I don’t know if you’ve seen this morning’s update over at craftzine yet, but publisher Dale Doughtery has announced that the current issue, CRAFT: 10, will be the last one in print.

I love the magazine, as both a reader and a contributor, and I am really sad to lose the beautiful look and feel of its pages and pages of cool features and projects. But I am so excited that the editorial team will be refocusing their considerable energies and talents on the craftzine website, updating it with tons more content and tutorials and bringing the best of the magazine online. And MAKE: magazine and their flagship event, Maker Faire, are going strong.

This is such a rough time for magazines; it seems like almost every month another one I liked, or in this case loved, announces bad news. But I am really glad that the CRAFT: online community will thrive. So many great magazines have abruptly vanished, taking their websites with them, leaving subscribers wondering… But as Dale said in his post, “We’re going online exclusively with CRAFT because that’s where we can best reach and serve our audience.” (And they’re refunding all subscription balances right away, too. ETA: Go here for the details — you can either finish out your subscription with issues of MAKE: or get a cash refund.)

What I’m most excited for is that Natalie Zee Drieu will be leading the new online CRAFT: site. More than anyone else I’ve ever known or worked with, she is equally and lavishly talented in the realms of both digital media and hands-on craft-making. I am so eager to see what she and everyone else at CRAFT: will be putting together for us! In the meantime, I will always treasure all my back issues, especially issue 10, which is out now and just fantastic.

As Diane asked this morning in a very thought-provoking post about what the bigger picture is here, as consumers dodge advertising, advertisers dwindle, and print magazines decline, “What do you do to support your favorites?” This has been on my mind quite a bit (both personally and professionally; my husband works in advertising, and more and more of the magazines I’ve contributed to as a writer are closing up shop, due largely to “diminishing interest among advertisers in print” as Dale put it) and never more so than since I heard the news about CRAFT:.

So, to start with, along with the buying and subscribing I always do, I am going to post more reviews myself — I have always loved writing books + magazines posts, but as I’ve mentioned about a million times, this year has been a whirlwind and the hours to do cool things like that over here have been few and far between. But going forward, I am planning to write up more of the ones I like best. I really want to support the community we’re all part of and do a better job of spotlighting the best things I see in print… and in this case, online too.

ps: a huge thank-you for the awesome comments on my books + buttons post so far! I can’t wait to draw the winners and I absolutely love the button stories people are sharing.