Photo assignment: Bloom

Thanks to everyone for their lovely "bloom" pictures! Next week's assignment: City

Derek's photo


Lauren's photo


Jannie's photo

Paige's photo

Sophia's photo

Parnell's photo

Tom's photo

Conn's photo

Kristi's photo

Linda's photo

Sarah's photo

Molly's photo

Joëlle's photo

Laura's photo

Reason I love libraries #255

As if free books, dvds, magazines, newspapers, internet, and peace and quiet weren't enough, the San Francisco public library is offering yet another enticing reason for you to hit your local branch: Free Craft Classes. Throughout the month of June you can learn all kinds of great stuff, from creating pop-up cards, to painting, to jewelry making, embroidery, and much, much more at locations throughout the city. Enrollment is limited so check out the SFPL's website for branch locations and telephone numbers to reserve your spot.

BEES are in the air!

I know I'm obsessed, but seriously, they seem to be popping up everywhere....like the fashion pages of the New York Times magazine today....For anyone who's interested, I posted some more pictures of my bees, taken by my wonderful co-keeper Christina. You can check them out here.

The films of Wes Anderson

It's no secret that Derek and I are kinda obsesed with the films of Wes Anderson. We can spend hours debating over which one is our favorite (he swears by Bottle Rocket, I alternate between Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums.) This clip is a 5-minute edit of all of Wes Anderson's films that might help you decide for yourself.

Oh, and check out this Tenenbaums cross-stitch! The pattern is available here.

Car shopping

I've been spending a lot of time on Craigslist recently looking for an old Mercedes I can convert to Veggie Oil....but I think I may have just found something much, much better...

Next week's assignment

Next week's photo assignment is "bloom". If you want to participate, just send your photo to the shoppe email (info@curiosityshoppeonline.com) or my gmail by next Thursday morning. Thanks!

Photo assignment: Wood

Derek's photo

Lauren's photo

Sophia's photo

John's photo

Conn's photo

Bees! Bees! Bees!

This weekend, after much anticipation (and a year hanging around the San Francisco Bee Keepers Association like some sort of kid brother) I finally received my first package of bees. I'm thrilled (and a little nervous). It's a big responsibility looking after thousands and thousands of these gorgeous little gals. Truthfully, they do a heck of a job looking after themselves, I'm just going to do my best to keep them happy, healthy, and comfortable. I'll be doing periodic little updates here on Smarts & Crafts, in the meantime here are a few pictures.

Here's where I bought my gear, Beekind in Sebastopol.

My gear! The hive bodies, smoker, safari hat(!!) and veil.

The "package" containing 1 queen and a couple thousand of her subjects.

The cutest bee ever, dappled with a bit of sugar water.

The hive, ready for the bees.

Happy bees coming and going from the hive!

Photo assignment: Word of the Day

More great photos this week! Speaking of photos, I uploaded some pics from last Friday's art opening to our flickr- you can see them here. We will be photographing more of Aurora's work this week so stay tuned... (You have to see the brilliant collages.)

**The topic for next week's photo assignment is "wood". Please email photos before 1pm next Thursday!**

Derek's photo

Lauren's photo

Beth's photo

Paige's photo


Conn's photo

John's photo

My day

Yesterday morning I grabbed our point and shoot camera and kept it with me all day. If you want to see how I spent my Thursday, you can see pics here.

Photo assignment: something green

Thanks to everyone who sent us photos today! Oh and in the future- if you don't already have our email address, you can send images to: info@curiosityshoppeonline.com. Next week's photo assignment: "Word of the day." I'll be posting the pics next Thursday at around 1pm PST!

Derek's photo

Lauren's photo

Jannie's photo

Dana's photo


John's photo


Bev's photo


Conn's photo


Phoebe's photo


Julie's photo

This week's photo assignment

photo courtesy of Eames' film on the Polaroid SX-70

For any of you who want to play...

Take a picture of "something green" and email it to us by Thursday morning! We'll be posting our pics in addition to any of your photos that you want to send in on Thursday afternoon.

Have fun!

Speaking of googly eyes....

Don't miss the next art installation in the shoppe gallery, by our very own Aurora Crispin. Please join us at the opening reception next Friday, April 25th, from 6-9pm. (We promise there will be lots and lots of googly eyes...) Hope to see you there!

PS- Please note: the Hammerpress trunk show that was scheduled for this weekend has been postponed until later on this summer. We'll keep you posted!

Photo Assignment: something round

We decided to give ourselves a little weekly photo assignment. This week's theme: "something round".

Derek's photo

Lauren's photo

Today's design*sponge DIY

**it appears that our diy wednesday post over at design*sponge isn't loading up correctly at the moment, so until it gets fixed, we're posting it here...**

vintage fabric potholders
as you might have guessed, our apartment is quickly becoming somewhat of a diy wednesday showroom. it’s been so fun filling our home with our little crafty projects, but one room that we’ve unintentionally neglected has been the kitchen. so we were really excited when we stumbled upon some vintage fabric in the craft bin perfect for making a set of pot holders to brighten up the kitchen.

happy crafting!
-derek & lauren


here’s what you’ll need:
two 8” squares of thick fabric, such as canvas or bark cloth. (no flammable synthetics!)
8” square piece of cotton batting (which you can double for extra thickness)
36” piece of extra-wide double fold seam binding
matching thread
scissors
steam iron
pins
sewing machine

1. cut out fabric and batting, and sandwich them together with the batting in the middle.
2. pin your seam binding around the raw edges of the fabric, easing the corners into shape with the steam iron (this takes a little patience, but the corners will eventually lie flat when pressed.) the tail end of the seam binding will be 4” longer than the perimeter of the potholder.
3. stitch around the potholder close to the edge of the seam binding, making sure to catch the bottom layer. stitch all the way up the tail.
4. fold under the raw edge of the tail end of the seam binding 1/2” and press. fold the tail down to create a loop. pin and stitch into place.

the ingredients

step 2: pinning in place

finished potholders!