books, books, and frustrations with ikea....

i LOOOVE books. i can't stop buying them. i totally blame this on my mother, in the most non-negative blaming way possible. she's a writer, and when i was a kid she regularly went to the annual Canadian Author's Association conferences and brought us home books. we got books in our stockings, and in our easter baskets instead of candy (we got a little bit of candy though, don't worry!). we have all of Robert Munsch's earlier books (the good ones!) autographed and i spent my teenage years reading really amazing young adult fiction by canadian authors.

i'm slightly addicted to books. i buy a LOT of craft books, they're the hardest for me to resist. it seems like there are so many of them coming out now, and i MUST have them all! (though imagine if there were just as many queer books and feminist books coming out? that would be so amazing!)

these are some of the newer craft books in my collection. trust me when i say that this is barely hitting the surface when you consider all of the older ones i have too, and all of the newer ones that i didn't list!




Craftster Guide To Nifty; Thrifty And Kitschy Crafts by Leah Kramer
The Big-Ass Book of Crafts by Mark Montano
Stitched In Time by Alicia Paulson
The Naughty Secretary Club: The Working Girl's Guide to Handmade Jewelry by Jennifer Perkins
Super Crafty: Over 75 Amazing How-to Projects! by Susan Beal, Torie Nguyen, Rachel O'Rourke, Cathy Pitters
College Discovery Workshop by Claudine Hellmuth
Handmade Nation: The Rise of DIY, Art, Craft, and Design by Faythe Levine, Cortney Heimerl
Sew Darn Cute: 30 Sweet & Simple Projects to Sew & Embellish by Jenny Ryan








Stitch 'N Bitch Crochet: The Happy Hooker by Debbie Stoller
Stitch 'N Bitch: The Knitter's Handbook by Debbie Stoller
DomiKNITrix: Whip Your Knitting Into Shape by Jennifer Stafford
Creepy Cute Crochet: Zombies, Ninjas, Robots, and More! by Christen Haden
Saturday Night Hat: Quick, Easy Hatmaking for the Downtown Girl by Eugenia Kim
Anticraft Knitting Beading & Stitching For The Slightly Sinister by Renee Rigdon
Collage Lost and Found: Creating Unique Projects With Vintage Ephemera by Giuseppina Cirincione
Pretty Little Things: Collage Jewelry, Trinkets and Keepsakes by Sally Jean Alexander
Altered Curiosities Assemblage Techniques & Projects by Jane Ann Wynn
Metal Craft Discovery Workshop by Linda and Opie O'Brien
Crafty Chica's Guide to Artful Sewing: Fabu-Low-Sew Projects for the Everyday Crafter by Kathy Cano-Murillo
Secrets of Rusty Things: Transforming Found Objects into Art by Michael deMeng
Sublime Stitching: Hundreds of Hip Embroidery Patterns and How-To by Jenny Hart
Doodle Stitching: Fresh & Fun Embroidery for Beginners by Aimee Ray

a lot, huh? i even have kniting ones, and i don't knit! and i also obsessively hoard my magazines like cloth paper scissors, somerset studio, crochet today, interweave crochet, readymade, etc.

(pics are all swiped from amazon.com or amazon.ca. i'm not crazy enough to scan them all myself, don't worry!)

i'm running out of places to put my books. i have shelves. big tall ones that were originally 4, now they're stacked together. they're packed. i have a filing cabinet full of old books and crafty pamphlety type books, like the old crochet patterns and macrame books. i have bookshelves in my studio, but they're kinda filled with fabric! i have books in rubbermaid containers under my bed, in my crawlspace, in my shed, and sitting in the middle of my room.

this leads to my frustration with IKEA. stop discontinuing shit! argh!

i realized a while ago that they discontinued the lovely dark grey silver that my BILLY shelves are, instead bringing in a rather yucky bright light silver. blegh. however, they did for a time still have that colour in the BENNO cd storage tower, which made me happy, cause i have one of those too.

i really love the look of a whole wall lined in books, preferably all in the same shelves. right now i have the two tall shelves, and a BENNO full of special books and some DVDs, all in the silver colour. last month i finally got my butt in gear to go buy another BENNO to hold my growing DVD collection (i don't know why it's growing, i rarely watch them), and discovered that they had discontinued my colour in the BENNO as well. damn! i ended up buying it in black, and i resigned myself to having a mix of black and silvery grey shelves. now i have DVD storage, but i still don't have NEARLY enough book storage!

so i need to buy more shelves. i have just enough space in my room to add one more set of two shelves, stacked on top of each other like the other 2 sets are. i originally bought the shorter shelves that are 106cm tall because i lived in a basement suite that had windows all around the living room, and i needed them to fit below the windows, and once i moved in here they got stacked. i like this idea, because it gives me more flexibility in the future.

so i go on the IKEA site, looking for the black version of my shelves, and they've discontinued them too! argh! the closest thing i can find is the one below, which doesn't come in black (WTF?), is $79 (way more than the silver ones were!), and 20cm wider than the silver ones i already have, meaning that it won't fit as well. blegh.


it looks like my only option is this one. it's still wider than the shelves i already have, and it won't have the same flexibility in future houses (or ease of moving, i think i'll have to borrow a truck to go buy it!), but at least it comes in black, and heh, it's cheaper than the short one!


so now i need to go buy a shelf. and i should probably stop buying new books for a while.

but Button It Up: 80 Amazing Vintage Button Projects for Necklaces, Bracelets, Embellishments, Housewares & More just came out....