Favorite post this morning

I love having my Google reader feed on my homepage. Why didn't I ever set that up before? On this morning's perusal of all my favorite blogs, these felt pens were the first thing that caught my eye. So simple and smart, and you know I'm a sucker for anything made out of felt.

via Swiss Miss

Miles and miles of yarn!

Merino wool in rainbow colors

My yarn stash!

This weekend I made my way down to the Santa Clara convention center with my mom to attend Stitches West, a yarn convention and marketplace that is a dream for knitters and fiber lovers. We didn't have time to attend any of the workshops or classes, but did spend a few hours winding our way around the booths full of yarn and trimmings. There were skeins and balls and bags full of hand-dyed wool, natural alpacas, space-dyed cottons... there was more yarn in that building than I've ever seen! While we were at first drawn to all the beautiful vibrant colors of the hand dyed yarns, we both ended up buying earthy, natural colored yarns (mostly alpaca blends), and picked up a pattern book to share.

Lovin' the Arts

Oooh....Look what came in the mail today! Our 2nd issue of The Thing!!! I helped out at the packing party last week so I already know what's inside, but I'm still thrilled it's here. While I was at my post at the "stamping station" I met Andy Vogt. Super nice guy, super talented artist. I'm especially in love with these wood pieces he makes.
Which reminds me how excited I am for Southern Exposure's Monster Drawing Rally tomorrow night. So many friends and awesome artists are going to be at the Verdi Club drawing and selling from 6-11pm. Can't wait!

That is a GREAT question!

Yes! 41 Hilarious Science Fair Experiments. Via the fine folks at Coudal.

National Park Blankets

Grand Canyon National Park Blanket

Rainier National Park Blanket

Pendleton has been making these National Park blankets since the early 1900's. Since we have a little obsession with National Parks and a little obsession with Pendleton Blankets, these are now officially our new obsession.

Paper stop-motion

Saw this Su Blackwell stop motion commercial not long ago and I can't get it out of my mind.


Then I saw this piece on swissmiss this morning and have been thinking about the endless possibilities of stop motion paper shorts all day. So amazing!

We Dance

I can home last night to find this painting hanging above our bed! We have both been obsessing over it since we saw it on display at Tartine Bakery a little while back, and then boom, here it is... my Valentine's day gift from the best husband ever. (The painting is entitled "We Dance", by the lovely Katie Vida.)

Roast-a-rama!

Last year I caught the coffee roasting bug while working on this fun story for ReadyMade. I got myself a popcorn popper, a bunch of beans from Sweet Maria's and haven't looked back. We recently upgraded to a Fresh Roast Plus (I kinda melted the popper) and have been roasting up a storm around here. So delicious, so fun!

Crochet Workshop

Thanks to everyone who came out to the Shoppe on Sunday for Jessica Polka's crochet workshop! We had such a great time!

Jessica's show, Figure Legend, features new embroidered works and will be up until March 2nd. Works will be available for purchase online by the end of the week, and stay tuned for more photos! In the meantime, click here to see images of the installation and Sunday's workshop.

Braille is beautiful!

Over the years, I seem to have accidentally been amassing a small collection of braille-related ephemera. I'm not sure when it started...perhaps when Lauren and I were curating a show in Venice and one of the artists had this wonderfully clever piece with a big message in braille that read, "Non toccare, pericolo di morte." Haha, get it? Anyway...so I've been picking up things here and there...A Rolling Stone magazine, some bowls (ashtrays?), a little wooden braille "practice box", a notebook (from Rare Device). And then last year I noticed Braille popping up EVERYWHERE: braille graffiti, braille tattoos, braille wallcoverings, braille maps...I LOVE it!

whoops!

I was browsing around on Google Books, and came across this lovely little mishap. I've screwed up my share of scan jobs, but they never look this pretty.

Finished!

This weekend I finally finished the sweater I've been working on over the past year. After much head scratching, ripping out and re-knitting, I ended up with this turtleneck that I am growing to like although the pattern was definitely for a boat neck sweater. I'm not sure what happened, but here's what I ended up with!

The World's Largest!

I came across these images of the World's Largest Ball of Twine while I was searching around online just now, and they reminded me how much I love roadside attractions! We have a few ideas floating around for some spring and summer roadtrips, which include visits to state parks and definitely a few "world's largest" attractions. Can't wait!

Decorator Birds

We were watching David Attenborough's special on Birds of Paradise the other night, and were blown away by the segment on Bowerbirds. (Watch the video! It's amazing!) The male Bower Birds, who are native to New Guinea and Australia, create amazing habitats out of sticks and twigs ("bowers"), which they decorate with colorful findings from the forest in order to attract a mate. Acorns, berries, leaves, beetle shells... all perfectly arranged by color as any sophisticated decorator would do. Pretty impressive stuff.

New Favorite Item!

Yay!!! Charley and Todd's book is finally in the Shoppe!! We're so thrilled and excited and honored! If you're in the neighborhood you've got to come check it out. We'd offer it online, but the thing weighs a ton and we couldn't possibly do that to our delivery folks.

Here & There

I was out running a bunch of errands for the magazine today, and on my way to the East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse, I stumbled across...
and
which totally made me think of

and
and how much I love the work of Wayne White.

John G. Design

Our good friend and super talented graphic designer John Giordani just launched his new website, and it's amazing! His areas of expertise include web design, animation, print and illustration, all in a bold, clean style that fits in right next to some of our favorite designers/illustrators from the 60's. Go John! Check out his animated, interactive and ultra cute site here. You'll love it!

Antony Hall Cards

The other day we found ourselves in North Beach, so we made sure to stop by one of our favorite stores in the neighborhood, Eden & Eden. While we were there, we picked up these two beautiful silkscreened greeting cards based on folk-inspired paper cutout designs, which I am now obsessed with! They are by a British artist named Antony Hall, and there appear to be six designs in the collection, each one available in multiple colors. It was hard to narrow it down to only two! Since they are fairly large in size, (6" x 8") I have a feeling these are going to end up in frames rather than in the mail. Visit his site to see more!

Smarts & Crafts Makeover!

Welcome to new and improved Smarts & Crafts! Our lovely friend Christine Craven has been busy designing an entirely new site for us, complete with a music player so you can hear what tunes we've been listening to recently, a pinboard that shows all our current inspirations, and a "stuff we make" section that has images of all the fun crafty projects we've been working on. We love it!!

Have fun clicking around!

Oh, and ps: for those of you who subscribe to our blog via an RSS feed, please visit: www.smartsandcrafts.com to check out all the fun new stuff.

We Heart Museums

Now that we have made it through our first holiday season at the Shoppe, we are looking forward to taking the occasional day off to go museum hopping around town. There are so many good shows going on right now that we can't wait to see! Here are a couple:

The Art and Flair of Mary Blair at the Cartoon Museum.


Paul Klee and Devendra Banhart at SF MOMA.


The Sculpture of Louise Nevelson, at the De Young.

American Sampler: Corita Kent, at the USF Thacher Gallery.