In looking through my site stats (which, I JUST found btw - cause my hosting company is not cool) and found a really cool collection of patterns:

Crochet Poet

holy smokes - it is a HUGE list. I will probably be lost in this the next few hours.

I finally got around to setting up a shop!!

Woo Hoo!!

I put the chick pendant up for sale as well as a few of my cuffs and stickers. Check it out, please :)

I found this little shop on etsy and am dying to pick up this ink now:

I have seen this young lady all over the internet lately

Yellow Goat - cute and whimsical accessories. Below is my favorite...



Half Empty/Half Full

Her Blog
Her Store

Still Dottie is visiting London and has some lovely photos on her site:



why didn't I find anything nearly this cool when I went?

Holiday preparation also includes making my camera more comfortable to keep hanging around my neck. My last few trips I left my camera sitting in my bag more often than I should have and missed some great shots because the strap I have is just damned uncomfortable.

Step in Design Sponge's DIY Wednesday camera strap cover tutorial!

Here's how mine came out:









I've had this fabric for about 4 years & I got it in a swap on craftster ages ago. I love it - I use my dwindling supply only for special things. I made a chop stick holder and furoshiki for Mar's wedding gift. Wish I had photos from her wedding. :( no digi cam at the time.

Have fun - the tutorial only took me about 45 minutes to do, including my crazy amount of ironing.

Do you ever have a set of things that you love but almost never buy for yourself? I'm that way with stamps, stickers, and stationary.

I have found my nemesis:

Nothing Elegant

She has great stamps, stationary and DECO TAPE...

I've been super crazy busy at work - like so busy that I am sick and worked from home all day on Friday because I had too much stuff to do! coughing and coughing all day... I'm SUCH a drama queen!!

thanks to trust your style for asking about the bike mishap - I'm totally fine, just a couple of bumps and scrapes.





VACATION!!!

So husband and I are getting ready for a REAL vacation. We will be heading to Tokyo in about 8 weeks. I cannot WAIT! I've only ever been on business and have never had enough time to do everything I wanted to.

I want to just wander around - I want to be able to visit Nippori and meander about. I'm considering moving to Japan one day and I want to see more what everyday life is like.

Asking for trouble has good shopping guide of Tokyo but it's a little lacking addresses, etc. Husband has a GPS map tagged with anime shops all over Japan that he prepped for our first trip. Please note we are super geeks so this link downloads a map that is good for your GPS or google maps only.

I love Japan if only for the oddity - Battle undies...

Check out the ii-ni-kore blog for shots of daily life in Japan as well as design and food info.


Some other side notes....

I have unintentionally found tons and tons of wedding stuff on the web - those crafty DIY wedding folks have some really good ideas and tutorials that don't necessarily have to just be for weddings.

Here are a few good links:

DIY stamp designs from leaves & software - highly recommend looking at the rest of this blog for more goodies.

Clip Art - 50k of images for non-commercial use

I-D-I-Y - tons of crafty goodies

Art stuffs:

Sketchy Font

Paper Source's envelope sizes - .pdf download

Design:

Design Piracy act sucks and blows - send a message to your congress person here. Find out more about the piracy act on fashion incubator

Oh yes!!!

And on the bike front - Husband has written an article about folding bike design. I think everyone should read it. :)

I snuck a photo of him while playing photo shoot assistant:


I have been waiting WEEKS for him to finish the article so I could post that photo :)

hmmm - so far I have managed to:

- throw myself over the handle bars of my bike trying to learn how to properly jump a curb
- spend 3 hours at a hospital - only for them to tell me nothing is broken (good news - but the wait, OI!)
- cut out more stickers for my post below
- enter a bunch of blog give aways (go check out sew mama sew)
- as soon as hubby gets up, we're off to Bicycle Kitchen again - gotta see if they have a spoke cutter and to donate left over bike parts.
- head over to Little Tokyo to pick up our subscriptions from kinokuniya book store.

OH YES - THANK YOU FOR SIGNING UP FOR THE FEED!!

I am going to show you a simple way to evenly embellish something you've sewn. I use this technique on wrist cuffs primarily, but you could use it on any cloth item.

What you need:

* A finished piece of fabric sewn on a sewing machine
* Beads
* Thread
* sewing needle

What to do:

- Thread your needle and knot the end.

- Look at line of stitches you made with your sewing machine (at the hem or at the finishing seam.

- Pick up your piece and decide how far apart your want your beads. This will most likely depend on your stitch length, but I usually space mine fairly close together, about 3 stitches apart.



- You will be working on the front (visible portion) of your piece.

- Start at the underside and push the needle up through the fabric at the beginning of a stitch

- Put a bead on your needle and push the needle back through the fabric at the end of the stitch you started in

- Count down the number of stitches you previously determined and repeat until you have finished that seam line.

- Decide if more of the seams need the same treatment until you feel you are done!

Here is how the beading ends up looking on a wrist cuff: