good morning! i’m waking up from the first full night of sleep i’ve had in over 3 weeks so i am finally approaching blog posting with excitement and a non-groggy head. it is so nice to be back among the land of the normal-sleepers. to kick off thursday i wanted to share christine from yellow owl workshop’s new nyc stamp set, available at kate’s paperie. i’m a HUGE stamper- i stamp everything from tea towels to cards so i love seeing a cute new set. especially one about my own city. christine’s set is available for $12.50 right here! thanks, evan!

today i am officially finished with the full 400+ page manuscript for the design*sponge book! so i’m going to be taking the day off to catch up on some of the sleep i’ve missed over the past few weeks. i just wanted to say a quick thank you to everyone who’s helped me through this process, namely our amazing team of editors, photographer johnny miller and the world’s greatest interns stephanie and kari. thank you! i’ll be back tomorrow with a full day of regular posts. until then, here’s another little peek at one of the new homes in the book…image courtesy of hallie burton.

i just wanted to say a big thank you to brooke at inchmark for all her wonderful posts on the d*s guest blog this week! today she’s wrapping things up with a post on alphabet gift wrap. click here to check it out….

good morning! over at the d*s guest blog brooke from inchmark is continuing her week long design-ode to the alphabet. she’s got not one but two posts today focusing on animated abcs (ie: ray charles sings the abc’s) and a fantastic roundup of alphabet posters! click here to check out both posts.

with the mainstream publishing industry struggling these days (r.i.p, gourmet), it’s been wonderful to see so many independently and self-published magazines and books on the market. one of the self-published magazines i’m most excited about is a new food journal called “remedy quarterly“. remedy describes itself as “stories of food, recipes for feeling good” and is illustrated in pink and red colors that i find impossible to resist. each issue will have 48 pages (8.5 x 5.5 inches in size), be printed in 2-color offset printing (like the old community cookbooks that inspired the authors) and will be 100% content, ie: no ads.

the first issue’s theme is “home” and includes a q&a with tim of lottie + doof, an interview with will gilson (of cambridge’s famed garden at the cellar) and a story from stacey slate, writer for the ny times food blog bitten. kelly, aaron, jillian and ari (the boston/brooklyn-ites who founded the mag) are currently raising funds for the magazine, but you can go ahead and pre-order or subscribe and get all sorts of goodies like recipes and homemade cookies on their website. i love the promise that this publication holds and am excited to see what sort of creativity comes from the lack of glossy magazines available on stands. here’s hoping that more pubs like remedy (and my fav: edible brooklyn!) can fill the shelves one day…

ps: click here to check out remedy’s clever list of hangover and spicy food remedies on their site…

pps: click here to check out jill’s final post on rain solutions, yurts and domes!

good morning! i am so glad it’s finally friday- it’s been a seriously TGIF kinda week. but before we get started with the rest of today’s posts i wanted to thank lucy for her amazing guest posts this week! today she’s wrapping things up with a great guide to her favorites in melbourne’s fitzroy area. click here to check it out!

i also wanted to share these gorgeous leather bike seats from leather artist kara ginther in madison, wisconsin. she creates these incredible hand carved brooks saddles that are almost too pretty to sit on- though i think i could get over that eventually ;) click here to see more of kara’s work online. thanks, kara!

[click here for this week's ask d*s column about vintage bike sources]

today i’m incredibly happy to welcome one of my favorite bloggers, lucy feagins of the design files, to the d*s guest blog. i’ve been following lucy’s melbourne-based blog for some time now and really love the way she discusses- and celebrates- local australian design. this she’ll be introducing us to beautiful places and talented people in her home base of melbourne- and she’s kicking things off with last week’s sneak peek subject (and talented artist) neryl walker. click here to check out lucy’s full post!