Our new crafts book has arrived! Just in time, too—Halloween is just around the corner. After that, it’s a whirlwind of celebrations: Thanksgiving, Hannukah, and then Christmas! If you are inspired to make something for the holidays, we’ve got you covered from A to Z—or rather, from New Year’s Eve to Christmas Day. No more worrying …

Here in the Crafts department we have quite a collection of vintage craft books. These never cost much, so I’m in the habit of buying them whenever I see them. Many of them are amazingly dense with information and detailed projects, so they really are a great resource. I also love the covers and titles …

One of our most useful resources here in the Crafts Dept. is an enormous collection of clip art books. For those that don’t know, clip-art is basically copyright free imagery, and takes many many forms. I think of our clip art collection as a vast library of visual material and use it constantly as reference …

Above is a selection from our library of vintage books… always inspiring and entartaining look through! The first is an early book on paper flowers, which the crafts dept has made many varieties of over the years. I always think of Jodi when I see them. This book is really sweet and has good instructions. …

More from our library… This book, Twentieth Century Pattern Design is a great resource. I bought it when it was first published, and recently realized that it was my inroduction to a lot of design I’d never seen before. Lesley’s Jackson’s writing is really fascinating. The page above is from the section on Scandinavian designers, …

More from our library…We stock our shelves with plenty of craft books and visual reference books for inspiration, but these days I’m especially enamored with Pete Nelson and Radek Kurzaj’s book Treehouses of the World.  The treehouses featured exhibit a magical brand of craftiness and ingenuity, though the scale of these craft projects are a …

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 …

Since May is ‘Scrapbooking Month’ as well as Mother’s Day coming up, I thought it was a good time to share my grandmother’s cookbook with you. Until not long ago, she would bake a cake every 2 days, so that she and my grandfather could have home made cake with their daily 3pm coffee . …