I just spent last weekend at the Portland Zine Symposium, selling my DIY zine and swapping with other zinesters, and I wanted to tell you a little about the DIY zine world in case you don't already know about zines. I'll start with the basics - zines (from the word magazines) are self-published books of any kind, usually photocopied, usually smaller than a standard magazine, and usually made by one individual person. Whatever a zine may be about, it's always DIY just by being a zine, but my favorites are usually about crafty and/or DIY stuff, of course!

If you want to check out a crafty zine and don't know where to begin, Croq is the most widely read craft zine that i know of. With 11 issues now, the website lists the contents for each issue so you can check out the one(s) that looks best to you. Croq has lots of how-to's and diy ideas, and also articles about running an indie business, interviews with awesome craft-world people, recipes, and tons more!

There are a bunch of other crafty zines I'd love to tell you about, but unfortunately most zines don't have a website or a place to order online. If you have a local bookstore or comic store that sells zines, you're in luck, but there are also some pretty awesome online distros that distribute zines. One crafty zine I have that is available through distros is called Scrappy, which Diane did a great review of on her blog. You can find it at Microcosm, which happens to be my favorite online distro! Some other crafty/DIY zines and independent books you can grab there include Slave to the Needles, a knitting zine that I really need to check out myself, making stuff and doing things, and a book on diy silkscreening.

Other online sources that I found with DIY zines: cut+paste, true grit distro, and etsy is a great place for zines (I just discovered The Thrifty Crafter!). And another crafty zine that I still need to check out is Mixtape, which is for sale directly through the creators, based in Australia. If you know of other sites with crafty zines, please let us all know in the comments! I'm sure there's got to be more out there, I just can't find them!