For those who can’t get enough of owls…

…Rubbergob has a downloadable ‘tooo doooo‘ list - print it out and away you go!

(They also have a couple of lovely four-petal envelopes to print and fold - one with owls and one without)

[via: Whip Up]

Just for you…

…a second set of vintage advertising bookmarks available for download as a PDF over there on the right. This time around there’s Pepsi, Schlitz beer, Ethyl gasoline, Tanfastic self-tanner, Lea & Perrins, and nylon (just in general, apparently).

Don’t worry, the grungy edges aren’t on the actual bookmarks — you’ll have to get out the sandpaper (or the Photoshop) if you want your own wear and tear.

[Oh alright, maybe they're a little because I was procrastinating about work, but mostly they're just for you.]

Vintage advertising bookmarks

So I found myself with not enough hands to keep my place in the book I was using as reference and type at the same time, when it occurred to me…

…if I had a bookmark, I’d regain the use of my left hand.

No longer would I have to try to fit my elbow in between the pages. I could use keyboard shortcuts with ease. I could even keep track of several useful pages at once!

Combine that practicality with some delightful 1950s illustrated advertising, and you get your very own personalised bookmarks. Seems my subconscious was all about food and drink when I made these — Coke, marshmallows, beer, chips and McDonalds. Oh, and a chap in a short skirt fighting what appears to be a mechanical octopus.  Yeah,  I don’t know either.

[Vintage illustrations from a variety of sources, including vintage octopus pulp covers and Flickr groups mid-century illustrated and vintage advertising.]

Book sale (Auckland only… sorry)

Word on the street is that Random House is having a book sale this Sunday, 15 June, with proceeds going to Literacy Aotearoa. Now there’s a very fine cause.

The nitty gritty: 18 Poland Road, Glenfield, North Shore City, with doors open from 9am to 2pm.

I don’t know if there’ll be any books on craft in their stash, but if you’re looking for a cheap book (prices start at $1) to alter, tear up or make something else out of, you probably can’t go far wrong. [via: Beattie's Book Blog]

Second pencil tin (with gnome!)

The weather’s been so dreadful, and I was so excited to actually put this pencil tin into use that I’ve got ‘action photos’! This is (a small portion of) my desk at work. I used to use a chipped coffee cup to hold my pencils, but while it was adequate it wasn’t really stylish. I think this is a definite improvement.

The embroidery pattern is from Badbird (aka Andrea Zuill). I’ve had it in the back of my mind to stitch ever since she originally posted it, but was waiting for the right project to come along.

The can cover is made almost exactly the same way as last time, but I gave up the hand stitching along the back seam and just machine sewed it, making a long tube to pull over the can. The lining just folds down inside. I think next time I’ll only sew the back seam as far as the rim of the can, leaving the lining free to overlap inside; it’s a little ‘ruffly’ on this one because it didn’t fit perfectly. Still, it’s on the inside so it’ll almost never be seen.

On ideas and design…

…which makes this post sound rather more pretentious (and meaningful) than it’s ever going to be.

Did anyone make it to Pecha Kucha? A small group of us gathered — short notice and all — and trundled off to The New Dowse for what turned out to be a very enjoyable evening. As to be expected, some speakers were better than others, but even the dull ones only lasted 6m40s (although it turns out that’s more than enough time to read all the artist names within viewing distance on the courtyard windows).

The stand-out speakers for me were Jo Randerson, David Cross, Chris Morley Hall and, you know, that type guy I go on about a bit. I hate to use the word ‘inspiring’ because it seems that absolutely everything is inspiring these days, so let’s just say that I came away from the evening feeling reinvigorated. The next Pecha Kucha Night is at the City Gallery at the end of July. I’ll definitely be in for that.

* * *

On the design front, I’ve been enjoying Smashing Magazine lately, especially their monthly desktop wallpaper competition. At the moment VladStudio’s whale is making me happy. Last month I fell for a lovely chocolately number, and I’m almost a little too excited to see what July’s offerings will be.

This just in…

Remember Kris Sowersby and the beautiful, beautiful type? He’s speaking tomorrow night (that’s May 28 ) at The New Dowse in Wellington as part of Pecha Kucha. To borrow from the Craft 2.0 blog:

Pecha Kucha Night is an event in which presenters give brief presentations accompanied by 20 images, each of which is shown for 20 seconds, about a topic of their choosing giving a total presentation time of 6 minutes 40 seconds.

Doors open at 7.30 pm and the whole thing kicks off at 8.20pm — the bar is running all night, so you get to hang with great people, hear about some inspirational stuff and have some fun, all at the same time.

To see the full list of speakers, check out Craft 2.0 or the Pecha Kucha site.
[via: Craft 2.0]

Recycled notebooks

This is one of those projects that’s percolated through my mind for a few days before coming to the surface again. Craft: linked to the Martha Stewart craft-of-the-day last week, and in the course of my browsing I discovered the video for making recycled notebooks.

It’s definitely got potential… change the size, and maybe use something a little less expensive than scrapbooking paper for the cover. How about a glossy ad from a magazine, or leftover wrapping paper (which is probably only marginally less expensive), or even patchworked paper or fabric scraps?

Hold it together with a ribbon through punched holes (which would make the cover infinitely recyclable), or those folding metal clip things. Stick a magnet on the back and use it for grocery lists on the fridge.

I definitely, definitely like this idea.

Pencil tin

Craft: had a link to a great tutorial from Elsie Marley the other day — how to make a tin can cover — that I just couldn’t resist.

The concept (originally from a Japanese magazine called “Cotton Friend”) is simple, but seemed to waste the lining. It ends up against the tin and is barely seen! That won’t do at all in my book, so I came up with a variation that’s slightly more work but results in a fully lined tin.

Instead of cutting a separate piece of fabric to line the rim, I pieced together the fabric until it was a couple of inches longer than twice the length of the tin. The tin was still a little sticky from where the label came off so I used that to hold the fabric in place while I sewed it on (press the raw edges in first for a neat finish). Once that’s done, the interior fabric just folds into place. I didn’t sew the inside edges of the fabric together, but it wouldn’t be too hard to do.

To neaten everything up, I ran a running stitch close to the edge of the fabric at the bottom of the tin, pulled it tight and taped the thread to the bottom to hold it in place. Then I cut two circular pieces of card: one’s glued to the base of the tin to hide the raw edges, thread and tape, and the other to the bottom of the tin on the inside.

I have a feeling James might sneak this away to hold his pens and pencils at work…

New favourite internet gadget

Introducing PocketMod! Billed as the free, recyclable pocket organiser, I think it’s a little slice of genius. And, since there’s space to include images from the web, there’s nothing to stop you designing your very own, super sexy, ultra-cool cover. Or back page. Or inside page. Or pages.

Although if you’re going to make every page an image, you might as well use Pocket Album.