ReadyMade: Instructions for everyday life

In case you hadn’t noticed, this week we welcome three new blogs and six new bloggers to ReadyMade. Lily Kane and Erin Loechner are covering design at our blog Design Binder; Carmela Ciuraru and Melissa Goldstein are all over culture at Media Diet; and Helen Jupiter and Keith Mulvihill are writing about travel and places at Escape Hatch.

Please pay them a visit and catch their self-introductions here, here, here, here, here, and here. Think about sending Keith some of your best “travel porn.”

Also later this week, Megan Jeyifo of Urban Casita is going to be making her debut on our home ‘n’ garden blog, Inside, Out.

So as you can see, we’ve been pretty busy around these parts. Now that we’ve got our eight-count-’em-eight blogs in place, we’re looking forward to rolling up our sleeves and getting down to the business of bringing you all the DIY ideas, decorating tips, design news, small-spaces hints, book/music/art notes, craft projects, fashion and style news, armchair travel destinations, real travel destinations, ‘how did you get that f*&%ing awesome job’ interviews, and visual and mental candy that we can.

As always, the ReadyMade blogs are a work in progress; if you have feedback or there’s something that you’d like to see here, feel free to leave a comment or email me.

It’s official…the winner of the fetching gold bracelet in our ‘ReadyMade Wants to Be Your Sweetheart‘ giveaway on Twitter, as chosen from all you entrants by Random.org, is….

…@ennuigo!

Also, if you can believe it, there were exactly 69 entrants in our Valentine’s-themed contest. I think that’s gotta be auspicious, or lucky, or something. Thank you for playing, thank you for reading, and most of all, thank you for being awesome. Happy Valentine’s, sweethearts!

xo,

Team ReadyMade

In the February/March issue of ReadyMade, we bring the old “How Did You Get That F*&%ing Awesome Job” column back to life in print. Our first victim—er—profilee is Jonathan Adler, potter, businessman, and decorative muse extraordinaire. We’re going to be throwing a little party at Jonathan’s Soho store, at 47 Greene Street in New York, from 6 to 9 pm next Tuesday, February 2. Do come by and join us if you’re in the neighborhood!

We at ReadyMade are proud to announce that we’ve teamed up with our friends at GOOD to coauthor a special section of GOOD’s Winter 2010 issue. The theme of the issue is “Slow Down: Perspectives on a smarter, better, and slower future.” Now, we ReadyMakers may be industrious, we also love nothing more than a good relax, so we were more than happy to pitch in with instructions and encouragement on ten techniques designed to help you take it easy.

You can read the entire “GOOD (and ReadyMade) Guide To Slowing Down” online at GOOD’s site.

Some of the projects in the package had their beginnings right here on this blog If you care to dig a little deeper, here are links to the original musings that led to some of the slowing-down projects in GOOD.

1. Eliminate Something (”A Week Without Plastic“)
2. Build an Indoor Stoop (”Still Dreaming of an Interior Stoop“)
3. Take Time to Still Your Mind (”Get High Now Officially Available“)
4. Build a Backyard Dumpster Pool (”Dumpster Diving“)
8. Watch Your Garden Grow (”Crowdsourcing the Cottage Garden“)
9. Make Yourself a Place to Escape (”Weekend Warriors: Mexican Swinging Bed Thing“)

Read happily, and not too fast. Remember: it’s quality over quantity.

I’m really happy to be able to announce today that ReadyMade has four new blogs and eight new bloggers, to bring you ever more coverage of the wonderful things and DIY possibilities going on in the worlds of home, food, craft, and fashion.

Please take a moment to explore them for yourself, via the navigational buttons on the right. At Inside, Out, Chris Gardner, Garth Johnson and Claire Joyce cover all things home and garden; at Feast, Marc Matsumoto of No Recipes and Jeannette Ordas of Everybody Likes Sandwiches will blog about food and entertaining; Marc is kicking things off with a series of indispensable kitchen tips. At Make Nice, SF-based crafter extraordinaire Polly Conway will be writing about what’s striking her fancy in the craft world, and at Off the Rack, Tricia Royal of bits + bobbins and Jane Flanagan of Ill Seen, Ill Said will share what’s most new and interesting in fashion and style. I couldn’t be happier to welcome all these talented writers and tasteful souls to the ReadyMade family.

We’ll be adding RSS feeds from the new blogs to ReadyMade’s Twitter account, so one good way to keep tabs on what’s new is to follow us on Twitter; we’re @readymadetweets.

Over the next couple months, we’ll be rolling out even more new blogs and adding new bloggers, so stay tuned. And in the meantime, please help our newest contributors feel at home by visiting their spots on ReadyMade and leaving them a comment to say hello.