Liquid Treat

Get your craft on with For the Makers, which delivers DIY tutorials to your inbox and hand-selected materials to your doorstep. "It’s one part magazine, one part coolest craft store ever," say founders Katie Covington and Janet Crowther, who honed their sourcing skills during stints at companies such as Kate Spade and Anthropologie. "We search high and low for materials you can't find anywhere else, and when we can't find it we have it made." At $29-per-month, For the Makers will dispatch to your doorstep materials for four projects that range from jewelry and wearable accessories to home and paper goods, along with access to tutorials from expert designers.

Follow the history of color photography from the 1907 introduction of the first commercially available color photographic process (the autochrome) through 1981, when a published survey signified the widespread acceptance of contemporary art photography in color, in "Color Rush," a Stieglitz-to-Sherman exhibition on view through May 19 at the Milwaukee Art Museum. "Lisa Hostetler and I set out to rectify the problematic -- if prevailing -- notion that color photography prior to the 1970s was either amateur or commercial and only recognized as such," says co-curator Katherine Bussard. "The historical reality was never that simple, never so definitive.” Can't make it to Milwaukee? Pick up the stunning catalogue, out this month from Aperture.

Take type into your own hands with Draw Your Own Alphabets, new from Princeton Architectural Press. UK-based writer and designer Tony Seddon walks you through the process of creating hand-lettered fonts that are sure to jump off the screen (or page) and offers 30 inspirational examples of custom-drawn alphabets, from Control Chaos and Knit to Hairy Beast and Spaghetti Junction. Lest your lettering remain in the sketched stage, Seddon also includes a technical section -- on scanning, uploading and preparing artwork for print -- and a primer on the myriad applications for your personal alphabets.

Shepard Fairey's "Obey Giant" street art campaign is the stuff of legend, and now it's the subject of a narrative film by Julian Marshall, a recent graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design (Fairey's alma mater). The narrative short, which debuts online on Monday, April 15, is based on the true story of Fairey's first act of street art, making it something of a cinematic portrait of the artist as a young skate punk challenging a big-city mayor (the oleaginous Buddy Cianci) and the powers that be at art school. Visit UnBeige.com on Monday to read a Q&A with Marshall, who raised $65,000 in funding for the ambitious project via Kickstarter.

Still crunching numbers for your tax return? Make math a lot more pleasant with a Draw It Yourself Calculator ($12.99 from Perpetual Kid). The solar-powered gizmo arrives resembling a blank sheet of looseleaf paper. Grab some Sharpies and sketch in your very own versions of numerals (Roman?), operations (x or *?) and other button functions (what does "MR" do again?). Follow the included template to avoid calculation confusion.

On Sunday, April 28th, take a break from your digital devices to spread the unusual beauty of a historical photographic process as the world celebrates Pinhole Photography Day. Now in its thirteenth year, the event celebrates and promotes the lenless method that dates from the 10th century. Join thousands of people (pinheads?) from around the globe in the simple act of making a pinhole photograph by adapting an existing camera or making your own out of a light-tight container, such as a box or a can, with a tiny hole in one side. Leave your perfectionist tendencies at home with your digital camera, because, according to Pinhole Photography Day organizers, "This is the photography of patience, of meditation, no more anguish for a 'badly turned out' photo."