Top Ten: Crafty Blogs I Love to Read
June 03, 2010
I thought I'd share my (current) ten favorite crafty blogs (in no particular order):
1. Judy Wise
Art Journaler extraordinaire, Judy Wise is such an inspiration to me. I love her daily journal pages. I lover her beautiful art journal paintings and the wonky dolls she makes sometimes. Right now she's inspiring me on a personal level with her battle against permanently losing her literal voice.
2. Alisa Burke: Redefine Creativity
Alisa Burke's blog is always full of color and wonderful creative ideas. She shares a ton of tutorials and blogs virtually every single day. I love her energy and enthusiasm and belief in using mundane materials to create extraordinary things!
I love the "before" and "after" room and furniture makeovers. I love the simple tutorials on everything from making sugared flowers to making a repeating pattern. I love the vast variety of styles the Design Sponge team embraces. The illustration above is from an article they wrote on spool beds - where to find them, how to value them, the history of them, etc. It's truly a wonderful site!
I used to do a lot more jewelry making. Jewelry was really my first great crafty passion. I loved being able to make a piece of art and wear it! And I still do make some jewelry, but nowhere near at the factory-like rates I used to. Something Sublime is a jewelry blog and Deryn Mentock makes exquisite stuff. She takes great photos of her stuff too. The staging is just fabulous. I wish she would share a little more of her process on her blog, but I'm also happy just to drool over the photos! Everything is simple and vaguely antique. Love it!
I first found Mandi through the Hambly and Jenni Bowlin blogs. I really liked her totally unique and quirky scrapbooking. And while she hasn't scrapbooked (or at least shared scrapbook pages) in quite a while, I keep reading her blog because it's fun. One of the things I love most about her blog is her obsession with vintage clothes. This is not an obsession I share at all, but I do very much enjoy her passion for it! She reminds me to march to the beat of my own drummer. (ETA: I wrote this post a week or two ago and since then she's posted a few awesome new layouts!)
6. Paper Crave
A blog all about paper! What could be better? They scour the web for the best designs so that I don't have to. The blog is a lot of pics and not a lot of text, so it's always a pretty wander through their finds.
7. Studio Calico Blog and A Million Memories Blog
(Image is from Tina's Paint Effects tutorial on the Studio Calico blog)
I've combined two blogs into one here. They are somewhat similar and I just couldn't pick which one I liked better. Studio Calico and A Million Memories are kit clubs with very talented design teams. Their blogs are updated several times a week with lots of great content, whether you're a subscriber or not: pretty projects, great tutorials, inspiration, and fun ideas in lots of different styles. Both blogs feature members' work as well as their designers, so you have the chance to discover someone fun and new all the time!
Louise is so talented a scrapper it makes me green with envy! She takes the most mundane things and transforms them into amazing paper creations. Her use of white space is crazy cool. She groups embellishments and splatters paint in fun ways. I just love visiting her blog to see what she's been creating. There isn't a lot of text on her blog. Mostly pics. And she's very prolific, so there's always lots to look at!
PS: It was near to impossible to pick the layout of hers to feature as a representation of her blog. So, do yourself a favor and visit her blog to pick your own!
Christine Middlecamp's blog is a wonderful place to wander. I love looking at her neat, precise, intensely layered, soft and shabby scrapbook layouts. She is the queen of layers. (Take a peek at her layered doily tutorials if you don't believe me.) Her style is so very different from mine, but it always inspires me to go the extra mile. To take the time to go the extra step and do a little bit more.
10. Design is Mine
This is a blog all about pretty design. There are lots and lots of photos of all sorts of cool design, but the thing I love most about it is the "thought of the day." Every few days, the blogger (whose name is Summer, I think) posts an artfully designed sentiment. They range from funny to sweet to provocative. I find them all enormously inspiring.
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So, there you have it! My top ten (right now) crafty blogs.
What blogs are inspiring you right now?