I have a love/hate relationship with blogs and design sites in general. I love reading them. I love finding inspirational photos, learning DIY tricks, and coming across crafty ideas. I love falling down the rabbit hole, following a link that leads me to a new great blog and then another one and then another... until I realize 3 hours have passed and I still have to clean up the kitchen and put away the laundry and my daughter will be up in 5 minutes for another feed and I could have been oh so much more productive with my time and finished any of the 14 projects on my to do list and... you get the picture.
All of this makes me wonder about these newfangled free online e-magazines. Unconstrained by typical production and distribution costs, these mags weigh in at around 150+ pages. So on the one hand, they are chock-full of more design ideas and interesting articles... but this means I will spend even more time immobile, butt in chair, straining my eyes as I zoom in and zoom out to read the computer screen. Will these abundant design sources really help me to make better, savvier choices when decorating my own home? Or is it like standing in the cereal box aisle - faced with dozens of different choices, why do I still reach for the same Oatmeal Crisp cereal?
As the message of design itself becomes 'simpler', more back to basics, with growing recycled/upcycled/repurposed/vintage trends, the medium of design is becoming oh-so-complicated. For now, I'm inclined to resist this newest of trends. My blog reader is already overflowing and I have so many different inspiration folders saved about, I don't know where to look first. But if you're looking to fill some of your time, here's some e-magazines you might want to check out:
Nesting Newbies
Lonny
Southern Flourish