About Family Crafts
It is time to get serious about Halloween costumes. These resources will help you decide what to be for Halloween.

Carmi’s Art/Life World
Carmi uses another fab Plaid stencil for this newly embellished t-shirt!

Cathie Filian
Whip up tattered rose with scrap fabrics, gems and hot glue. They are simple to make and perfect for embellishing!

Craftside-A behind-the-scenes peek at a crafty world
This week at Craftside there is a polka dot wreath quilt block pattern, and a wild spin on the American Flag Quilt, a how-to on making a gelatin stamp print, a free bird card template download and more!

Eileen - The Artful Crafter
Have you papier-mâchéd yet? Let Eileen tell you how.

Margot Potter The Impatient Crafter
Madge shares a second free project from her new book Bead Chic with another signed book giveaway!

Mixed Media Artist
Is it a whirli-gig or part of the solar system? Cyndi has been experimenting with needle felting.

Stefanie Girard’s Sweater Surgery
At Sweater Surgery there is a review of the new book: Jil Eaton’s Knitting School.

The galley pages of my book, The Complete Photo Guide to Jewelry Making, showed up late Friday afternoon. The galley copy (also called a laser copy) is a pile of pages unbound that has all the text and photos in it pretty much how it will be in the final book. Larger photos are not totally clear, but for the most part, you get an idea of what the final product will look like. I could have had this sent as an electronic file - these huge pages are a mess to deal with - but I read so much better on paper than I do on the screen that I opted for hardcopy.

I have a little less than a week to review and send them back to the publisher. This is the one chance I get to see it before it goes off to press. I can, at this point, make minor changes, like typos. I’m still going back and forth on a few things with the publisher, but we are now at the point that decisions have to be made, obviously! Hopefully, they will trust my judgment - err…yes…I’ve written a tad about jewelry before you know - and we’ll resolve some of the issue quickly, as in they’ll do what I am asking them to do!

I think that is one of the issues about books that a lot of people don’t know. The writer can often have limited control. Things like page count and layout can become so important that creativity and credibility go on the back burner.

That said, the book actually looks pretty darn good if I do say so myself. I forgot how much stuff is in this sucker, a lot!!

Networking is one of the great things about the Internet. It is a way to get to know others who have similar interests as well as help each other out now and then. Andrew Thornton is helping me out today by hosting a give-a-way on his wonderful blog, The Writing and Art of Andrew Thornton.

I have donated a gorgeous sterling silver mermaid charm that I cast myself, and Andrew is offering it up on his blog as sort of a drawing. Those who post a comment enter to win, and you can get extra entries by posting about it on various social networks too.

So head over there now, and enter to win it today! The deadline to enter is Monday 7/12 est midnight.

Finally! I have my fourth earring kit completed and listed on Etsy, which includes the complete earring kit (materials and pdf tutorial) or the supplies only version or the pdf tutorial only. By giving three options, I hope to have all my bases covered. I call this design “Vintage-Style Mother of Pearl and Crystal Earrings.”

For those who want the tutorial and supplies - aka the full enchilada version - they can buy the whole kit, but for those who are experienced enough to be able to make the earrings without the tutorial the supplies only version is a good way to save a little money but get everything necessary to make the earrings, and then finally, for those who may already have the same or similar supplies and just need the instructions, the tutorial is a good choice.

So far, I have sold a few tutorials and one whole kit, and considering I still have some major marketing to do for these, I am encouraged. This last kit is a special favorite of mine. The design morphed many time before I finally found what I want to use for the kit, and the result is a rich looking pair of earrings that have a vintage feel to them.

About Family Crafts
Father’s Day is just around the corner. What will you do for all the other special dads you know? This year, why not make a special, home-made gift for all of the guys in your life!

Aileen’s Musings
Aileen shows you how to make vivacious vivid shipping tags to use on your gifts and in your art!

Beading Arts
Chapter two of Cyndi’s e-book is available for download! “Altered Surfaces” begins the exploration of the exchange between mixed media and bead embroidery!

Cathie Filian
It is fashion time for dad! Check out Cathie’s Father’s Day ideas.

Craftside-A behind-the-scenes peek at a crafty world
Craftside’s got a recycled book page mobile from the book-Playing With Books and a chance to win a free copy of it, a new Look, Learn, and Create video on how to make a box stitch ribbon bracelet with Elaine Schmidt, tips on painting Rembrandt style, and some “Graphic Stew” line and shape ingredients!

Crafty Princess Diaries
After seriously losing sleep over taking photographs for her Etsy shop, Tammy has a eureka jewelry photography moment.

Margot Potter The Impatient Crafter
So you want to write a craft book? Here’s part five in Madge’s series on how to do it!

Stefanie Girard’s Sweater Surgery
See how to make a Steampunk button and recycled 80’s earring into a cool new necklace

The Artful Crafter
How to sew felted wool boxes to organize odds and ends.

This is a picture I took of the launch of the Shuttle Atlantis a few weeks ago. I was on the ship that was getting ready to take us to the Bahamas, so I got a pretty good view over the ocean before we left.

This morning as I was getting another cup of tea and trying to wake up, Boom! The sonic boom hit. My house is about 50 or 60 miles from KSCU, but of course, as the shuttle enters the atmosphere, it flies over us, so that’s why I heard it at such a distance. Needles to say, I was awake after my whole house shook!

This may be the last flight for the Atlantis, and there are only two more possible launches for the other shuttles after this one. I was raised a “rocket girl” so to speak since my dad is ex-NASA, and my first job out of grad school was as a technical writer for Lockheed. It’s in my blood.

Though the Space Shuttle program has been finishing up for some years now and the new administration is not to blame for this, its attitude towards the space program in general is really disappointing. I have already lamented about this on here before (see “It’s the Economy, Stupid“), so I won’t rehash it. But just remember this day, folks, years from now when you look back and realize how the space program started to erode. This is just the beginning to a sad, sad future for the US space industry and the nation.

Okay, so I may not be able to do everything on my super long to-do list during summer vacation, but I have managed to blow the dust off my little Etsy shop and have a more respectable presence over there. I’m adding sterling silver pieces that I had cast years ago and recently found around here during my spring cleaning frenzy as well as a few supplies and finished pieces.

As I have been getting back into the Etsy swing of things, I’ve also been checking out the forums over there, and as usual, I really learn a lot from other Etsians. My shop is by no means perfect, but I think it is getting better, little by little.

Well, my photo bezel experiment did not turn out that well. As you can see from the photo, there are splotches on the image inside the resin. I’m not ready to give up yet. I think I know what went wrong; however, this is not a project that I’ll have done and ready to send off as a gift for mom by this Sunday.

So, I’ve moved onto plan B, which I think she will also like pretty well. I ended up ordering an Artbeads.com gift card for her. This way, it will go directly to her, and thus I don’t have to worry about racing to the post office in time to send a package. And, she can expand her jewelry supply buying experience from what she’s been doing so far, which is shopping at Michael’s and other craft stores. Not that they don’t have some okay supplies, but there really is a world of difference when you purchase supplies from a vendor who specializes in jewelry supplies, and from my own experience with Artbeads.com, the company has some high quality supplies.

At least now that she is into making jewelry, it will always be easy to think of a gift for her.

Yes, finally, it is spring break time for me, and I am so looking forward to it. As usual, any time I have a break from school I have a long list of “to-do” items that hopefully I’ll manage to do even half of before the holiday is over. My main goal is to get my house put back together again. Since September 2009, my life outside of my teaching job has revolved primarily around writing my last book. That meant doing the minimum amount of house cleaning to just keep things livable around here.

I am by no means a perfectionist when it comes to house cleaning. In fact, both my husband and I are major clutter bugs, but enough is enough already! I am going room by room and not only cleaning but reorganizing as well so we can get more use out of the space we have around here. Some of this means tossing out (or I should say donating to local thrift stores) a lot of “stuff.” Today I found about a dozen small candles inside a cabinet in the living room (which is the first room I’m tackling). I don’t even use candles because I have dogs and cats running around and feel they are too dangerous. Where did these even come from?

Besides cleaning around here, I have some web house work to do on my About.com site. Primarily this means transferring old content to new templates, which I totally hate doing because I’d much rather have fun creating new jewelry projects, but for SEO purposes, it has to be done sometime.

Before anyone tells me not to work too hard, I have to confess that I’m also reading a wonderful book recently recommended to me, Stoner (New York Review Books Classics). Yes, I know. I’m reading for pleasure, what a concept! I’m about half way through it, and with my horrible allergies, I expect that my cleaning bug will get zapped in about two to three days max, and I’ll be forced to relax and read for awhile.

On that note, I’m returning to my dust mop!

Looks like I’m not the only designer with a new book on Amazon. Drew Emborsky, aka The Crochet Dude, has a brand spanking new book out as well, and it is available for early ordering: Crochet It! Love It! Wear It! Here is the description from Amazon:

“Just for the ladies, Drew Emborsky, aka The Crochet Dude , has created 13 cutting-edge fashions in luxurious crochet. Fashion-conscious women are always searching for the perfect Little Black Dress, and Drew has one, plus an incredible selection of other must-have wardrobe pieces. Designs include a party dress, cabled and ruffl ed cardigans, fl irty skirts, a vest, trendy tops including a baby doll style, an asymmetrical long coat, an opera jacket, and a keyhole scarf. The designs are crocheted using a variety of beautiful yarns; the majority are made with sumptuous, organic/natural yarns in worsted or sport weight and are highly textured with enticing post stitches. “