Friday Findings: Online Magazines, Workshop Bliss, & a Real Book!

{Covet Garden * Inspired Ideas * The Best Wedding Sites}

As if I weren't distracted enough by all my reading materials, enter another source of fodder: online magazines! I will always prefer holding an actual book or magazine in my hands. I love the glossy sheen of a periodical, the heft of a real book, and the slightly rough texture of paper pages. But online magazines offer their own special delights. They are usually free or very inexpensive. Zoom tools allow you to enlarge the pages for close-ups of tiny details, convenient links to products and other websites are often included, and the magazines are generally accompanied by a blog that offers even more inspiration along the same themes. {Oh no! Don't even let me get started on blogs!}

This post was prompted by a visit to one of my very favorite blogs Dispatch from LA. The blog's author Mary Ann Moss shared a link to the online magazine Covet Garden, and I am so smitten by it! Covet Garden features the kind of casual, eclectic style that I love, and I'm sure I'll be a faithful reader from now on! Thanks Mary Ann!

And speaking of inspiration, I've already posted about the online workshop I am taking with Mary Ann called Full Tilt Boogie, but I have to gush about it some more! The vintage photo album and tattered books shown above are the ones I'm using for the workshop. This is the final week for the class, but it will be available in its entirety for a long time to come. The workshop itself is amazing! It's packed with videos, PDFs, bonus posts, and more. But the absolute cherry on top is the amazing Yahoo group affiliated with the class! So many talented, creative, and generous members all sharing loads of encouragement, ideas, links to wonderful resources, solutions to problems, and just general goodwill. This workshop has been an absolutely blissful addition to my summer, and I'm sure you would enjoy it just as much as I have!

One last finding for this Friday is a book a wonderful book that I ordered from amazon.com titled Non-Adhesive Bindings without Paste or Glue. Nearly every blog, website, or book that I have read on the topic of bookbinding recommends this publication as a must-have resource. I have coveted it for months, and finally ordered it a few days ago. It's every bit as good as I had hoped and more! And even more exciting, the author Keith A. Smith gave Mary Ann permission to teach two of the bookbinding stitches he created as part of the Full Tilt Boogie class, and he wants to see the books the students create during the class! Guess I'd better quit reading and start binding! Hope you enjoy this Friday's findings!