Everyone loves Etsy, but the site's overwhelming amount of stuff for sale can make it hard to drill down and find what you want. That's why we love The Storque, which serves as a curator for the site, picking out the best stuff and featuring sellers you might never find yourself. The blog recently highlighted sellers from Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and the UK; "the serious art of cute"; and Sherlock Holmes-styled old-school gadgets and Victorian fashion. The blog's Shop Local feature finds sellers in your neighborhood, while Get the Look: Décor helps you find the perfect Etsy items to create a new style in your home.

Launched by a former Domino editor (so you know it's good), Lonny Magazine is an online-only home magazine. Read each free issue online, flipping the pages and all. The Winter 2009 issue is available online now and includes features on eco-chic fashions, tips for decorating small spaces, a gift guide, and more. We love that Lonny Magazine champions bloggers and takes great advantage of its online-only format--every product featured has a clickable buy link, for instance.

Edible Geography finds obscure, interesting food stories from around the world. Each story reflects larger cultural themes: North Korean food diplomacy, for instance, and an ongoing series on quarantine. We especially like the post on cupcake gentrification, which explains that "a spatial analysis of cupcake proliferation could also reveal the flow of capital investment in cities." The posts are quirky and fascinating and invite readers to think about food in new ways.

So your mother-in-law gave you a tropical bath-and-body set--the trouble is, you hate the smell of coconut. Can you pass it on to your beach babe best friend? Find out at Regiftable.com, which is the ultimate holiday re-gifting etiquette guide. "Regifting has gained in popularity since comedian Jerry Seinfeld first coined the term a decade ago," the site explains, and "[e]ven the etiquette experts at the Emily Post Institute approve of the practice in some circumstances." They lay out the info you have to have before you regift ("Some gifts that are good candidates for regifting include good (unopened!) bottles of wine, new household items and inexpensive jewelry") and explain what's absolutely not okay to pass along to someone else ("Do you have to be told not to regift free promotional items?") Send in your own regifting stories, and vote for your favorites. And make sure to play "Guess the Regift"!

Each week, Dumb Little Man posts "a handful of tips that will save you money, increase your productivity, or simply keep you sane." Posts cover everything from DIY and how-to (6 smart Gmail tricks to help you get the most out of it, how to take care of other people's kids) to productivity (seven ways to create more time in your day, 47 ways to fine-tune your brain) to freelancing (an entrepreneur's guide to setting service rates, seven great VoIP alternatives to Skype). There's something for everyone here, but if you'd like to offer up your own advice, you can submit an article for possible publication.

At Cool Mom Picks, real-life moms "track down cool stuff so you can stay busy being fabulous. We know cool stuff doesn't make the mom, but it certainly helps make life a little better." The moms aren't compensated for their reviews and "have a soft spot for non-mainstream products and services, particularly those from indie or emerging designers and mom/women-run companies." This year's holiday gift guide includes quirky kids' presents like a personalized rock star coloring book and a furnished green dollhouse with recycling bins and solar panels--plus gifts in other categories like "Your Tween Nephew Who's Hipper Than You'll Ever Hope to Be" and "Your Sister and Best Friend Who's a Million Miles Away." They also do an annual baby shower guide. And throughout the site, items are tagged with categories like "For the menfolk" and "Strollers and stroller-y things." You'll definitely come away with inspiration for great gifts, plus a few things to pick up for yourself.

Inexpensively combines ways to save, deal alerts, grocery best buys, and coupons into one very useful money-saving site. A network of bloggers covers ways to save on living, eating, shopping, sharing, and going green; we like the Christmas countdown with frugal holiday ideas (like gift wrap alternatives and inexpensive holiday decorating) for every day through December 25. And in the Grocery Best Buys section, weekly shopping lists match current coupons to grocery store sales. Each week, Inexpensively hosts Money Saving Monday, where bloggers are invited to share their frugal ideas about a given theme. The site is looking for bloggers nationwide to join its network.

Make's motto is "technology on your time," and it's for "the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things..." The blog celebrates bending technology to create exciting projects at home. To give you a few examples of what that means, there is an entire category of crafts you can make from Altoids tins, including this small electronics kit and a tacklebox. Learn to turn unsightly cables into design, or make iPhone home button earrings. And don't miss the many fun guides and roundups, including the "ischief Maker's Guide, which is full of "gift ideas for your favorite creative skeptic, guerrilla artist, or depressed teenager," and the gift guide for scientists and chemistry fans.

Where did the word "dude" come from? Why is "front seat" two words when "backseat" is one word? Can you use "y'all" in writing? If these are the kinds of questions that keep you up at night--or if you just want a little trivia to share at your next holiday party--then The Grammarphobia Blog is for you. It's written by two former New York Times editors who are also the authors of grammar and writing books Words Fail Me and Woe Is I and columnists for the NYT's "On Language" column. It's a definite destination for the word-obsessed. Don't miss the e-mail IQ test and debunked grammar myths--for example, it's okay to end a sentence with a preposition (phew!).

The classic radio shows you (or your grandparents) may remember from childhood are now in the public domain and reincarnated as MP3s, so a new generation can listen to these blasts from the past. We like two blogs that highlight old episodes. At new blog A Mind Forever Wandering Old Time Radio, author Jeff McAleer explains, "Today, in an era of mushrooming media variety, it is hard to grasp the fact that nearly 75 years ago, in a nation of 120 million, 90 million people tuned into The Eddie Cantor Show Sunday nights at 8. It was a time when movies had to end before 7 P.M. because Amos 'n' Andy was about to come on, and when followers of Gangbusters helped in the capture of more than 300 fugitive criminals....no matter what your poison might be you'll find it in OTR if you give it a chance...I encourage everyone to 'tune in' their favorite streaming mp3 player and spend some time listening to the magic of OTR and let it take hold of your imagination as it draws you in." Download episodes of "Jonathan Thomas and His Christmas on the Moon" from 1938 and sports newsreels from the 40s. Meanwhile, Master of My Public Domain is "a Guide to all things Nostalgic available online; including Public Domain Movies, TV shows, and Old Time Radio shows." We love the 1940s horror films and the old episodes of Christmas show Cinnamon Bear.

"Living the First Class Life...at Coach Prices" is the motto for Upgrade: Travel Better. The blog is aimed at "the traveler looking to maximize comfort, style, and convenience, while getting a great deal," and what makes it so useful is that it focuses on "the mechanics of travel, seen from a consumer's point of view." There's no fluffy travel writing here. Instead, Upgrade: Travel Better focuses on deals (tips on finding discounted first-class fares, where to find cheap last-minute or emergency plane tickets), tips and advice (how to lounge in airports, how to avoid airport rental markups). Don't miss "Five ways to get an edge over other air travelers"--for example, try calling an airline's 800 number from the airport instead of waiting in a long line at the customer service desk.

Talk about magic bullets: Gift Hero is a website, shop, and blog founded by two moms who've "spent too much time staring at the overwhelming, yet unsatisfying selection of toys in our local stores and at big online retailers trying to find that perfect gift...a gift we felt good about giving and the birthday child (and her mom) would love. We felt there had to be a better, easier, more convenient way." At the site, you can search for a gift by age, gender, and price, then buy it directly; all the items sold on the site are tested by kids and parents. The Gift Hero blog covers some favorite toys (recently: wood-like soft blocks, top holiday picks, and gifts for 2-year-olds). And Gift Hero is also involved with local charities, getting toys to kids whose families can't afford them.

Quite simply, reading Crucial Minutiae makes you feel smart. This group blog is "about the small things around us everyday. Some pieces are too small to take notice of, by themselves, but over time become part of the larger, crucial puzzle of culture and society." Contributors include journalists from Newsweek, the New York Times, and other well-known publications. Topics covered are incredibly wide-ranging, covering everything from a Texas teen sexual health summit to Obama and technology to swine flu to street art. It's a great place to get a little bit of knowledge about a lot of things.

Call it an untraditional self-help site: Rather than sticking to a small set of topics, PickTheBrain Blog covers "anything related to self improvement." The blog chunks advice up into easily digestible lists--for example, the 5 signs your diet plan will last, 10 very common stupid tricks that wreck a good life, and 5 simple ways to increase intelligence. Most posts fall into a broader category: Motivation, Productivity, Psychology, Money, Health, Education, or Self-Improvement. PickTheBrain also reviews other self-help books and products and has how-to guides on meditating, learning a foreign language, and more.