If you’re like me, and you find yourself suddenly unemployed, you may find yourself with a lot of time on your hands. So to help, I took a cue from Maria, and created this handy guide to things you can now put your new-found freedom to use doing. (And, if you feel so inclined, feel free to drop me a line if you just so happen to be an employer looking to hire someone.)

1. Learn to Crochet! Not only will a home-made blanket keep you warm when you can’t pay the heating bills anymore, but you can also create cute little amigurumi like these 2 Peas in a Pod found on Lion Brand Yarns. They have a ton of other free patterns like this one along with easy instructions if you want to learn.
2. Take a Class! Further your education with free, educational podcasts from iTunesU. Might I recommend SVA’s Designer As Author Lecture series? Or perhaps Dr. Joseph Hughes’ class on Classical Mythology from my alma mater, Missouri State? (Trust me, he’s hilarious!)
3. Start a Sketchbook! Never felt like you had the time to draw? Now you do! So grab that sketchbook, set up a table in a cafe, and get sketching! (Just be sure to bring enough change for a coffee…if you can still afford such luxuries…) Then, be sure to post the results on Urban Sketchers.
4. Start Exercising! To elaborate on Maria’s point about libraries, many have videos you can check out for free. I grabbed a couple of pilates videos since I no longer can go to the classes offered by my old job.
5. Save Pushing Daisies! Missing your favorite show? Now you have loads of time to pester tv network executives to bring back Pushing Daisies! Don’t know where to start? On my personal blog, I hunted down a few of the online petitions, etc., you can sign.

**Font used above is Birra Stout by Darden Studio

First of all, YES, I subscribe to Teen Vogue. I am not a teen. And I like it. (Big-kid Vogue has too many subdued colors and too few necklaces with little trinkets on them. (Getting Vogue-Vogue is like getting a McDonald’s hamburger not only without a toy, but with a 100 page advertisement supplement.) Anyway, the March issue had a delightful feature (page 158) called “the bright stuff.” And, yes, I was turned on. Each spread not only contained accessories in hues that could burn your retina in a single glance, but also painted nails nails nails that could burn your retina in a single glance.

I am always jealous of prettily painted nails, esp when they are all shiny and have delightful designs. Then I try to re-create them. Things go terribly wrong from the start. I spill nail polish. My room spells like nail polish remover. I forget to wait until things try. Colors run together. Always a disaster. Forget straight lines or multiple colors. I can hardly get my nails to be ONE color.

Anyway, I was totally thrilled to see these fabulous leopard print nails on page one of the photo-set. (See the picture next to “Nails” in the mini collage above — those are the Teen Vogue nails, the rest are mine.) No need to watch for running colors! Who cares if you blotch or drip?!

And thus, my first foray into sort-of-not-ruining-my-nails-but-still-having-them-look-cool. After the jump, a little how-to.

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Either click on the picture above or click here for the pdf of  your own Printable Oscars Ballot.

I love the Academy Awards. The only way I can get friends to watch is by pretending it’s an exciting contest for them, too. Thus, you can usually find me printing off the internet a stack full of ugly full-page Oscar Ballots the day of the awards (though, yes, I usually have mine filled out way ahead of time).

Anyway, to help you if you should have this very same problem, I made my own Stickers & Donuts brand of Oscar Ballot, but this one is cute and pocket-sized! You can carry a bunch around with you and pass them out. There are two ballots per page, so you’ll always have one for a friend (or mistakes).

If you’d like, check-out my previously posted Oscar Ballot How-To Video where you can see me cutting out my Oscar Ballot and marking it up at Top Speed with my special Oscar ballot mark-up method (read: I am insane). Or, look below to check out my instructions, which are also downloadable in pdf.

One Way to Use your New Pocket-Sized Oscar Ballot

1. Print & cut out your ballot. (Yes!!!)

2. Get a card from your wallet to help you make your ballot *truly* pocket-sized.

3. Starting at the bottom of the ballot, fold the paper around the card until the paper and the card are the same size. (Too complicated? Just watch the video.)

4. Place a sticker on the flap where the front of the ballot folds over the bottom. This is mostly for cuteness. Carry your tiny ballot in your wallet and ponder your choices daily.

5. Select favorites carefully over time using whatever method you choose. Mine? Highlight those I WANT to win, X off those I THINK will win.

6. On the big night, take out your ballot and circle the winners. Hopefully you’ll have made a few ballots for friends and you can compete with them. Revel in glory or cry in defeat.

In Summary:

PDF of Oscar Ballot

PDF of “Instructions”

1-Minute Video of the Oscar Ballot Instructions

Awhile ago Design*Sponge wrote a DIY post on recycled cakestands. (If you’d like to know what I’m taking about in the rest of this post, you should probably go visit the DIY post.) I was obsessed, and trekked over to a Long Island thrift shop for plates. (cakestand-making-warnings after the jump) (more…)

Another page from my fashion inspiration book (see yesterday’s peek here). The eye section is actually one of my least used sections. There aren’t many places you can wear a giant silver lightening bolt over your face and it’s much harder than you’d imagine to not look like a freak with a big splash of gold glitter slathered around your eye or lime green eye shadow slicked under your eyebrows. But it’s fun to imagine what you could do, had you the talent or the time.

So, in the spirit of truly weird holidays, my family and I have an annual Turkey Making Contest. Our turkeys are made out of not meat, but out of paper grocery bags, construction paper, and tape. (We also have one made of meat, but that comes later.)

The Rules: Partners chosen randomly out of a hat. They may be occasionally adjusted to avoid catastrophe or to avoid couples working together (because you are supposed to spend time with a family member you don’t see often). Time limit set at beginning. Usually about an hour. A brown paper or grocery bag must be used as a main part of your turkey.

The Goal: Family bonding and a creative turkey. The winner is usually humorous and looks kind of like a turkey.

The Winner: Voted upon by all turkey-makers. Cannot vote for your own.

Trash Talking: Allowed. Clean only if children present. (ie “You call that a turkey? It looks more like a stork to me.”)

Hint: Must complete contest prior to dinner or else everyone will lack motivation. Dinner is an acceptable bribe to encourage participation, ie “You can’t eat unless you participate in the Turkey Making Contest.

Over the years, we’ve had a Picasso Turkey, a Why Did the Turkey Cross the Road, a Turkey Crime Scene (turkey parts and caution tape), and a Leftovers Turkey (a turkey whose neck stuck up through the top of a sandwich).

As you can see above, there is always stiff competition and often the theme of death:

1. Dead Turkey. Looks like this one was marked since the beginning.
2. Sliced Turkey. Look at the creative spiral with the red-meat, balloon body!
3. Beer Butt Turkey. A favorite recipe in our family is “Beer Butt Chicken.” Basically, you shove a can of beer up the rear-end of the chicken and cook it just like that. This is a Thanksgiving variation.
4. Siamese Turkeys. Introducing Rob & Bob, sadly connected at the back. This guy could even stand on its own! (One of mine!)
5. Marilyn Monroe Turkey. Maybe a disguise so she won’t be eaten? (Also one of mine!)
6. Pork-orican Turkey. Some of my family is Puerto Rican, and they are big fans of Pork for every holiday — including Thanksgiving.
7. Tofurkey. For the vegetarians.
8. Grace: Thanksgiving Day [Turkey] Barbie. Look at that: she comes in a box with plastic wrap and everything! (Another of mine.)

If I asked you for your turkey ideas, my family would claim I was cheating (part of the trash-talking). But, if you happen to think of a turkey idea on your own and want to post a comment about it… it’s a free blogosphere.

PS Long weekend for S&D! See you Monday & have a great T-day!

I psyched you out with that one, didn’t I? Stickers & Thanks-Giving rather than and Donuts?

So, a few weeks ago my kind associate Tricia interviewed Susan Eslick, the Creative Director at Mrs. Grossman’s. We loved Susan & all the Mrs. Grossman’s people, and after the interview, Tricia and I were even more sticker-obsessed than usual. And, each having recently acquired stickers, we wanted to do a follow-up post.

Since I am now frightfully unemployed, I was thinking of inexpensive ways to say thank you, you’re cool, and happy birthday, without spending too much money. Stickers are a GREAT way to do this. They are also very helpful around Thanksgiving when it’s advent calendar making time (wait, you don’t make advent calendars on thanksgiving?!).

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, here are some ways you can give your stickers (ps if anyone doesn’t like to get stickers, you should probably not be friends with them):

1. Hostess Gifts. Especially if you have to travel a long distance (say, the 500 mile journey I’ll be making this Wednesday), it’s hard to carry things like fresh flowers or fresh fruit. I am completely enamored with Mrs. Grossman’s line of Extraordinary stickers, which are PERFECT for this. (Look at the image above: Do you see how big that flower is? Almost as big as my face! THAT IS AN EXTRAORDINARY STICKER. Also, look at those grapes. You could almost eat them!)
2. Place Cards. Susan herself said she liked a side of irony with her stickers, so adding some funny stickers to table place cards could certainly entertain you and your guests alike. What about a big pile of fast food for a Thanksgiving place card?
3. Sticky Birthday Surprises. So, even though I’m not employed anymore, I faintly remember what it’s like to have to consider the birthdays of many co-workers. Even if you just know someone peripherally, it is imperative that you recognize their birthday. Giving a birthday sticker — or better yet sticking stickers around the birthday girl/boy secretly throughout the day — will certainly show that you’ve remembered them.
4. ADVENT CALENDARS! I am from a family of complicated-tradition makers. One of those traditions is making advent calendars thanksgiving weekend. (Yes, I have made advent calendars for people who don’t celebrate xmas. EVERYONE loves opening doors.) We pick names out of a hat and have to make a calendar for that person. We have template that we cut out with an X-acto knife, but since I can’t find that at the moment, I found this template online for you. What do we put in the doors of our advent calendars? Magazine cutouts, funny inside jokes, and lots of stickers! Our favorite thing to do is tear stickers apart and combine monsters and cheerleaders, xmas stickers and halloween stickers, etc.

Can you think of any other ways to give with your stickers? Susan likes to put them on waiter’s checks!  Tricia has discovered that they are a lovely addition to her baristas’ tip jar!

ALSO, I just discovered this feature on the Mrs. Grossman’s site where you can FAVORITE different stickers. Here are my favorites thus-far, and here are Tricia’s favorites. (And no, Mrs. Grossman’s is not paying us to be obsessed with them. We just are.)

“When I want to read a good book, I write one.” —Benjamin Disraeli

There are tons of options out there for making your own books, but a lot of “self-publishing” sites require a huge investment because they work on the theory that you want to sell your books to lots of people. But, alas, we little people are satisfied, sometimes, with just making a book or two — for ourselves, for our family, for presents, for a portfolio.

Here are a collection of a few of my favorite places where you can construct your very own book (from McDonald’s publishing to A list restaurant, so to speak) and none of these places force you to purchase more than a single copy of your book.

Espresso Book Machine

I posted about the Espresso Book Machine from On Demand Books a few weeks ago. I’m pretty obsessed with the fact that you can be standing in front of a machine, bookless, and ten minutes later have your self-written opus in your excited hands.

Lulu

I have no personal experience with lulu.com but I re-visit the page again and again, dreaming of the books I can create, sell (if you want you can set a price and sell your books online with no inventory costs), or give away. At Lulu, a paperback book with 100 pages can cost you less than $7, and you can order a new one anytime you want. A color comic book might cost you $15. You can also print cookbooks, textbooks, brochures, and there are even special software packages for children who want to create a book.

Lulu even has a Vintage Publishing service. This is more expensive ($150+ for the creation of the book, but regular prices apply to book purchases), but Lulu will scan in old books like scrapbooks, family heirlooms, or out-of-print books and turn them in to new, not-falling-apart books for your family to enjoy. They’ll also give you a high-quality pdf version.

Blurb

Blurb.com seems to be an artsier version of Lulu. Prices are a little steeper (for example, a 40 page 8×10 book is $20), but all include four color printing. There is also special, downloadable software if you need help building your book. You can flip through some already created books here. Book by Its Cover also did a very honest review of her blurb-created book, which I suggest you read before you take the plunge.

Good Stock

Good Stock is the cream of the book publication crop and is especially for those who want to make some kind of epic memory book probably for a momentous occasion like a birth, an anniversary, a wedding, etc. Yes, these books are expensive (maybe something like, say, $500), but I think they are amazing, beautiful, and incredibly professional, especially good for someone who knows he cannot quite create a fully-polished product on his own.

Kim at Good Stock has her own blog, and is one of the people who personally takes your shoebox full of pictures and memories and turns it into a visual story (with detailed input from you, of course). If you can’t afford your own book, you can look at some of the books already created here.

Book covers, in all their beauty, are often both an inspiration and an actual material for crafters. I zoomed around Etsy and the internet today to bring you some of my favorites in book crafts.

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man book cover Wallet ($35, ReboundDesigns on Etsy – lots of great wallets and some pricey but cute book purses)

Bobbsey Twins Book Purse ($45, ExLibrisPurses on Etsy — a new user, but I just love the orange insides!)

Donna Parker Goes to Hollywood Journal or Sketchbook made to your specifications (PenguinLovePress on Etsy, $20 — lots of vintage book covers ready to be made to your specs)

Assorted spiral bound book cover journals, $13 each

Make sure to visit my other Book Week posts here!

I recently discovered the new “got milk?” web-site while surfing NotCot.org. I love the white paper cut-out look, very milky. There are also lots of fun moving parts and colorful characters. An excellent example of corporate web-design (for those of us with fast enough connections to keep up with it).

My favorite part of the site? DIY projects for the crafty milk-drinker-recyclers among us. The downloadable pdf instructions are availible for both milk cartons and milk jugs. I know, it’s all a little kindergarten, but the youthful part of me can’t help but get excited.