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Get The Technique
Name: Athena Preston
Job Title: Senior Associate Craft Editor
Date started at company: in the craft department, November 2005, but I first worked here on the Kmart Holiday line way back in 2001
First story: Ribbon lettering for the December 2005 well openers
Hometown: Washington D.C.
Education: BFA Rhode Island School of Design, MA in the History of Decorative Arts and Design, Cooper-Hewitt Museum and Parsons School of Design
First Job: I worked at an ice-cream parlor called Thomas Sweet. I gave a lot away for free.
Astrological sign: Gemini
Personal crafting/artwork: various silkscreen, stenciling, and block-printing projects.
First craft memory: tea-dyeing white tights with my mother so they’d match the crocheted lace collar of a very special brown velvet dress. Also, around the same time- wallpapering my dollhouse
Things you collect: manufacturer’s samples of ceramic plates with handwritten notations and pattern swatches, Tove Jansson picture books, old rulers painted bright colors, paper ephemera, my co-workers’ discarded craft efforts
FAVORITE . . .
Color (Pantone): Pantone # 178
Holiday: Valentine’s day, I never tire of the palette
Pizza topping: fresh ricotta
Kind of Fabric: Prints of all sorts. Scandinavian linen and cotton, certain crazy chintzes (but certainly not others!), mill-engravings and other tiny patterns, lately nearly any fabric that combines pink and blue
Dessert: Yakimochi from Café Zaiya
Source: the library at the Cooper-Hewitt
The cover of our May issue, shot by Ditte Isager, features two projects from our poppies story from the issue, which was a big collaboration between our crafts, style, garden, and food departments. Our idea was to take inspiration from the many varieties of poppies—Oriental, which includes an unbelievable range of colors and types, most …
Marcie and our digital team put so much work into our brand new egg app for the iPhone, which includes detailed how-tos for making an amazing 101 different types of Easter eggs. I worked on the video components of the app, which show how to make stenciled, resist-dyed, Ukrainian wax-resist, and marbleized eggs. I had …
Of all the flowers of early spring, forysthia has alway been my favorite, because it blooms so early and is so dramatic and has such a beautiful color. Where I grew up, the sight of it meant that spring was almost here…. But here in New York City it can be hard to spot—like many …
Right around this time last year I posted the flower projects below, which are some of my most favorites. We thought we’d re-post them, since, like clockwork, we’re all hankering for those first signs of spring once again! Above is another image from the same story, a handmade nest of made of dried grasses and …
The March issue of Living is always our annual garden-themed issue, and over the years we’ve developed many different plant- and nature-inspired craft projects to appear in it. This year Silke and I collaborated on the story “Bringing Nature to Light,” which explores a number of techniques that rely on the silhouettes created by the …
The Handmade Crafternoon event held at the main branch of the New York Public Library last Saturday was a great success, and really so much fun, thanks to brilliant and hilarious cohosts Maura Madden and Jessica Pigza, and a really great and diverse turnout of valentine-making enthusiasts! You can read more about this monthly series …
A while ago I posted about my good friend Maura Madden and her book, Crafternoon, A Guide to Getting Artsy and Craftsy with Your Friends All Year Long, and her related workshop series called Handmade Crafternoon. You can read more about it here… Since then, we at Living had been trying to come up with the …
The January issue of Living features a story all about birthday parties, which I worked on with art directors Stephen Johnson and Tanya Moskowitz, and stylist Tanya Graff. It was so fun to spend a few weeks planning and decorating imaginary parties and exploring all the possible things you can do with standard, inexpensive party …
Martha Stewart's Handmade Holiday Crafts features 225 festive projects, step-by-step instructions, and basic techniques for your year-round celebrations.
