get in the mood: vday!

What a cute idea for Valentine's Day cards!! Write a love note on the back. Your person can save it as a bookmark. Romantic. Or spread the love to all your friends. All you need is a heart hole punch, some ribbon, and a hardware store. Or better yet, go to like four hardware stores. Because if the hardware dudes catch you emptying all their pink and purple paint chips, they won't be pleased. Be discreet.

rain, come and stay

Via an Etsy Tweet, "Rain, come and stay." It certainly caught my eye on this rainy day in NYC. Particularly after a lady in the elevator exclaimed this morning, "When is it all going to end?" Um. Weather? Hopefully it's not.

Driftwood Cloud with Vintage Crystal Drops, $72, 10" W x 9.5" H, by GiftsandStars, Turkey [image via GiftsandStars on Etsy]

heart-felt

These heart pins are so cute, and such a sweet idea to make for all your friends & loved ones. All you need is felt, sewing skills, cutting skills, some poly-fil, thread, safety pins, and patience. Follow these instructions on Molly's Sketchbook.

Everyone will enjoy your heart-felt Valentines! (note, pun is all mine, not Molly's)

homemade ornaments truly sparkle

Who can resist these cute lil' sparkling acorns? I can't wait to go to the park after work and hunt for some. Wait, I've seen a lot of very very fattened up squirrels lately. Perhaps they've beaten me to it. Well, we live in New York. Surely the Flower District on 28th Street sells real acorns! Off to 28th Street then. [idea & image via Daily Candy by way of Sweet Paul]

sew crafty

[images via design sponge]

This woven basket is totally cool! I totally want to make it. But wouldn't it sort of wreck the timing on your machine? And I'd imagine you'd dull a lot of needles. But nonetheless, totally cool. [via design sponge]

as soon as you see this, you will want it

[images via fredflare.com]

Isn't this cake pan the greatest? I don't even bake and I totally want to make a cake with this pan. As the cake pan says, Yum Yum Yum Yum. Indeed. Details here.

totally good idea

Dollhouse hearts Teen.com. Check out this great idea for a DIY studded bracelet. Totally affordable. Totally cute.

Alternate idea: go to 6th Avenue in the 30s and get some colorful plain plastic bangles for 6 bucks a pop. Decorate with rhinestones or pyramid studs. All you need is some Crazy Glue. And the studs. And the rhinestones. Well, you get the idea.

felt-y

[images from Mummysam via Jars of Cute]

Who doesn't love felt? Especially when it is so cute and British! Original felt portaits by Mummysam “drawn” with free motion stitching. Via Jars of Cute.

By the way, Mummysam has a blog too. Dollhouse hearts Mummysam! (Just discovered via Twitter.)

trend report: needlepoint meets retro-digital

Pacman needlepoint magnets, from Flickr
Pacman was developed by Namco, released in Japan in 1980


Donkey Kong cross-stitch by Mecha Shiva, on CraftZine blog
Donkey Kong was originally developed by Nintendo, released in 1981


A needlepoint actual size replica of the Macintosh 128K, circa 1984
The Macintosh 128K was the original Apple Macintosh personal computer!
Needlepoint sculpture by Ben Fino-Radin by way of Boing Boing by way of Gizmodo

What is going on? I had no idea that writing this piece yesterday would lead me to uncover a very strange and very specific niche trend: needlepoint pieces of late 70s-early 80s digital technology are springing up all over. Pacman. Donkey Kong. A Mac. BASIC (the computer programming language). I would like to find one of Pong, and then this trend report would be complete.

In BASIC, the computer programming language of days past,
each line of code was numbered in increments of 10.
Here, a needlepoint pattern for "Home Sweet Home"
BASIC, short for Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code,
originally designed in 1964, was popular in the 70s and 80s.
[image from counterjumper]