homemade holidays: stocking stuffers for kids

There's still plenty of time to make homemade gifts for this Christmas.  Here are a few easy (and fast!) ideas for stocking stuffers:

Make a crayon roll using the tutorial over at Skip to My Lou.  It is a quick, easy project, and is the perfect size for a stocking.  I exchanged the tie closure for a button and ribbon (I've found ric rac or stretchy ribbon actually works best), which I think is a easier for the little people who can't tie things yet.

 

Make a ball (or two or three) using the free patterns at Grand Revival Designs (her free patterns are located in the right sidebar.  She also offers a free stocking pattern).  I like to add a jingle bell inside the stuffing of the balls I make - my one year old loves it.

So I finally tried Wave...

Last week, TechCrunch published a story about me not yet trying Google Wave ("Gmail Creator Thinks Email Will Last Forever. And Hasn't Tried Google Wave"). The is apparently unacceptable, or as one commenter put it, "Paul may have been trying to be cool and ironic, but really he should be ashamed for not having tried Wave yet." I'm not sure if this is because I have an obligation to try all new products, or because my views on the longevity of email will seem hopelessly naive once I try Wave, but either way, I mustn't disappoint the good people of TechCrunch :)

The Google Wave About page and video does a good job of summarizing what Wave is and how it works. If you want to learn more about Wave, I would start there and skip this post. That said, here are my thoughts on Wave:

First off, Wave is clever and full of interesting ideas.

Second, comparisons to Facebook and Twitter are nonsensical. If Twitter were CNN Headline News, Google Wave would be Microsoft Office. Wave is less of a social network and more of a productivity tool. It's Google Docs meets Gmail, or as Google puts it, "A wave is equal parts conversation and document. People can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more."

Third, although Wave is very promising, it's clear that it still needs some refinement. This is why Google calls it a "preview release". The trouble with innovative new ideas is that not all of them are worth keeping. While developing Gmail, we implemented a lot of features that were either not released, or not released until much later. Some of the most interesting ideas (such as automatic email prioritization) never made it out because we couldn't find simple enough interfaces. Other ideas sounded good, but in practice weren't useful enough to justify the added complexity (such as multiple stars). Other features, such as integrated IM, simply needed more time to get right and were added later. Our approach was somewhat minimal: only include features that had proven to be highly useful, such as the conversation view and search. It's my impression that Wave was released at an earlier stage of development -- they included all of the features, and will likely winnow and refine them as Wave approaches a full launch. The Wave approach can be a little confusing, but it allows for greater public feedback and testing.

From what I've seen, the realtime aspects of Wave are both the most intriguing, and the most problematic. I think the root of the issue is that conversations need to be mostly linear, or else they become incomprehensible. IM and chat work because there is a nice, linear back-and-forth among the participants. Wave puts the conversation into little Gmail-like boxes, but then makes them update in realtime. The result is that people end up responding (in realtime) to things on other parts of the page, and the chronological linkage and flow of the conversation is lost. I suspect it would work better if each box behaved more like a little chat room. A single Wave could contain multiple chats (different sub-topics), but each box would be mostly self-contained and could be read in a linear fashion.

So now that I've tried Wave, do I expect it to kill email? No. The reason that nothing is going to kill email anytime soon is quite simple: email is universal (or as close to it as anything on the Internet). Email has all kinds of problems and I often hate it, but the fact is that it mostly works, and there's a huge amount of experience and infrastructure supporting it. The best we can do is to use email less, and tools like Wave and Docs are a big help here.

I don't know what Google has planned for Wave or Gmail, but if I were them I would continue improving Wave, and then once it's ready for the whole world to use, integrate it into Gmail. Moving Wave into Gmail would give it a huge userbase, and partially address the "email is universal" problem. They could use MIME multi-part to send both a non-Wave, HTML version of the message, and the Wave version. Wave-enabled mail readers would display the live Wave, while older mailers would show the static version along with a link to the live Wave.  

Open as in water, the fluid necessary for life

"Open" is a great thing. Everyone likes it. Unfortunately, nobody agrees what open is. There are many meanings, but in general, I think "open" must be the opposite of "closed". In the world of abstract things like software, protocols and society, closed is secret, hidden, or locked.

"Closed" limits our mobility, prevents discovery, and discourages new connections. Imagine being in a building where all of the doors are locked or guarded, and it's difficult to move from room to room or leave. A closed world is one where people are forced to stay in their place, sometimes because of physical constraints, but more commonly because they simply don't know where else to go. A closed world is giant prison.

In an open world, people are able to see more clearly, and more easily explore new ideas and possibilities. An open world is more fluid -- people and ideas easily flow over boundaries and other borders. This openness is what makes the Internet so powerful. The Internet is melting the world, but in a good way.

Open standards and open source software are important for making technology open and available to everyone, but it's important to remember that open goes beyond tech. Wikipedia makes knowledge open to everyone. Blogs and YouTube make broadcasting and mass communication open to everyone -- news and events that would have been suppressed in the past are now reaching the whole world.

These things have been discussed to death, but there's another "open" that still seems a little frivolous: our lives. We like to joke (or complain) about people who share every boring detail of their lives and thoughts on Facebook or Twitter, but they may be doing something important.

Most of our happiness and productivity comes from the everyday details of our lives: the people we live and work with, the books we read, the hikes we take, the parties we attend, etc. But how do we choose these things? How do we know what to do, and how do know if we'll like it? The obvious answer is that we do and like whatever the TV tells us to do and like. I'm not certain that's the best answer though.

By sharing more of our own thoughts and lives with the world, we contribute to the global pool of "how to live", and over time we also get contributions back from the world. Think of it as "open source living". This has certainly been my experience with my blog and FriendFeed. Not only do people occasionally say that it has helped them, but I've also met interesting new people and gotten a lot of good leads on new ideas. These are typically small things, but our lives are woven from the small details of everyday living. For example, I saw a good TED talk on "The science of motivation", shared it on FriendFeed, and in the comments Laura Norvig suggested a book called Unconditional Parenting, which turns out to be very good.

The next step is for people to open more of their current activities and plans. This is often referred to as "real-time", but since real-time is also a technical term, we often focus too much on the technical aspect of it. The "real-time" that matters is the human part -- what I'm doing and thinking right now, and my ability to communicate that to the world, right now. We see some of this on Facebook, FriendFeed, and Twitter, and also location-aware apps such as Foursquare, but it's still fairly primitive and fringe. When this activity reaches critical mass, it should be very interesting for society. It dramatically alters the time and growth coefficients in group formation. It enables a much higher degree of serendipity and ad hoc socializing.

The basic pattern of openness is that better access to information and better systems lead to better decisions and better living. This general principal is broadly accepted, but we're just now discovering that it also applies to the minutiae of our lives.

Sharing your boring thoughts and activities may seem narcissistic and self-absorbed at first (I'm still kind of embarrassed about having a blog), but there is virtue and benefit in it. Naturally there will be challenges and fear along the way, but in the long term we're contributing to a more open, fluid society, where people are more able to find happy, productive lives. It also encourages us to be more accepting of others. Everyone is flawed, and the more we see that we aren't alone, the less we need to fear that truth.

People can not truly live and thrive in a prison -- we require freedom and mobility. This may explain my incomprehensible analogy, "Open as in water, the fluid necessary for life".

Go forth and share.

sorry I'm M.I.A.!

I'm in New York on vacation and had every intention of posting this week ... but traveling is always a little more crazy than you expect!

Next week I'll be back with more homemade holiday gift ideas and updates on So You Think You're Crafty.  Tutorials on past projects are in the works!

Did you guess which project was mine last week?  I made the Glitter Wreath.  Thanks to everyone who voted!

homemade holidays: dishtowels and fabric coasters

Here are a couple of fast and easy sewing projects for the home that would make a great holiday gift.

 

In my new apartment, we are without a dishwasher.  It is slowly eating away at my soul.  But, I have found that pretty dishtowels make the dreaded task just a tiny bit more bearable.  I simply added a strip of fabric to these plain white dishtowels, but you can really go crazy and add some lovely patchwork, like in this tutorial at Sew, Mama, Sew.

 

Use your scraps to whip up some cute quilted coasters.  I just cut and sewed (mine are 4.5 inches square), but if you want full blown instructions there is a good tutorial at Make It From Scratch.

I think a cute coordinating set like this also adds a nice, handmade touch to a kitchen wedding gift.  (err ... Mitzi - these are for you!)

homemade holidays: black apple dolls

 

You know what I love about November?  It still feels like there is plenty of time to make homemade gifts.  Black Apple Dolls are one of my favorite little girl gifts to make.  They are a fast project, easy to customize, and oh so very cute (the free pattern doesn't hurt either).

My favorite in this bunch is the dark-haired twin with the blue flower brooch.  They could all use shoes and winter accessories, but I have to be somewhat realistic about my time.  :)

fabric travel high chair

There are a lot of sewing/craft blogs I really love, and near the top of that list is this mama makes stuff.  Recently Carrie posted a portable fabric high chair - so awesome!  I thought it would be just perfect for an upcoming trip Oscar and I are taking to NYC for a week of friends and NEW MOON!  wooo!  Yes, I am a Twi-mom, so sue me.  NEW MOON!  :)

Back to the fabric high chair.  I wanted one.  I needed one!  So far, Carrie has not posted the dimensions.   But, it looked easy enough.  3 rectangles of fabric and some velcro ... no biggie.  I estimated the dimensions and sewed one up.  Ta-da!

 

Like I said, it is three rectangles.  I cut my waist strap to be 6" x 43", but if I were to do it again, I think I would make it about 6 inches shorter (6" x 37").  It doesn't need to be quite so long.

The connector piece is 6" x 4".  The seat piece is 20" x 10".  There is a thin layer of batting between each piece, and a long strip of velcro on either end of the waist strap.

 

Piece of cake right?  I'm curious to see how my measurements match up to Carrie's.  Hopefully someday she'll post instructions so I can make this perfect!

S.Y.T.Y.C week 2

Have you seen the new entries for So You Think You're Crafty? This week's theme is leaves! And I have to say, the ladies crafted their butts off for this challenge. All of the entries are really cool! Make sure you stop by to vote for your favorite. Which one do you think I made?

Also, did you notice the new Giveaway section on the S.Y.T.Y.C. site? There is a giveaway from one of the sponsors, DECOmod Walls, this week. If you love vinyl decor, or just getting free stuff, check it out. :)

Congratulations to the ever-talented Dana, who won the week one challenge with her Harvest Dress and Dinner for Two.  Her tutorials are now posted.

Did you figure out which craft was mine last week?  Thanks to everyone who voted for my tractor!  :)

I did some serious sewing this weekend, and none of it is top secret!  I'll have new projects up very soon.

join the felt playhouses flickr group!

Hey ya'll. I have been getting SO many emails and comments from people who have made a felt playhouse. And they are turning out really
cute! I love seeing photos of what you all create.

Since I thought other felt playhouse fans might want to see them as well, I created a felt playhouses flickr group.

Share your photos and join the party!

variations on the gift jar

Here's a variation on the gift jar from my last post.  For a different look (and more instant results), you can use Elmer's Painters to draw a design directly onto the jar.  For the jar above, I printed these templates from Martha Stewart's DIY wedding section.  Tape the template to the inside of the jar and trace the design on the outside using an Elmer's Painter pen.

 

Have you visited the Daily Drop Cap yet?  Several times a week, typographer Jessica Hische posts a beautifully hand-crafted initial cap.  I printed mine out and used it as a template for this second jar, using the same method described above.  I was excited to see the little spirals on my initial, since they happen to be my signature doodle.  I drew freehand spirals to cover the rest of the jar.

Fill with a goodie, add a pretty gift tag, and you're all set to go.

Holiday Gift Jars and Tags

Thursday night I'll be demonstrating a little craft as part of a ladies' meeting at my church.  They asked me to come up with a holiday gift for a neighbor or friend - something simple that doesn't take much time or skill, is inexpensive to make ($2-$4), and wouldn't be embarrassing to give as a gift.  :)  Tall order.

I tend to give neighbors baked goods or treats for the holidays, so I thought a pretty container could be a good solution.  A mason jar is easy to dress up with a little bit of paint.  On this first jar, I stenciled the word Joy using frosted glass spray paint and contact paper to cut the stencil.   I'm working on another version of the gift jar using the Elmer's Painter pens, which I should have ready to show tomorrow.

Fill the jar with cookies, candies or other treats, and you have a pretty sweet gift.  Jars can also be filled with delicious baking or soup mixes, or spools of thread and other supplies for your favorite crafty people.

We'll also be making these festive holly gift tags.   They are my version of the Paper Treats tags, which I found instructions for on Martha Stewart.  The instructions call for lots of paper punches.  I don't know about you, but I don't have a holly leaf punch laying around ... but I do have scalloped scissors.  By simply using the scallop scissors upside down, it is easy to cut these little holly leafs.   They don't turn out as perfectly perfect as the Paper Treats tags, but that is fine by me.  Let the holidays begin!

S.Y.T.Y.C. Week One: Harvest

The theme for week one of S.Y.T.Y.C is Harvest.  This one really stumped me.  I don't usually do many seasonal crafts or decor (besides Christmas) so I didn't know where to start.  Voting for projects is anonymous, so I can't tell you what I finally came up with.  I guess you'll just have to vote for your favorite!

I am amazed at the variety of projects that turned out from this theme.  They are all so different!  Lots of creative ladies involved here...

Voting is open now until Friday night.  Please Vote!

P.S. In my last post, a few people commented that when they clicked on the SYTYC site, they were notified of a virus.  Missy had it checked out by Blogger, and no virus was found.  You shouldn't have trouble opening the site to vote, and it should be safe.