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"   Photo: Courtesy of Erica Domesek/ Laforce + Stevens  The well-documented DIY movement has many leaders, but Erica Domesek, founder of the site P.S.- I Made This\u2026, was long ago crowned its queen. And it looks like Domesek&amp;#039;s reign isn&amp;#039;t ending anytime soon. With a website relaunch in just a few days and the release of her second book\u2014P.S.-You&amp;#039;re Invited\u2026\u2014out on September 10, the prop-stylist-turned-craft-guru is set to inspire her followers with even more projects and products. Last week, we visited Domesek at her NYC office, where she gave us the lowdown on her latest projects\u2014and taught us a little DIY tutorial of our own.  The book is called &amp;#039;P.S.-You&amp;#039;re Invited\u2026&amp;#039; but to be clear, it&amp;#039;s not just about entertaining, right? It&amp;#039;s not about entertaining at all. It&amp;#039;s an invitation to celebrate life. I always say, &amp;quot;You don&amp;#039;t have to wait for a get together to get it together.&amp;quot; It could be a girls night in with your friends, it could be a birthday party, or it could be just a moment for yourself. This is your second book in three years. What was the impetus for round two? Over a year and a half ago, I was on an airplane. I had the idea, and I started drawing. I knew I wanted to show some type of editorial, but instead of having credits for the shoes, the dress, and the chandelier, there would be instructions on how to create those things. You talk about &amp;quot;crafternoons&amp;quot; quite a bit. You should really trademark that word. The idea for P.S.- I Made This\u2026 came from a real-life crafternoon, right? It did\u2014my girlfriends came over and we were making necklaces. I always say, &amp;quot;Don&amp;#039;t do it yourself, do it together.&amp;quot; You have more fun doing it with your friends, and there&amp;#039;s always someone who&amp;#039;s a bit more artistic and has more skill. They can help out. You&amp;#039;re great at taking ordinary objects and making them, well, extraordinary. What&amp;#039;s one thing you&amp;#039;ve taken from obscurity and made into something cool? A couple of years ago I was out in Montauk, and there&amp;#039;s a store there called A Little Bit of Everything. And yes, it has a little bit of everything. There were these little parachute men in this amazing bright turquoise color\u2014they were maybe 50 cents each. For some reason it made me think of those turquoise necklaces that kind of come down into a horseshoe, you know what I&amp;#039;m talking about? So I bought all of them and I made a necklace. We did it as a project on the site. Personally, I&amp;#039;ve made crazy stuff. Like what? I love to cook and bake. Last October, I made a skull cake for my friend&amp;#039;s birthday. It was a rice crispy skull with sugar flowers in the hair\u2014very Frida Kahlo. I couldn&amp;#039;t give it to him because [hurricane] Sandy came along. So ended up eating it myself locked inside my apartment! What would you say to someone who isn&amp;#039;t the craftiest? What&amp;#039;s a good starter project? Like I said before, if you&amp;#039;re a little intimidated, don&amp;#039;t do something by yourself. Ask a friend to help you out. Call on someone whose eye you trust. The project that we&amp;#039;re working on today is in collaboration with Swarovski. You&amp;#039;ve partnered with them quite a bit since launching the site in 2009. I met the guys at Swarovski a few years back\u2014I&amp;#039;ve been a fan of the brand since I could pronounce the word Swarovski. You feel regal saying those three syllables. And what girl doesn&amp;#039;t love to sparkle and shine? I love using their products, and one of the chapters in the book is about glitz and glam. I knew I wanted to do a statement piece using Swarovski crystals. I thought, how can you infuse this into something that&amp;#039;s five steps or less and also stands out? The idea behind the project was making a fun, bold statement necklace. Where can someone buy cup chain [used in this DIY project]? Anywhere. Go online. Hundreds of places: bead stores, the list goes on. You just have to be careful, you want to get the right stuff. There are products that are not real cut crystal\u2014this looks expensive, is gorgeous, and will outshine anything else. You have very distinct style\u2014lots of mixed prints and tons of color. When you get up in the morning and choose your outfit, what goes through your mind? It&amp;#039;s funny, I always joke to my good friend [What Not to Wear host] Stacy London that I can&amp;#039;t dress myself. But overall, I would say that my style is very girly but still bohemian in the sense that I layer a lot, and I love to mix patterns and colors. Yet there&amp;#039;s a 1950s girl in me who loves the fit and flare; I love volume. I&amp;#039;m a big dress person, and for me more is more. When I go out, I always want to be wearing some bold piece. And I&amp;#039;m not the type of person to plan outfits. For me, fashion is a no-plan plan. I guess it ultimately ends up working after a couple things land on the floor. And by a couple I mean, like, 10. So what&amp;#039;s next for you? Book tour? The book comes out September 10, and we&amp;#039;re doing events in New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Philadelphia, Toronto...the list goes on. We&amp;#039;re launching a line with Swiss Army knives this fall at West Elm. We&amp;#039;ve also partnered with Bloomingdale&amp;#039;s to release DIY kits with their brand Aqua. One is a statement necklace, and other comes with cup chain and crystal studs to add to a really cool grey sweatshirt. Finally, we&amp;#039;ve noticed you like to cook\u2014and photograph your food. Could the next book be &amp;#039;P.S.-I Ate This\u2026&amp;#039;?! That&amp;#039;s like asking a woman after she just gave birth, &amp;quot;Are you going to have another baby?&amp;quot; I am so proud of this book. My team is amazing, and I would not have been able to do a tenth of it without them. But I am not thinking about another book. Yet. Get Domesek&amp;#039;s tutorial on how to make a statement necklace with Swarovski crystals here.  Photo: Courtesy of Erica Domesek/ Laforce + Stevens "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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