Two Quick Hacks to Stop Struggling With Printed Patterns

When I first really got into doing a lot of crafting, I would print out my patterns or tutorials to work on. Not only was I using way too much paper, I found them annoying to manage. Especially knitting and crochet patterns, because if I was leaving home with my project, I ended up crumpling up the papers, mixing up the order of the sheets, or worse would forget the pattern at home.

Then I discovered that you can send documents to a Kindle and my life changed forever! If you have either an actual Kindle or the Kindle app installed on a device, you can use this hack.

There are two ways to do this:

1. In your Kindle account on Amazon, in the Preferences section, you will find a special e-mail address called your Send to Kindle email. Scroll down to the section called Personal Document Settings to find it.
   
   You use this address to e-mail documents to your device and have access there.
   
2. You can use the Send to Kindle app on your device or computer. Once installed, on a device you simply use the share button, and select Share to Kindle.
   
   On a computer you right click the file and choose Send to Kindle. These instructions are for Android devices and PCs. If you are using an iPhone or a MAc you will find your specific instructions on the Amazon website

This is great for patterns and tutorials that already come as PDF files, but what about other things you might find on a website? That’s where the Print Friendly extension comes in! You can install this button on your browser and use it to convert any web page to a PDF document. Then download to your computer or device and use Send to Kindle, and voila!

I have been using this method for years, I literally can’t remember when I started doing this. It works a charm! I can carry multiple patterns with me at once. This comes in ver handy when at the craft store too. It’s easy to pull up a pattern to see what supplies you will need.

Of course when crafting I still have a need to make notes, especially with my yarn projects. I count rows, specify where I made changes etc. That’s where my Crafts Bullet Journal comes in! I make a separate page for each project, and make any notes there, I include things like what supplies I am using, keep track of row counts etc.

This is one of the best things I started doing. It’s not only helpful while making my project, but I can look back on my notes if I ever want to make the same thing again. Also, if I ever stop midway through a project, when I pick it up again, I know exactly where I left off.

Would you give a system like this a try?