Robin sent in a picture of four knitted felted christmas stockings that she made for her sister.

I love to knit the felted stockings following the pattern from FiberTrends

Paul wrote in with this letter (see the link to the post he is discussing here and a related post here – there are some great links to some craft/artisan blogs I had not seen before)

Hi Guys,
I’m a big fan of your blog and mentioned you in a recent post I did about the advantages of blogging for artisans. This is an effort to
get more artisans blogging here in Ireland. As you know, Artisan blogging is really taking off across the Atlantic, and I would love to
foster this sort of activity over here.

Get some free downloadable cute christmas gift tags from Kitty Genius here

And Katie sent in a wonderful link to a tutorial on how to make a tin can lantern

PostSecret: Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives
by Frank Warren

PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard. Read about the project here.

I have been a fan of this site for a while, checking in every now and again to read and look at the dark recesses of fellow humans minds. Why do I do it? Mostly out of curiosity and intrigue. My reaction, when looking at the many and varied postcards of peoples secrets, ranges from shock to laughter. They are all so different, some quite light-hearted, others so incredibly deep and others filled with tragedy. The full gamut of humanity is on those postcards.

Therefore I was incredibly thrilled to receive the book (kindly sent over by Jeff at 52projects). The book is an art book, reflecting the original purpose of this whole incredible project. A continuous community art project, where people from all over the world send in their secrets and hidden thoughts to be read by millions. What the individuals who send their postcards get out of it I am not quite sure, hopefully it is the beginning for them of healing themselves. But for those of us reading the book or the blog, I think it is about being part of humanity, of sharing a common bond. I love to read them for their honesty and poetry and look at them for their artistic value and beauty and interest. Of course they are not all poetic and beautiful. They are ugly and crass and disgusting and shocking, they are filthy and some are just plain wrong. They are also funny and quirky and so very intriguing. Isn’t that what humans are like too. It seems that this project is a total reflection on us, which is why it is so interesting and obviously addictive to so many.

A book has a few advantages over a website in that it can be shared with friends while relaxing, it can taken with you on your journey, it can be picked up and flicked through by anyone passing. I agree with some other reviews I have read that say they don’t like the occasional postcard blown up to fill the double page, it somehow distorts it and makes it grotesque. I enjoy seeing them life size – the way they were made. This book and project is a fabulous tribute to humanity.

Some info on the post secret blog and Frank Warren who started it.
… It’s the third-most-popular blog in the blogosphere of nearly 30 million blogs, according to Technorati. (at the time of this post it was ranked 13 on technorati)
… it gets 2.3 million unique visitors a month
… Warren reads every postcard and picks 10 to 20 to post on his blog every Sunday.
… Frank Warren started PostSecret in November, 2004

how it started …
a few years ago when Warren went through a difficult period … he turned to art projects … he began handing out blank postcards to strangers in Metro stations and inviting them to decorate the card and share a long-hidden secret, something never shared before … soon hundreds of cards were pouring into his mailbox … after they were exhibited and the project was over … the secrets kept coming from all across the country … so he started the postsecret blog.

Why is it so popular …
… people love to read it because humans are by nature voyeuristic and curious, and can identify with the secrets.
… it provided a forum that enables people to feel like they’re sharing without any risk – free therapy.
… the secrets are authentic and moving.

(excerpts of facts taken from USA today and wikipedia)

(more images can be found at USA today and at defunkion)

It’s time to get your packages wrapped up! And here are some super cute fabric gift tags from the folks over at the purl bee. They have put together a set of posts to tell you just how to make your own.

More cute packaging and tag ideas can be found here:

• Heather Bailey’s yo-yo present toppers
• Natascha Rosenberg’s printable gift tags

When I lived in Japan in my 20s I became fascinated with the little shrines along the roads, inside many restaurants and in many homes. Amid the noise and bustling along the street, I felt a little bit of calm every time I passed one of these places.

When I came across this fabric with angels printed on it a couple of years ago I bought two yards having no idea what I would do with it but thinking that it was cool that it looked like stained glass windows in a cathedral. With Christmas approaching I decided to use the fabric to make a small wall hanging for our daughter’s catechist as a gift. I played with several designs and background colors and decided that simple black sashing was all I needed. Any other colors seemed too distracting. The black made the small bits of white look like tiny lights. Placing the fabric on a cream background made the fabric look less luminous and dreary I thought.

Using a pinking blade, I cut two strips for a hanging sleeve on the back. Because I wasn’t quilting this piece, I could top stitch the hanging sleeve onto the backing before I attached it to the front of the piece. I slipped a piece of 1 1/4″ lattice through the back which was cut 1/2″ shorter than the width of the piece and I was done. I made two less than an hour and a half. I’m envisioning the recipient using it as a holiday decoration or to mark a meditation or prayer space in her home. If you can’t find any fabrics that help create the environment you are looking for, you could also embroider words or images onto plain fabric or take a photo of a cathedral window or some sacred text and transfer it to fabric with photo transfer fabric and your computer’s printer.

One of my very favourite blogs. Always inspirational. Love the spirit and enjoyment of family and life. The wonderful photography, crafting, colour and fun is wonderful.

Here's a quick and easy way to make a lots of christmas cards at once. It's always nice to send and receive home made cards but as we all know it's hard to find the time so I started making these when my eldest was tiny. Now he's older he helps me make them as you can make a lot of mess and have a lot of fun with beautiful results!

Step 1

Take a large sheet of cartridge paper (nothing too thin as it will get very wet, nothing too thick as it will make the finished card too bulky) and a large old brush and splosh water and pva glue over it. You can be quick and haphazard about this, it all adds to the finished effect.

Step 2

Immediately drop acrylic ink into the wet surface, if you don't have pipettes a small paintbrush will do just fine to apply the ink straight from the bottle.

Step 3

Rip up pieces of tissue and lay them on top of the ink. Use a very wet brush to paste the tissue down, this helps to disperse the colours. I would stick with a limited palette of colours, just two or three that compliment each other. Continue to layer ink and tissue and more water and pva if needed to help it all on it's way, finish with a fine sprinkling of glitter then allow to dry for a few hours. I usually let it dry over night.

Step 4

When it is dry, measure the apertures of you cards and cut your sheet up into squares or rectangles that are just a bit bigger. I use small cards, about 88 x 114 mm but you of course can choose your own.

Step 5

Now you have a very quick way of producing a lot of different cards at once. To each rectangle apply another layer of pva and glitter if necessary and apply christmassy sequins, wire and other embellishments and paste them straight in to the aperture side of the card, making sure the edges are well stuck. Once this has dried use double sided tape to glue the front fold of the card to hide the mess on the inside and flatten the card down well for a good finish.

See all the photos for this tutorial at Kala’s art tutorial website

I recently posted about helping out an Australian sheep farmer whose sheep were suffering in the drought. From that story I received a few emails from concerned readers about the practice of Mulesing in Australia and the current campaign by PETA boycotting the Australian wool industry. This issue is not as simple or cut and dried as stated on the PETA website, there is another side.

The other side of this issue is the Australian wool farmers, who are suffering through drought and hardship while trying to keep their livelihood. Who care about their animals, but who are battling the harsh Australian climate and the unique and very aggressive Australian blowfly (Lucilia cuprina). See this website which oulines the Australian wool farmers side of the cruelty to animals debate, and has a response to PETA and advocates a less extreme position.

This is a link to a video on the PETA website claiming to show mulesing – warning: this is a graphic video and is quite upsetting. Wool is best – a website which represents the Australian Wool farmer perspective on this issue, also has a video explaining the practice of mulesing in Australia.

If you celebrate Christmas, you are probably in the throes of gift-wrapping as we speak. It can get pretty tedious wrapping gift after gift in the traditional way (at least what *I* have always thought was the traditional way!) So this year, give these Japanese techniques a shot: envelope-style or the slightly more complicated-looking diagonal wrapping.

Better yet, use fabric to wrap your gifts to reduce waste (I always get slightly nauseated on Christmas morning watching all that gift wrap getting wadded up and tossed in the trash). The Japanese government even promotes the practice and offers this PDF chart detailing how to wrap a number of differently-shaped objects with fabric. (via Make)

Picture from the spanish magazine Habitania.

I don´t like spanish craft magazine usually. I prefer Habitania, about decoration and some crafts articles.For example this one, “how to create with laces”; i think it´s a good idea for adorning a Christmas paper gift bag.

Normalmente las revistas de manualidades españolas no me llaman la atención. Prefiero Habitania, dedicada a la decoración yccon algunos trucos e ideas interesantes. Por ejemplo, estas bolsas de regalo decoradas con encajes- una idea diferente para envolver un regalo navideño-.

Making Books That Fly, Fold, Wrap, Hide, Pop Up, Twist & Turn: Books for Kids to Make (Paperback)
by Gwen Diehn

Published by Sterling Publishing/Lark books.

This book is a book about making books, however it also includes ideas and topics for books and suggestions on presentation suitable to the topic. Explanations and ideas of various learning journeys on how children can present their ideas and research, story telling and artistic pursuits, thinking about the end result of the book as well as the contents, thinking about who the book is for and how it will be used.

The projects are suitable for older kids to do on their own, and for younger children with the supervision of adults. The many projects are mixed up with ideas and examples of historical and famous books. I really loved the choose-your-own-adventure style books, the time capsule and the movie slide show. I found the snippets of the history and culture surrounding books to be very interesting, and loved the idea for ‘the exquisite corpse’ picture book, a variation on the surrealist word game.

This book has excellent illustrations and photographs on the finished products as well as demonstrations on folding paper and various sewing and binding options and a few ideas on ways to illustrate a story. I showed this book to my daughter’s teacher and she was extremely impressed and wanted to include some of the ideas in her classes learning journies.

A great resource for families, holidays and the classroom.