Discover Crafty Inspo in Your Inbox Through ‘Orts: Threads of Creativity”

I don’t write in here as often as I’d like. But you know where I pub­lish new con­tent con­sis­tent­ly every Fri­day? My newslet­ter Orts: Threads of Cre­ativ­i­ty. Each week I col­lect and share small snip­pets of cre­ativ­i­ty: embroi­der­ers, tex­tile artists, illus­tra­tors, DIY projects, and how we can make time for our cre­ative endeavors.

The con­cept inspired the name of the newslet­ter. You might look at the word ort and won­der what the heck it is. But if you’re a sew­er, there’s a chance you’re famil­iar. Orts are the left­over snip­pets of threads you col­lect as you sew. I keep an orts jar on my desk. Lay­er after lay­er of thread, it’s a won­der­ful visu­al record of all the stitch­ing I’ve done. I can look at the bunch of col­ors and be remind­ed of what that project was.

So when think­ing about names for the newslet­ter, orts came to mind. Orts are a col­lec­tion. They are small snip­pets of some­thing greater. And in that way, that’s what I want this newslet­ter to be. I want it to be threads of embroi­der­ers, tex­tile artists, illus­tra­tors, DIY projects, and how we can make time for our cre­ative endeavors.

I began writ­ing Orts in Jan­u­ary of this year, and since that time I’ve shared inter­views with artists, some of my favorite sup­plies, DIYs, and lit­er­al­ly hun­dreds of links. I’ve even intro­duced a paid sub­scrip­tion where you can get more crafty inspi­ra­tion and receive my pop­u­lar 5/5 for­mat (five inspir­ing artists, five ways for you to DIY) each week instead of every oth­er week.

I hope you’ll join me on Orts! You can read my past emails and sub­scribe here.

And to be clear—I’m not stop­ping writ­ing on Brown Paper Bag. I’m still here and hop­ing to write on a more con­sis­tent basis start­ing the late sum­mer when two events I’m part of—ICON The Illus­tra­tion Con­fer­ence and Camp Craft­away—are com­plete.