If you found a box “filled with yarn or every color,” what would you do? When this happened to Annabelle, the little girl featured in the new picture book “Extra Yarn” written by Mac Barnett and illustrated by Jon Klassen, she decided to knit herself a sweater. There was extra yarn left over, so she knit [...]

          Hello! I’m hosting a CraftSanity Crafternoon at the new Grand Rapids Press office on Saturday and I’d love for you to come. Attendees will get to make a beaded heart pin, discuss the impact of technology on art and craft and many other crafty topics as well as mingle with [...]

Today’s craft segment is a continuation of the bucket filling conversation started in Sunday’s craft column. The mission is to encourage viewers to forgo the expensive and often meaningless Valentine’s Day gifts and take a handmade approach instead. A special thanks to Amelia, one of the VPs of Fun here at CraftSanity for assisting me [...]

My daughters are an endless source of inspiration. I wrote this column published in today’s edition of The Grand Rapids Press after witnessing one of their recent backseat conversations in my review mirror. We were on the way home from school and I was very pleased to see my oldest applying the day’s lesson to “fill a [...]

Usually I’m the one rounding up crafty folks to feature in my weekly art & craft column, but recently I got a chance to but down my notebook and share a bit about my crafty life and business. Yesterday, I was featured on p. 7 in The Detroit News Homestyle section. You can read the [...]

A couple weeks back when I thought my column writing days were numbered, I had a bit of a panic because I came very close to blowing my opportunity to write about one of the nicest people on the planet. A newspaper reader had sent me a tip about Bob Roskamp, an 82-year-old West Michigan [...]

I’m not sure why I decided to go public with my mullet story or how exactly this painful childhood memory landed itself in the middle of my latest art & craft column, but it’s all right here for your reading entertainment. And just so you know, I do actually include some informative craft trend info [...]

Wow, it’s Thursday already. How did that happen? I overbooked and this week totally got away from me. The good news is that I still found time to cook, read, and run in addition to my usual work load. There was no time to waste this week and that was probably a good thing. Now [...]

For the last couple months I’ve been preparing to write my last art and craft column for the local newspaper I’ve been writing for since 1998. After I received a contract termination letter in early November, I resigned myself to the fact that I had been canned from my freelance position. This was a first [...]

Yesterday I made a last-minute scramble to interview British knit designer Jean Moss via Skype. I had previously agreed to be part of her blog tour for her new book “Sweet Shawlettes: 25 Irresistible Patterns for Knitting Cowls, Capelets and More” and had planned to post a Q&A with her today. But then I started [...]

Photo by Ryan Pavlovich As my weekly newspaper column winds down to an end this month, I’m trying to tie up some loose ends and write about the people who have been on my list for a long time. This week I featured Rebecca Green, a rising Grand Rapids artist and illustrator and regular contributor [...]

Yesterday was my daughters’ first day of a new ballet/jazz class. I took photos and read a little bit of “The Help” by Kathryn Stockett while they danced around with about 25 other kids. It’s a big class and the teachers did a great job of keeping all the little girls engaged. I was very [...]

Ok, I’m back with Part 2 of the instructions for today’s “Take Five” craft segment projects. My 6-year-old daughter, Amelia, asked for construction paper for Christmas and was thrilled to receive a lot of it. I was thrilled, too, when I saw her drawing microphones (another one of her presents) until the unused paper started [...]

One of the big mistakes I’ve made while trying to get my house in order is loading up on many unnecessary and/or unsuitable organizing supplies. I’m done with colored bins I can’t see into and I’m holding off on buying more of the clear kind until I weed out more of the stash. After many [...]

So I spent some time updating my big life list as I ramped up for 2012. Getting rid of stuff and organizing are on the list – again – and I’m still optimistic that this will be my year to literally rock the house. But I’ve been saying I’m going to do this for years [...]