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 about how to decorate the house, what to give as a gift, how to prepare your dining table, or even how to achieve that perfect candlelit glow:

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What's your favorite holiday? Do you make something special to commemorate the occasion?

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 - see the gallery below for a selection.

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1 This one’s got a lot going on

2 kind of a strange still life

3 this one’s so cheerful!

4 I love handmade puppets. so does this little fellow.

5 this is a great title

6 this book has great projects

7 as does this one… and great images

8 sock puppet!

9 quite a still-life

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12 this one has great batik crafts

13 an earlier edition of things to make and do

14 sadly this book has no jacket – but it’s a great one. Finally something to do with those oddments! Thanks Betsey!

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Oh how I love Dover Publications. What an amazing breadth of material... I swear I never met a Dover book I didn't love.

The Pepin Press also publishes great clip-art and includes CD-Roms with hi-res images of everything. We also buy Japanese Clip-art books - which can be hard to find- from Kinokiniya, a much beloved Japanese book store here in New York.

And finally, one of my favorite things that we do here is create our own downloadable art for crafts projects to make available to our our readers. That's all archived here, and free, so take a look!

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1 a few Dover titles

2 this art Nouveau book is like a combines botany and Art History lesson...

3 Examples of pepin Press books

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5 Japanese clip-art examples. I have a special fondness for the Japanese taste for things scandinavian... ! (top right)

6 these also include CD-roms...

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. As you may know Morgan also makes beautiful giant paper flowers... The second book was a gift from former craft editor Marissa Corwin, and is a very charming household guide from the 20's called Modern Priscilla, with lots of how-to and nice illustrations. The last two images are examples of the John Martin children's periodicals, which Marcie collects. They are full of holiday inspiration and great imagery, as you can see. We hope that you are on the lookout for vintage insiration too, we'd love to hear about your finds!

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, and I think it's where I first saw the work of Gocken Jobs, which I love so much. You can see more of her work here. Also shown above is a Josef Frank print, which is more well known but still amazes me. Just Scandinavian, a store in new York, carries many of his designs, its really worth seeing them in person if you can, the color is so exciting. I was newly inspired by them again seeing them here.

Last winter I stayed in a treehouse-like hut on little Corn island in Nicaragua...

Rather than using glass panes,  the windows were made of empty rum bottles filled with colored water...a pretty crafty solution for a place with loads of wind and rum bottles.

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 learn from.

Above are two books by the artist Esther K. Smith, both filled with information about the craft of book making, showing many types of binding techniques but also ingenious little books you can make with just a single sheet of paper... I've made millions of birthday cards inspired by her.

Below is book of photographs of Charleston, the house associated with England's Bloomsbury Group, which was a major source of inspiration for color and pattern for our Stenciling story from September 2008. I never get tired of looking at it...

Before my time in the crafts department this beautiful story about Pressing Seaweed was produced. (a great project to think about as you plan your summer activities...) It drew inspiration from this amazing book, which has so much beautiful imagery and lots of historical information... The last image is an example of pressed seaweed from one of the projects, which were included in the craft book.

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 . She's a bit old for that now - almost 92 - so she recently sent me her book to keep. I thought I was just getting some recipes ... instead I got a German history lesson : newspaper clippings of her engagement 1937, ration stamps from 1940 , invoices for painters from 1939 and her own mothers 'Motherpass' which I guess you got when you had 3 or more children. ... .

And yes, there are many recipes as well .... mostly for baking, rarely with butter ... all splattered with bits of batter.

I'm thrilled to have this book of hers ... and I love the 'oldfashioned' way of scrapbooking. Maybe now I don't need to feel so bad that my own wedding announcement is in a box along with my sons' babypictures and first drawings. It might just make my grandchildren quite excited one day.

From our Library: ..... well, actually from the Style Library. But since I personally own the book (thank you Shane), I thought it would still count.

Bloom is an incredible magazine by Li Edelkoort, which is still published and worth looking at (and investing in, if you can).

This book is a selection from the first 6 issues. It is, as the magazine, an incredible inspiration from nature for colors, shapes, textures ...

and just plain beauty.

Enjoy.