Our editors share their inspirations every day
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
More from our library… Sometimes excitement over one particular book or resource will be the starting point for a whole story or craft project. Here are a few more of our favorites, each very different but all worth seeking out because they are so amazingly dense with inspiration, and such a pleasure to read and …
Pingmag, “the bilingual Tokyo based magazine about design and making things,” and its sister publication, Pingmag Make, a weekly series of profiles on Japanese crafts, is an amazing source of information and inspiration from Japan. The publication went on an indefinite hiatus earlier this year, but Pingmag’s website still exists as an extensive online archive …
In January I travelled to Anaheim, Ca. to attend the annual Craft and Hobby Association (CHA) Winter Trade Show. This show brings together hundreds of companies in the industry, including vendors of all types of sewing and needlework tools, manufacturers of art papers and scrapbooking materials, paints and brushes, glitters, beads, clays, and too many …
A lot of the projects I work on outside of the office involve some form of printmaking… I have a longstanding fascination with the range of processes that fall under this category and the look of printed imagery in all of its many forms. I also like to collaborate with my friends – as when …
Here in the crafts department we keep a library of books that we use in developing our stories and projects. We all add to it from time to time when we come across a new (or old) book that we find interesting or useful. Over the years it’s become a pretty extensive resource with many …
Martha Stewart's Handmade Holiday Crafts features 225 festive projects, step-by-step instructions, and basic techniques for your year-round celebrations.
