Amy Azzarito
Managing Editor
Amy Azzarito is the managing editor of Design*Sponge. She graduated from the Parsons/Cooper-Hewitt with a Master's in the History of Decorative Arts and Design. She recently published an essay about the evolution of French cuisine for Paris-New York: Design Fashion Culture, 1925-1940 and has a forthcoming essay about about Countercultural Architecture for West of Center: Art and the Counterculture Experiment in American Art, 1965-1977 to be published in Fall 2011. She is currently at work on Past and Present, a book that translates topics of design history into a present-day craft projects and is based on her Design*Sponge column. The book will be published by Stewart, Tabori, and Chang in Fall 2012. When not researching design history, she practices yoga, roller skates, rides bikes and tends to her bees, who live on a Brooklyn rooftop, and to her two cats, Loki and Freya, who allow her to live in their Williamsburg apartment. Portrait by Lisa Waringer
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Kate Pruitt
Senior DIY Editor
Kate Pruitt is a senior editor for D*S. Originally an east-coaster, she moved west to earn a degree in Art and Art History from Stanford University. After working as a retail display artist for several years, she joined the D*S team as a weekly DIY contributor in 2009. In addition to managing the DIY and Before & After columns, she writes DIY 101, a monthly column that covers basic DIY tools and techniques; and Treasure Hunting, a column dedicated to finding new and inventive ways to bring value to everyday objects within the home. Her work has been featured in various print publications, including ReadyMade, New York Magazine, Country Living and The San Francisco Chronicle. She currently resides in California with her boyfriend and their inadvertently diabolical cat, JFK.
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Kristina Gill
Food Editor
Kristina Gill joined Design*Sponge as the editor of In the Kitchen With in October, 2007. Every Friday, she brings us an original, easy to make, seasonal recipe contributed by food and creative professionals, as well as by our readers. She is also the photographer and stylist for many of the recipes which appear on the column. Kristina has a degree in political science from Stanford University, and a Master's in international economics from Johns Hopkins SAIS. Although she often entertains the idea of moving back to her hometown, Nashville, Tennessee, she currently lives in Italy, with her husband and her dog Zizou.
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Amy Merrick
Contributing Writer
Based out of her lovingly tended pre-war apartment in New York, Amy Merrick creates flowers for events, contributes articles and craft projects for magazines such as Whole Living, Garden Design and Country Living, and also pens her own blog, An Apple a Day. Her girlish enthusiasm for antiques, flowers, furniture, houseplants, movie nights, and witty wordsmithing make her a natural to write design*sponge’s weekly column Living In which dissects the style of Amy’s favorite films. She also has dreamed up several craft and floral posts for the site which can be found here.
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Anne Ditmeyer
Contributing Editor
Anne Ditmeyer is a contributing editor, having started as D*S’s first intern in 2008. Through her blog, Prêt à Voyager ('ready to travel'), this Paris-based graphic designer and travel maven looks at the intersection between the tourist and the local, and creative ways to explore the every day world. Anne contributes to the weekly sneak peek column, and over the years has gone behind the scenes of Mad Men, cooked with David Lebovitz, and looked for the latest designers in unexpected places. Additionally, Anne is the author of the D*S’s Paris and Baltimore Design Guides.
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Erica Nikolaidis
Copyeditor
Erica Nikolaidis has worked in the independent publishing industry since earning her master's in 2004. She has produced a wide range of trade, academic, business, education, and technical books. In 2010, she founded Virgo Editorial Services, a freelance editorial business, thus achieving the American dream of working from home in her underwear. Erica spends her weeknights copyediting D*S posts, her weekends watching movies with her husband, and her spare time toddler wrangling. She blogs at Mommy Needs a Minute.
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Stephanie Todaro
Contributing Editor
Stephanie Todaro has joined the Design*Sponge team to work on special projects and oversee our weekly Biz Ladies and City Guides columns. Although born in Chicago and raised in Los Angeles, Stephanie has been lucky enough to live all over the US, including DC and New York, and continues to travel the world with hopes to one day settle down somewhere in Europe. She earned her master’s degree in journalism from New York University in 2008 and now lives in LA where she works as an online content editor for several celebrity websites and dabbles in freelance web-design projects. She has a slight (actually, major) obsession with all things stationery-related and likes to collect garden gnomes. To see more of Stephanie’s work, check out her website.
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Ashley English
Contributing Writer
Ashley English is the author of the "Homemade Living" (Lark Books) book series, which showcases topics related to sustainable small-scale homesteading. Ashley, her husband and their young son Huxley, along with a menagerie of chickens, dogs, cats, and bees live in Candler, NC, where they are converting their land into a thriving homestead. You can find her detailing those adventures in homesteading on her blog, small measure. She also hosts a quarterly column, "Homemade Living", in Where Women Cook magazine. When not clicking away on her laptop, working on her property or tending to her animals, Ashley can be found sipping stout beer, feeding her wood stove, whisking something while balancing her son on her hip, or listening to Radiohead (or Billy Idol, depending on the day).
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Ashley Ann Campbell
DIY Contributor
With a love for hardware stores, art supplies and photography, Oklahoma resident Ashley Campbell prefers country roads to city streets. While she loves the thrill of scouring through antique stores, she completely lacks the ability to walk away from vintage tablecloths, wire baskets and crocheted trim. Ashley's background is in Fine Arts and photography. After stepping back from the professional side of photography, she embraced other creative outlets and chronicles those on her blog, Under the Sycamore. In the midst of raising 4 young kids who create wonderful (but messy) chaos, Ashley uses photography as a tool to celebrate the not so glamorous moments in life. Ashley holds to the belief that creativity is essential for her as an individual, artist and mom. She finds the most beauty in the mundane and relishes the adventure of parenthood with her husband Chris.
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The BBB Craft Sisters
Contributing Writers
The bbbcraft sisters—Anna, Amy and Sarah Blessing—joined the Design*Sponge team as DIY contributors and have recently introduced a monthly entertaining column called Hunt, Gather and Host, inspired by their hunted and gathered finds in nature, their own homes and vintage and thrift shops. Sarah and Amy are the owners of the men’s store apartment number 9 in Chicago, and Anna is a freelance writer and photographer in Chicago. Growing up in Portland, Oregon, the sisters were taught by their mom, the original BBB, to love all things art and craft, and to create beauty in the everyday. Throughout the year they converge in Los Angeles, Chicago, Portland, and Northern Michigan to make beautiful things, cook meals together, spend time foraging outdoors, and occasionally post to their craft blog, BBB Craft.
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Brenna Berger
DIY Contributor
Artist and designer Brenna Berger of paper & ink has joined Design*Sponge as a contributor of paper centric DIY projects. Brenna writes a design and inspiration blog called paper & ink. She owns a custom stationery design company by the same name, which specializes in invitations for children’s events. When she is not chasing her two year old around, Brenna does freelance design creating custom art and décor as well as products for her shop. A California native, Brenna lives with her husband and daughter in Manhattan Beach.
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Ryan and Alissa Walker
Contributing Editors
Alissa and Ryan are the co-founders of the curated modern design boutique HORNE. Together this husband and wife team have joined Design*Sponge as editors of the Behind the Bar column. The first Friday of every month they will post a unique and delicious cocktail recipe as shared by people that they find creative and inspiring. Alissa, the Chief Creative Force (CCF) at HORNE, brings to the column her high level of design and attention to detail while Ryan’s passion for wine, beer, cocktails and spirits rounds out the column. When not hard at work for HORNE in Philadelphia, Alissa and Ryan can be found traveling to find new products for the boutique, throwing darts at a map to find their next home and drinking a whole lot of cocktails while calling it “work.”
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Lauren Willhite
Contributing Writer
Lauren Willhite has joined the D*S team as the author of “Make It Yours,” a weekly column in which she creates color palettes (complete with paint matches) inspired by home interiors. She also collects a roundup of products to match the look of the rooms. Lauren is a freelance graphic designer living in Portland, Oregon. She started her blog, Color Collective, after noticing a need for more online color resources. [Photo by Photos by Laura Dart]
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Halligan Norris
DIY Contributor
My name is Halligan Norris Smith and I am a DIY contributor for Design Sponge. I live in the Fishtown neighborhood of Philadelphia with my husband Adam Smith. I graduated from the Savannah College of Art and Design in 2004 with a BFA in Metals and Jewelry design. After spending five years in the industry I left the jewelry world behind. Now, by day, I am an assistant web photo stylist at Anthropologie's home office, by night I wear the hats of designer, crafter, homemaker, and full time fun-haver. I am actively pursuing my career in event design as well as several other freelance opportunities! My work and my incredible talented friends make my life full and rewarding.
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Ginny Branch Stelling
Contributing Writer
Ginny Branch Stelling has joined the D*S team as the author of "What's in Your Toolbox", a column that peeks inside the toolboxes of our favorite artists to see how they create their work. Here's more from Ginny: "Hi! i'm ginnybranch stelling and i love love. other things i love-gratitude lists. snappin' photos. sewing by hand. drawing pretty girls with crying eyes. nostalgia. hearts on sleeves. believing in magic. positive thinking. daydreaming. altruism. doo wop and hip hop. trails of glitter. red lipstick. thunderstorms. handiwork. muses. hairbows and funny hats. collecting olde good things. female folk singers. folklore. fairytales and fables. high school sweethearts and sweethearts in general. my sweetheart, my husband." You can visit Ginny on her personal blog, My Favorite Color is Shiny</a
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Paige Anderson Appel
Contributing Writer
Paige Appel + Kelly Harris are two creative gals who independently operated BASH EVENTS + YES, PLEASE DESIGN. After being fans of each other's work, they met up over coffee, and began immediately collaborating on weddings, events, photo shoots, and styling. Their company has fully evolved into BASH, PLEASE, a full service event production and design house. Together they offer their clients everything from paper design, event design, florals, prop building, purveyor curations, logistical management, decor sourcing; everything from soup to nuts! Taking cues from the artful, the vintage, the modern, the crafty, the textured, the natural, they create seamless events that showcase their clients sensibility without the stress of fussy over-fabrication. Vibrant and innovative are two words they like to keep in mind when approaching a new bash. They live in Los Angeles and travel nationwide to produce events for their clients. They are also the co-creators of HITCHED. A modern, hip, experiential take on the bridal fair.
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Rachael Maddux
Contributing Writer
Rachael Maddux worked for a while as an editor at Paste Magazine, where she also wrote about music and culture, and now writes freelance reviews, essays and profiles for folks like eMusic, Vulture.com and Atlanta magazine. She likes looking at things almost as much as listening to things, which led her to create Design*Sponge’s Sights & Sounds column, about the intersection of art and music. Rachael grew up in Chattanooga, Tenn., graduated from Oglethorpe University in Atlanta and now lives in Decatur, Ga. with her fiance Joe. She likes tacos, car rides and bad movies, and both blogs and tweets.
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Brett Bara
DIY Contributor
Brett Bara is a Brooklyn-based writer and designer who's obsessed with all things crafty and DIY. She is the author of the book Sewing in a Straight Line (Potter Craft, 2011) and host of the PBS television series Knit and Crochet Now. Brett works as a consultant and spokesperson for a variety of companies in the craft industry, writes and edits crafts books, and designs DIY projects. When she's not crafting, Brett's an avid cake-decorator and Jello-mold-maker; she blogs about all her creative pursuits.
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Sarah Brysk Cohen
Contributing Writer
Sarah Brysk Cohen, owner of Blossom and Branch, is obsessed with flowers. She has been working in flower shops on the cutting edge of floral design, from New York to California, for 17 years. Always eager to explore new ideas and articulate her own, distinctive style, she opened the Blossom and Branch studio in Brooklyn, New York in 2009. Her designs have been featured in various online and print publications, including 100 Layer Cake, Brooklyn Bride, Brides Magazine and The New York Times, as well as in the San Diego Museum of Art. Before launching her design career, she obtained an MSW and worked as a licensed clinical social worker in two states (the two craziest ones). This really comes in handy when a bride is having a rough go of it. She currently lives in Brooklyn, NY with her writer/pundit husband and irascible English Bulldogs, Molly and Ruby.
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Matt Pierce
DIY Contributor
Matt Pierce is a builder, maker, and designer based out of Portland, Oregon. He is the creator of Wood&Faulk – a record of projects, DIY experiments and the occasional review of interesting music and products. With hobbies ranging from leatherwork, auto mechanics, cooking and carpentry, he applies these trades to his DIY contributor posts, all the while patiently waiting for a ‘motorcycle restoration month’ on Design*Sponge.
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Amanda Brown
DIY Contributor
In 2007, Amanda Brown left her non-profit day job to create Spruce, a furniture redesign studio in Austin, TX. With her professional training and eye for design, she has transformed countless pieces headed for the dump into one-of-a-kind showstoppers. Her fresh approach to upholstery has spurred international interest and received acclaim from publications such as The New York Times, Metropolitan Home, and Southern Living. Amanda’s Upholstery Basics column welcomes upholstery enthusiasts to share her knowledge and recreate their own hand-me-downs and roadside rescues. When she’s not working with clients, upholstering, teaching classes, or working on her next instructional DVD, she can be found beating the Texas heat with an ice cold brewsky, hubby and toy poodle, Pixie, in tow.
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Mary Kathryn Paynter
Contributing Writer
Mary Kathryn Paynter is a floral designer and stylist living and working in Austin, Texas. While working as an Account Executive at a branding firm, she discovered Design Sponge and spent many afternoons poring over posts on her phone under one conference table or another. An avid gardener and life-long plant nerd, she took a floral design class at the Little Flower School and was hooked. After a year and a half of practice, she left her job and started Loretta Flower, her floral design studio. Her work has been featured in Food & Wine, Kinfolk, 100 Layer Cake, and (ta-da) Design Sponge. She blogs here, tweets here, and has a layer of soil on the floorboards of her car.
