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Directory

Animals
Urban chicken keeping;

Baking
The best strawberry shortcake recipe; What to do with Pluots; What to do with sour milk;

Blogging
Lessons from BlogHer '13; A blogging convention? You'll need business cards!;

Book reviews
King Arthur Flour's Whole Grain Baking book;

Craft tutorials
Fabric Magnet tutorial; How to make bias tape; Drawstring fabric gift bag; Frayed Ruffle Heart; Make your own zombie masks; DIY tins;

Creative Process
Questions to Ask Before Starting a Creative Project;

Fashion
Fall fashion preview;

Films
Becoming Marvin; Sweet Peace; Becoming Marvin-the making of; Melvin gets interviewed;

Fresh Starts
How to be free; An imperfect path forward is still forward;

Gardening
Garden project: strawberry bed!; You are not a Jedi yet, young gardener; Blackberries; Paper pot maker;

Grain mill
Wondermill Junior Deluxe hand grain mill;

Health and Nutrition
Michael Pollan lecture;, Annual sugar consumption...what's yours?;

Holidays
Presidents' Day Party...decorations; Presidents' Day Party...more food labels; Presidents' Day party...food labels; Presidents' Day Party...food; Presidents' Day Party...invitation; Present-ation!; Gifts for her. From her. ; Gurley Santa Candles;

How to
How to write haiku—simply;

Kitchen and cooking tips
Make your own gourmet tea; Recycled freezer bags; How to dry citrus peel; Make your own vegetable wash;

Mold-a-rama
A plea for respect;

Musings
Blogher killed my blog; Are we there yet?; It's my blog and I'll post if I want to; Released back to the universe; Time flies!; Effects of global warming; Saying goodbye;, New Year's Fast; Dirt; Spring reminders; My new, old house; See your footprint?; Blizzard 2011;

Organization
How to set goals; 7 Habits Planner Wallet;

Pickling
Pickled horseradish hummus; Perfect pickle weights;

Photos
What to do on a hot day?; A friend comes to visit; The new, old Vespa; A new dress; A pretty picture;

Sewing
Super easy, super dark curtain liners; Convert a half apron to a full apron;

Starting over

Popular posts from this blog

Present-ation!

I've finished making a whole pile of frayed ruffle hearts . They're cute the way they are, but to make them extra special, I'm putting them in pretty cellophane bags, with curly ribbons and hand-made tags. Sometimes I get lazy and don't spend the extra effort on great gift wrap, but it's so worth it, isn't it? The other exciting part of this is I'm not just sending these hearts to family and friends. I've got 3 set aside for Aunt Peaches Valentine Swap ! Yea!!!

Lessons from BlogHer '13

BlogHer '13—my first blogging convention—was last weekend. And I learned a lot! For example: #1 No Russians are reading my blog. When I look at the statistics for who's looking at Smalltropolis, it's very impressive. For example, today I have 43 pageviews from Latvia. Switzerland is represented, as is France, Denmark, China. Just a world-wide appeal I have goin' on. (Gloat.) Thing is, as I learned at BlogHer, that's almost certainly because the analytics I'm looking at aren't very accurate. Lots of spam is included. To get the real numbers, I need to sign up for Google Analytics. Блин! #2. Great photography doesn't come from the womb. The kick-off keynote speaker was Ree Drummond. I'd certainly admired the beautiful photography on her blog, The Pioneer Woman multiple times, so it was pretty enlightening when she showed some of her early photos. They were, quite simply, dreadful. It really drove home how good writing and good photography a

How to be free

You know the projects. The formerly shiny ones. The ones in paper bags, that elevate your blood pressure when you think of them. The ones that haven't seen forward progress in months. Or years. Let them go. I'm officially giving you permission. You can grieve. Sure. Look at me. I'll never restore a vintage stove, even though it was my heart's desire for twenty years. As my big pandemic project, I finally bought one. Took it apart even. Then it sat. And sat. And sat. I sold it this weekend, all 15 boxes of it. The tears I shed as the buyers drove away were partly because they seemed even less competent than me and partly because, well, you know, that whole remorse of failure crap. Get over it, just like I did, when I walked down to the basement, looked at my work table, and saw...nothing. The work surface was bare. Free. Just like me. And now, the most deliciously, delightful question us makers can ever ask...what's my next project?