

The Reanimation Library

The Reanimation Library is a small, independent library based in Brooklyn. It is a collection of books that have fallen out of mainstream circulation. Outdated and discarded, they have been culled from thrift stores, stoop sales, and throw-away piles across the country and given new life as resource material for artists, writers, and other cultural archeologists.
Found via Veer

Scherenschnitte and Paper Doll Chains

This sweet book of papercutting is shared by my favorite source of fun, Patricia of Agence Eureka in her webshots albums. Three album pages of the cutest designs. Thank you, friend.

Click on a page you want to save and then look on the right side of the page for All Sizes to get a .jpg

esprit cabane in English

English version of the French magazine esprit cabane is now online. Esprit cabane is a web magazine of crafty & green living ideas: free recycling projects, DIY decorating, non-toxic paint recipes, furnitures instructions, eco-friendly crafts...

They left a comment on my last post about the magazine telling me about the new English site. I post this in case you don't see the comment. Wasn't that nice of them?

LineTracer

LineTracer is a tool for converting scanned hand-drawn sketches to vector format. It exports to EPS, which means the output can be used by about any drawing program. It is primarily meant for helping illustrators and animators.

This is one great, easy to use tool. I use it resize some of those patent images and still keep resolution. The cleaner your drawing or tracing the less fine tuning you will have to do after. Garbage in, garbage out.
This application doesn't install, it runs from it's own GUI. Remember where you put it because it won't show on your programs list. I have a folder named Tools for this type of application.
Shared by Johan Kotlinski on SourceForge.

Leaves of Time

Artist and homeschool educator Karen Kindrick invites you to illuminate the pages of your life.

She offers drawing collections and the most lovely hand drawn fonts downloadable for a resonable fee. Click on Clipart. She also offers tutorials about using the art in her Illuminators Workshop.
Karen generously shares some of her drawings for you to try for free. Look in Leaf Collecting and Background Files.

Publish Your Own Book

Dad, this is for you.

Downloadable sewing patterns

I haven't posted this site before because everybody else has but just in case you you aren't aware Burdastyle is the very best, most stylish with full size printable patterns and so much more. A true gem of a site.

Papercraft Alphabet

I'm always a sucker for an alphabet and this dimensional papercraft by Epson is great. The fronts are dimensional and the backs are flat. Projects like this can be big ink eaters so I only ever print one and use it as a template on prettier papers.

Papercraft Ispirations Magazine

This blog for the UK magazine Papercraft Inspirations offers lots of downloads and shares links from others. Cardmaking templates, printable papers and more.

Cupid Pop Up Card

Printable Valentine Cards

Generous offering of printables from ScrapbookScrapbook.
Includes four fold, cut-out and pop-ups.

Japanese sewing patterns

A very large pattern library offered by otsukaya which I think is a fabric store. The library appears as a table of links each one goes to a downloadable PDF pattern. There are dresses, skirts, tops, outerwear, children, home dec and bags. Over 100 patterns. The pics below are direct links to the pattern shown.
Little dress and a kimono

Dog coat and one of several bags

Circle Calculator

esprit cabane

le magazine des idees creatives et ecologiques. Hey! We're creative, ecological and like ideas. This was a fun visit. Click the categories listed on the right and at the bottom of the pages click "page suivante" to see older posts in that category.
Lots of projects and patterns. Here are just a few that I've linked the picture to the project page.

Printed Apron Panel 1929

From Google Patent search.

Make Your Own Embroidery Transfers

I make my own embroidery transfers because I can control the size of the lines and the design will wash out every time.

Transfer Ink Recipe
1 heaping teaspoon white granulated sugar
1 teaspoon boiling water
Mrs. Stewart's laundry bluing
Dissolve sugar in water and add bluing by drops until it's as dark as you want. I never measured so maybe it was about a quarter teaspoon.
P.S. This results in a very light transfer.
I have since seen a recipe that is equal portions sugar and bluing. 1/2 t. sugar dissolved in 1/2 t. liquid bluing .

Mrs. Stewart's laundry bluing is available in the supermarket in the laundry section. The bottle looks like this:

Print out or draw your design on tracing paper. Flip the drawing over and trace the design with your bluing/sugar ink. I use a Rapidograph drawing pen because it is fillable and comes with a variety of nib sizes.

It's the sugar that makes the ink stick to the paper and also to transfer when heated. Use a medium high setting when you press the transfer to your fabric. Be careful not to burn the sugar.

If I want a larger design I will use the pin prick method to trace the pattern. For this you will poke holes with a needle tool along all the design lines. An unthreaded sewing machine will do a good job of poking holes if the design is small enough to maneuver under the needle. Your pattern will have a smooth side and a poked side. Place the pattern smooth side up on the fabric and daub a bluing/water ink through the holes.
I snagged the following picture from eBay to illustrate a finished pattern. Click the picture for a larger version.

I have used the pin prick and bluing to mark a quilt top and had no problems with staining.

Printable Valentine Fun from Canon

This huge collection of Valentine printables from Canon includes lots of cards, boxes and scrapbooking pages. Very nice.