Hello dear readers! If you subscribe to the Quick and Crafty newsletter, you probably get hundreds of craft projects and ideas delivered to your inbox each week. This week you probably received newsletters about vintage accessories, hard to find craft tutorials (from our Facebook fans), and new crafts from the February blog hop. You can also look forward to receiving a St. Patrick’s Day newsletter and an all-video issue by the end of the week, in addition to our Weekend Wrap-up, which brings you a list of the most popular projects from last week. (Not subscribed yet? You’re totally missing out! Sign up here.)

Our beautiful newsletter header

Have you ever wondered how much work goes into making those newsletters that you enjoy so much? Here’s the short answer: a LOT of work goes into it! Want the long answer? Read on to hear about my travails in making this week’s Tuesday issue, titled “You Demanded It: 25 Hard to Find Craft Tutorials.”

There it is in my inbox! So exciting!

I decided to be a useful editor and ask you guys what kind of projects you’d most like to see. Sure, you love afghans and scarves, but you can easily search for “scarves” on the FaveCrafts homepage or visit the Crochet Afghans section on the site. What about those projects you’re dying to make, if only you could find some instructions, and maybe a tutorial or two?

Look at all of the lovely afghans to be found!

So I started out by posting my idea on Facebook. On February 22 at 8:45 AM I posted “Question: What types of craft projects/tutorials do you have trouble finding? I’m going to offer myself as your personal detective and track them down for a special newsletter issue!”

Become a Facebook fan and see the rest of the wall!

Twenty-nine fans replied with their requests, which ranged from embroidery and knitting to metal work and recycling crafts. As the responses started pouring in, I set to work searching for projects to satiate you demanding readers (kidding!). Some of the projects were already on FaveCrafts, like these unusual baby hats, requested by Sue:

Unusual Baby Hats

1. Soft Bunny Hat
2. Crochet Baby Ruffle Hat
3. Robot Baby Hat
4. Frog Crochet Baby Hat
5. Baby Crochet Monkey Hat
6. Santa Hat for Baby
7. Knit Jingle Jester Hat

Some of your requests were more difficult, so I had to search high and low to find projects. I searched Google (you should try it, it’s great!), I asked my fellow editors, and I searched through craft manufacturers’ websites for projects that would fulfill your requests. For instance, FaveCrafts loves Red Heart Yarn, which has tons of free crochet and knitting patterns on their website. Red Heart lets us publish anything we want from their site. When I was looking for crochet motifs, per Zuzi’s request, I found this Flower Squares Afghan from Red Heart. Sarah asked for easy beginner lace patterns, so I provided the Lace Capelet Knitting Pattern, also from Red Heart.

I had so many requests from the awesome FaveCrafts Facebook fans that I decided to turn it into a mini-series. I will provide more hard-to-find projects next week, and again the following week, before I put my detective career into (temporary?) retirement.

After I had all of the projects gathered, it was time to make the newsletter. To build these newsletters for you, I use a special template and insert the links and photos I want for each particular issue. The program we use has a bunch of nifty icons to use when editing, similar to a word processing program, and it looks like this:

And sometimes I have to click the scary HTML icon and fix the coding. But I try to avoid that because it’s mostly Greek to me.

Terrifying!

When the newsletter is complete, I send it on to all 875,000 subscribers.

So now you know everything there is to know about making FaveCrafts newsletters. What else are you curious about? Are there other hard-to-find patterns and tutorials that you’d like me to include in the series? Leave your suggestions in the comments below 🙂