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(This week’s challenge is coming! Sorry for the lateness. I spent all day yesterday wondering how it was possible that Monday had come so soon, and didn’t get anything done at all!)
Maggie Mason, aka Mighty Girl, is one of my favorite bloggers. She runs two great shopping sites, Mighty Goods and Mighty Junior, and today announced the launch of Mighty Haus, a shopping site for housewares. If the other two sites are any indication, Mighty Haus will feature beautiful, functional pieces with a modern flare — perfect for most Today’s Homemaker readers, I think.
I’m seeing these sweet bandanna pants all over the internet! You can get instructions from Martha Stewart, Sew Mama Sew, or Make Something Now. (Or do as I plan to do and read all the instructions, then wing it.)
With my new (well, renewed) interest in growing my own food, I am looking for gardening inspiration pretty much constantly. My friend Mike’s blog is a great source! In fact, he inspired me to grow tomatoes in the first place. Check out his latest post for loads of great photos.
More gardening: Check out this tin can wall garden! What a way to use available space.
If you sew, you may be familiar with the back-ache that often accompanies it. This wonderful article on sewing room ergonomics may help! Oh, how I wish I had the space to set up a sewing room.
Over at kaboodle I found these great solar-powered paper lanterns. I love them!
Summer colds abound. Instead of roughing up your nose and filling your trash with Kleenex, why not whip up some of Stefani’s flour sack hankies?
Tiffany at Natural Family Living reviews my favorite sewing book, Bend-the-Rules Sewing (which I gushed about a little bit here).
Cheryl experiments with making her own soy milk, and shares tips. Yum!
Sappmama at Purly Victorious shares a tip on preserving sewing patterns, and a new favorite tool as well.
Amanda of Soulemama shares a sweet little sewing project for organizing her thank yous, with a lovely quote on gratitude. I am terrible about thank you notes, so this one is especially inspiring for me!
I finally have a little time to get back to my beloved good-stuff-hunting today. Whew! This week has been an absolute whirlwind! Must sleep this weekend. Here are a few of my favorite things this week:
Oh yes, the Friday Favorites. Silly me, I’d forgotten all about them! Well, not really. You see, I’ve been developing a different system for collecting all of my favorite stuff because I’m now using a browser that does not support StumbleUpon. Bother. But I do have to admit…I’m not wasting half as much time now! So here we go…the week’s best according to moi.
- Alltop - Are you getting tired about hearing of this awesome site yet? Because I’m not. Guy Kawa…ummm…Kawasaki (not that hard Sarah…geez) is a genius. And he’s also guest-editing over at sk*rt (another site that is tres fabulique), which makes him permanently cool for being the first guy to do that. Go Guy.
- Polyvore - I haven’t figured out the name of this site yet. Is it for people who eat polyester? Hmm. Anyway, this site is a very cool social network for fashion geeks. It kind of smells like flickr. You can put together entire ensembles snipped from different online stores and, get this, you can actually order by clicking on any of the items in your clothing montage. Or so I’ve heard. I have to admit I haven’t actually tried it, but I have been admiring other people’s creations all over the place.
- Piper and Paisley - Stop my heart, these hats are CUTE. Cute cute cute. I want ten, please. One for each day of the week, and then a few for emergencies.
- Bucket Boffing - I can see this being the perfect party game (For kids, of course. I’m much too sophisticated.) It reminds me of the old American Gladiator shows for some reason. Two people stand on buckets opposite each other while holding big pool noodles (what else do you call those things?). They proceed in batting each other over the head and around the legs and wherever else. The last one standing wins.
- Pingg - I guess this is the week of the Web 2.0 applications. Here is one that I’m pretty excited about because of how annoying Evite insists on being. Instead of flashy ugliness, pingg offers stylish modern-inity. I haven’t actually sent any invitations with it yet, so let me know what you think. [via How About Orange]
- Lines & Shapes - Next completed website launch, I am going to get a subscription to this wonderful indie publication. It is collaborative artistic beauty. Worth every penny, I have no doubt.
- See Kai Run - The most adorable baby shoes in the entire world. [via Design Mom]
- Sausage and Capsicum Linguine - I’ve already forgotten what capsicum is, but this looks so yummy. No thanks to Jen for making me crave even more pasta.
That’s it for the week, everyone. Enjoy a lovely, lingering weekend!
I am so jealous. But in a good way! Jen has talent streaming out of her every orifice…I swear, her stuff makes me so HAPPY! I am currently ogling the polka dot canvas bags, apple in my pie magnets, and happy little trees acrylic paintings…and every single thing else. You can visit Jen over at her blog The Laundry Is Never Finished.
Jen, I know it’s a little late for this, but will you be my valentine? Please? <3
I haven’t done a lot of surfing this week, but I guess that’s a good thing! It means I’ve actually been productive…ha. So here are my top 5 (Aww…I know. But 5 is a great number. Really!) favorite finds of the week:
- Fine Stationery.com - Personalized stationery…very cool. I’m thinking about ordering some for my web design studio. Who wouldn’t love to get something that cute?
- America’s Quilting History - The history of America through quilts. Since quilting’s become the “Next Big Thing” in the crafting arena (don’t you love it?) I definitely think this is relevant right now. If I only had the patience!
- 1000 Good Books - Someone from my homeschooling group recommended this to me…it is an amazing list of books to read, focused on the classical homeschooler. Delightful!
- Renee & Jeremy - The singers/songwriters I wrote about earlier in the week. I LOVE them!
- Chocolate Cupcake Lollipops - Yum! What a great idea!
Okay, so I’m not too good at getting these up on a Friday, am I? :) Here are my top ten finds of the week:
- Good Stock - I’ve always wanted to be a scrapbooker, but I just don’t have the time or inclination to do it. I think these books would be a great alternative — that way, I could get rid of the guilt of not scrapbooking, and I could have such a gorgeous commemoration of my family at the same time.
- Mix-it-up Cocktail Coasters - Could I ever make these? I don’t know, but they sure are adorable, especially as a gift. They remind me of some I saw in Martha Stewart a long time ago but couldn’t find again.
- The Homeschool Lounge - A brand new social networking community just for homeschoolers. This looks like it is going to be an awesome resource.
- Tiny McSmall - Okay, I’ve never said this before (I mean, it seems everyone is saying it these days) but…swoon! I mean SWOONY-swoon! Now that I’ve convinced you of my complete idiocy, you just have to go check out this fabulous shop featuring the cutest stuff for kids that I’ve ever seen. I will never be able to afford any of it, alas, but the inspiration quotient is extremely high.
- Tiny Valentine letters - A great idea for making tiny Valentine letters out of shrinky dinks.
- Chocolate fudge cake with peanut butter - This recipe looks downright scandalous. I love that it uses a box mix as a base. Not having actually tried it yet, I will admit that I don’t think it uses enough peanut butter. But that’s coming from a person who thinks peanut butter can do no wrong. I’m blissfully biased.
- DIY Valentine’s Day dice - Cute templates for making Valentine’s Day dice that you can fill with candy or other fun treats.
- Sew Bettie oven mitt - This is not your typical oven mitt tutorial. I’m surprised that I’m even SAVING a tutorial on how to make an oven mitt. But this one’s a keeper.
- JJB Creations - Jessica makes such cute beautiful “bookmark books” in her etsy store…what a cool concept.
- Paper Source - Paper paper paper paper…oh my gosh, I’m going to have a coronary! This adorable shop has the BEST paper goods and is a great source of inspiration for those of us who are too broke to buy.
Hope everyone’s enjoying their weekend! We’re going to wait until tomorrow to move forward in our Getting Things Done series. For those of you who are following along, this is going to be the week you will look back on and say THAT’S when I finally got my stuff together. Stay tuned!
Thankfully, my must-be-stumbling-all-the-time phase lasted only a few days. I still really enjoy using StumbleUpon to track all of the great things I find when I’m online, but it’s gotten a little more realistic. Still, I managed to find some pretty cool sites this week. My favorites include:
- Why hand piece? - This printable list of the top ten reasons to hand piece your quilting projects is such an inspiration. I find that I’m always saying “no” to trying out quilting because I just don’t have the patience to sit down at my machine and start, stop, start, stop with all of those little pieces. I think having it as an ongoing outlet of creativity will be a simple way to get me started.
- Quilted plant markers - These plant markers are not your ordinary variety — they’re quilted! I’ve decided that these will be my first quilting project (hand-pieced, of course!)
- Printable Valentines - These printable valentines from Inside a Black Apple are retro and adorable and folksy…and I just love them and can’t believe they’re free!
- Tu for Tee - ADORABLE appliqued shirts for girls with little tutus attached. So sweet!
- Heart-shaped tea bags - A cute craft for your tea-loving Valentine from (can you guess?) Martha Stewart.
- “Dreaming of You” iron-on transfer - Free printable iron-on transfer from the ever-so-generous Ez over at Creature Comforts. It’s a whimsical-looking print that says “Dreaming of You” with a few little hearts floating around. Available in both pinks and blues.
- Beansoup overall aprons - Cool, durable no-tie aprons for kids.
- Pleasant kitchen dishtowels - Alicia Paulson graces us with her beautiful embroidered dishtowel designs — for free! I love how she features practical elements in a truly stylish way.
- Bebe Shooz - These shoes (shooz?) are so adorable…the only problem is that there’s no mention of a price anywhere! That’s a hint that I can’t afford them.
- Triple chocolate scones class - These triple chocolate scones look like they would make for a good Valentine’s Day breakfast. Too bad I’m not a morning person, huh?
Have fun with this week’s favorite finds! If you’d like me to take a look at something you love or have posted about, feel free to shoot me an email at sarahjoy AT todayshomemaker DOT com. I always love tips on great new finds!
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