My Favorite Handmade Things, Volume One

I have been lucky to be involved in the handmade crafting world since 2006, first working at Archiver's, then working at my dream job with Northridge Publishing to help create the best craft magazines in the world. Now that I'm staying at home with my two fancy kids, I am trying to keep participating in this community of which I have no real creativity to offer. I'll admit that any crafts I do are, at best, acceptable replicas of ideas I've seen before. This is why I have no etsy shop and do not submit to any magazines for publication.

So, smartly, I surround myself with crafty people and crafty decor to remind myself how lucky I am that I have gone under the radar undetected. Here are a handful of the most thoughtful handmade gifts and inspiring handmade things that I own.

A pencil drawing of our announcement photo by Hannah Neerings, usually displayed in our bathroom

Caleb's high school friend Hannah is an exceptional artist, and for our wedding gift, she transformed the photo that came with our announcement into a 4x6" pencil drawing. In all honesty, I think she took the best parts of the photo and left out the more blah portions (my uneven skin and funky split ends, to name a few!). My favorite part of this drawing is that she drew Caleb's hairline as it was in high school, not the receding hairline that's in the picture. He's handsome either way!

A stitched message, pattern by Elsie Flannigan, displayed in the kids' bedroom

Thanks to my lovable friend Whitney Hardie, I decided to take Elsie Flannigan's Summer Camp craft course. One of the early projects was a bunch of stitching patterns that incorporated buttons. This small hoop is a funky shade of orange, so I paired it with an electric blue thread and clear buttons. I can't wait until the kids can actually read what it has to say!

A Twitter Favorites album, template by Cathy Zielske

I took a digital scrapbooking course from Big Picture Scrapbooking when Jack was about six months old. Cathy Zielske was trying to unlock the story-telling aspect of Twitter, and as a new Twitter user and a digital scrapbooking novice, I thought that this would be the class for me. Unfortunately, the beginning of the class corresponded with my miscarriage, so this album is tinged with sadness and a general melancholy. This project gave me some distraction, which is why I chose it as a handmade favorite.

A multi-media painting by Kileen Smith

I won a handmade contest hosted by my lovely friend Kileen (who is in the hospital RIGHT NOW having a baby!), and I received this lily pad delight. I love this painting so much that I decorated my whole guest bathroom around its color scheme. I wish that you could reach through the screen and touch it -- it's so textured!

A painting by Shelby Dahl

After a teasing request for my very own Shelby Dahl original painting, I was presented with this robot flying in space to put up in Jack's room. Shelby paints for fun, as far as I know, but I really think that she should start her own etsy store. I absolutely adore this painting! Honest to goodness, I am having such a hard time framing it because I want the perfect companion to this piece of art. Someday, this will hang proudly in Jack's room!

A close-up of the "BJ" on the robot's lapel -- BJ for Baby Jack!