Brown Paper Bag’s 10 Most Popular Posts of 2017

Last year, I chron­i­cled the most pop­u­lar posts on Brown Paper Bag—and it was a lot of fun to look back on the incred­i­ble things cre­at­ed through­out the course of 2016. In keep­ing with this tra­di­tion, I’ve crunched the num­bers and found 10 of the high­est-traf­ficked posts writ­ten in 2017. Tulle cer­tain­ly had a moment this year…

10. 12 inspiring illustrators to follow on Instagram

Part of my inspi­ra­tional Insta­gram series, I share 12 illus­tra­tors that are a must-fol­low on the social media platform.

9. Needle felted llamas carrying beautiful blooms

Becky Tilson of Fuzzy and Flo­ra pays trib­ute to lla­mas and alpacas by com­bin­ing nee­dle felt­ing and embroi­dered flow­ers. It’s no won­der that as soon as she opened shop, her hoop art went fly­ing off the vir­tu­al shelves.

8. Optical illusion embroidery looks like it’s floating in mid-air

Krista Decor uses tulle and lay­ered stitch­es to cre­ate a daz­zling opti­cal illu­sion. The result? Birds look like they’re real­ly flying!

7. 10 embroidery patterns ready for you to download and sew

Embroi­dery pat­terns are a great way to prac­tice the craft before strik­ing out on your own hoop art. This pop­u­lar post fea­tured 10 that were (and still are) avail­able to down­load and sew.

6. Colorful collage sketchbook is a modern-day homage to Matisse 

In the first non-embroi­dery post on the list, Julie Hamil­ton’s incred­i­ble sketch­book is a great addi­tion. The col­or­ful imagery and shape design will cer­tain­ly make you wish your sketch­book looked like this—I know it did for me.

5. Thriving plants you don’t have to water… because they’re made of paper

Anoth­er paper post! This one is by Lisso­va Craft, who con­tin­u­al­ly cre­ates tiny paper plants you can hold in the palm of your hand. They’re as detailed as they are small.

4. Charming embroidery patterns highlighting the collaborative nature of the craft

Lib­by Moore of Thread Folk col­lab­o­rates on charm­ing Artist Series, where she trans­lates an illustrator’s work into mod­ern embroi­dery pat­terns that any­one can com­plete with a nee­dle and thread.

3. Colorful fish embroideries transform the embroidery hoop into a fish bowl

Sim­i­lar to Krista Decor’s illu­sion­is­tic embroi­dery, Kate­ri­na Marchenko treats the hoop like an aquar­i­um and stitch­es fish embroi­dery. The cir­cu­lar hoop and see-through fab­ric con­jure the feel­ing that we’re peer­ing into the side of a glass bowl.

2. Bicycle embroideries have colorful blooms spilling from their baskets

What­ev­er kind of bike you ride, I can pret­ty much guar­an­tee you that it’s not as charm­ing as True Fort’s bicy­cle embroi­deries.

1. Exquisite wreath weavings frame the world in real flowers 

For­get rose-col­ored glass­es. Olga Prinku weaves real blooms into embroi­dery hoops, cre­at­ing a beautiful—and live­ly way—to view the world.

Thank you so much for your support! I hope you all have a happy start to 2018.