Thanks to a follow on Twitter, I recently joined the Hand Made Artist Forum. They are a wonderful group of people, who take the time to comment on each others works in the parts of the forum to show off crafts. There are also Etsy and Artfire teams for HAF (Handmade Artist Forum) members who have shops on those sites. I've gotten some really useful advice from HAF members on things to look into for setting up my own online shop someday.







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Because my last journal entry was April lol. Not that I really wrote much poetry, but I at least got to do one of the craft projects.

Crafts for May: [link] - Artisan Craft Club's journal entry on the subject. Up for this month are pirate chests and market bags. Both sound like fun.

Also for this month I'm going to try and put a tutorial or two together with wire working, and maybe jewelry making (with the bead stringing wire). I've been jotting down notes with some ideas of what to include, and am deciding how many pictures may be needed. I'm thinking it'll be good to include the various tools I use, some of which work well with regular wire work and with the bead stringing wire.

I'll probably also be going through some of my crafting supplies as we start packing up our stuff. The hubby and I have a potential closing date of July 31st on the house we offered on. The inspection is Monday, and we are moving forward on the various steps. This time will be good to go through my craft supplies and see what stuff I'm really using, things I want but aren't using often can get packed up, while other stuff I can donate. After "piercing" my ring finger knuckle with memory wire this morning, the rest of it might get donated. I so seldom use it anyways.







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Happy April, spring is upon us (sort of), and green is starting to come back.

Some interesting goings on:

April crafts projects - via
Eggs and found items, both projects sound like plenty of fun.

National Poetry Writing Month - NaPoWriMo
Search around the literary section of DA to see works of people participating. Can you write a poem a day for the month? I've got one so far, and added "NaPoWriMo" to the key words.
If you are participating comment/note me, I'm going to be working on a list of participants.

FAQ #95: What is the Critique Feature and how do I use it?
New Critique feature, looks pretty cool.







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Not there's anything wrong with Mudkips, but everyone having the same avatar was weird and things didn't quite switch back to normal as easily once the joke was over (like user icons in journals).



I took a screen shot of the little icon, kind of cute. The screen shot on the left is at max zoom for Fire Fox.







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club has posted about their March Project. The project has two areas, origami and sock dolls. I've decided to do some origami for the month, which works with already working on my origami a day calender. I also got more origami paper while shopping yesterday. One of the packages of paper had some folding patterns, including the cube I just uploaded.







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I got to go to Shea's in Buffalo yesterday to see Mama Mia. Aside from a slow moving vehicle backing up traffic (a 'rescue' truck deal burning oil - looked like it belonged on fail blog), and the toll barrier taking awhile to get through traffic wasn't a problem. We even avoided the major part of Rochester's rush hour traffic. Plus the predicted snow held off, leaving the roads nice and dry.

The show itself was amazing. The songs were fun, and the acting was great. We missed a turn off heading to the theater, but still found where we were alright, and parked nearby. And amazingly we didn't hit monster back ups heading out of the city (hockey game and the theater last night lots of extra people downtown). And we even got back onto the expressway really easily, no getting turned around or anything. I'm glad I looked at Google maps before we went, so I knew the street we took over to the expressway was one way in the direction we needed.

Got home around 12:30 last night, ended up going to bed around 1am. It was so worth it though to see Mama Mia, and go to Shea's again.







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[link] - Found this on the today page, and I have to say it's a journal entry full of win.

And I've uploaded some snow textures over at my stock account if anyone's interested.








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Yay, I wrote my first Haiku for the month, and am pretty happy with it. I decided to not focus on the English syllable count. Rather I concentrated on the imagery and feel of a Haiku.

"The art of haiku is to frame reality in a single instant that will lock the poet and the reader into sharing the same experience. It is this thunderbolt-like encounter that has made haiku the poetry of zen - it is the voicing of those moment that cannot be described in prose or logic. This poetic form has breathing beauty and a moving elusive quality - reading it increases our sense of tranquility and joy."
~From The Little Book of Zen







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Omikuji Project

I'm thinking of signing up for this, and am debating between the electronic and print version.

From the website:
The Omikuji Project is an experiment in cyberfunded art. It is an old-fashioned approach to new-founded literature, the shortest path from author to reader. It is a secret and marvelous communication, a unique way for you to read stories unavailable in any other venue, in any other way. It is a network of tales, a community. It is whispering in the dark; it is a fireside confession.

It sounds like fun to sign up for something like that.







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I signed up for this for the first time, it looks like it's going to be fun. I've done the Haiku challenge over at Forward Motion before, but it'll be fun to do something literary over here on DA.

The news article has links with handy information about Haiku.

There was something else I was going to add, but it slipped my mind. I blame the post novel draft completion fuzziness.







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Playing along with the Today in my inbox project. Time is kind of short at the moment so here are a few deviations.










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Wow, long time since my last journal here. Anyways I wanted to post a bit about the new profile layouts for beta testers. Yes, I switched my already subbed account over to beta because of the new layouts. I'd been thinking about it anyways.

I love the ability to drag and drop different parts of the profile page around to choose where to have them. And the extra editing features on some of the sections are handy as well. It's cool to choose how many deviations to show for things like the gallery, favorites, and wish list. (now only if the wish list could randomize like favorites do). I'm still playing around with what works best for me when I'm on DA, and what looks nice for the layout.




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Just a random journal featuring craft stuff.

These are all deviations I've added to my craft collection, feel free to browse there as well.

Jewelry:


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Other Crafts:






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is hosting a   Purple Contest, and I entered the following deviations. I'm probably going to be entering some more things, once I get around to taking the pictures of them.







Wish me luck, and go enter.




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My in-laws are having a garage sale this weekend, and I inherited some bead stuffs yesterday when the hubby and I went over to help finish setting up. I got some cylindrical stone beads, some pretty wooden colored ones, and some silver findings. Plus some various rings, which will make fun accents.




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Yup, I created a stock account. ~twig7998stock

I figured some of my photographs might be fun for manipulations, so I created a stock account and have uploaded a few pictures.





That's what I've uploaded so far.




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Well, I went to the Lilac Festival yesterday, and I managed to take 146 pictures. So in the next few days I'll be uploading some of the nicer ones. Some shots are a little dark as the weather was fighting to keep the rain away.




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I've recently decided to try photo manipulation, and found it's pretty fun. I have been working on looking through the stock here on DA and adding pieces to my collection I think I might use at some point in time, or might be handy for other manipulators.

After some thinking I decided to post a list in my journal of all the accounts of stock creators who's work I've added to my collection. I usually find stock by browsing and searching, but it's nice to look through someone's gallery and see what else they have. At some point I'll probably feature particular stock pieces in my journal, but for now this post is more of a listing.

So far this is from the first two pages of my collection. Because I've favorited plenty of stock this might take awhile.

*Ahrum-Stock
~AJK-Original-Stock
~Amarli-stock
!andykirsty-stock
~archaemic
~archetype-stock
~Arctic-Sekai-Album
~arsenic-stock
~AtheyStock
~Atropo-Stock
!audpod
~awakenbydreams-stock
~AzurylipfesStock
~Beautelle-stock
~ben-stock
~BFP-Stock
~Black-Ofelia-Stock
~BreedStock
*B-SquaredStock
~CalAround
*CAStock
~CharadeStock *
~ChinchillaCheddar
~chop-stock
~Cococo-Stock
~cynstock
~Dark-Angels-Stock
~darkcalypso-stock
~DawnAllynnStock
~Dead-b1rdStock
~dead-brushes
!deathshadow391
~deio-kamots-stock
~DemoncherryStock
~detihw
~Deviantgazer *
~digital-amphetamine
~dk6-stock
~doko-stock
~Dragonic-Stock
~DungeonStock
~Ele-Stock
~EleuteraStock *
~emma-frost-stock
!enigma-57-stock *
~EverydayStock
!External-Textures
~fabemiko-stock
=Falln-Stock
`FantasyStock
`fetishfaerie-stock
~FoxStox
~freakystuffstock
!gaiastock
~gild-a-stock *
~gloomytoast
~Gracies-Stock
~GretchenGrajales
*Grinmir-stock
*Gwathiell
~HarleyBliss
~H-D-STOCK
~hellfirediva-stock
~idolhands
~iGEMZ
~Imm0rtal-St0ck
~Indra-stock
!Insanistock
~intano-stock
~Irie-Stock
~Iv4n4stock
~JacquiJax-Stock
~japanstocks
~johannachambers
~jojoba
~k0y0te
~KangrStock
~KelbelleStock
~kelpiehunterkai
~KornKidSamStock
=kuschelirmel-stock
!ladydetemps
~LestatImage-Stock
~lexidh-stock
~Lostfiniel
~lounalovegood-stock
~LovelyBStock
~M3-Productions
~MapleRose-stock
~mawstock
#MissyStock
`mjranum-stock
~MorganeLeFey-Stock
~NeigeBlanche-Stock
~nestrstock
~OmegaStock
~Peace-of-Art
~phantomhelena
~Photodream-stock
~PilgrimSoul
~pink69stock
~pointless-stock
~proverbs31stock
*quaddles
*Retoucher07030 *
~Rimete-Stock
~rioalba
~sadistik-stock
~sasuke4840-stock
*Sceptre63
~schatziswifey
~SephirothXer0-Stock
~SerapStock
~SerendipityStock
~setenay
~Shobie-stock
*SilvieT-Stock
~SimplyBackgrounds
~SnailLadyStocks
*somadjinn
=Annimouse
*steppelandstock
~Stickfishies-Stock
~stock4profs
!STP-stock
~SummerTime-Stock
~superlibbie
~Synthexstock
~Tearran
~Tefee-stock
~thiselectricheart
~togistock
~TwinkiexStocks
~two-ladies-stocks
~UmbraDeNoapte-Stock
~Vertasual
~Wicasa-stock
~Willowgayle-Stock
~WTDPOS
~XerStock
~NickiStock
*xxx-0x0-xxx
~zinzigraham-stock
~zyouki-stock


* Are accounts I've used stock from. Because I've only done two manips at this point there aren't to many stars yet.

*update* I went through the rest of my favorites and I think I have everyone on here now.




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The copics I ordered Sunday came in today. *is excited*.

Short entry as we have to clean up a bit before company comes over.

But still, 11 new colors for me, and some various ink of no color for the blender.




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Yes, I downloaded one of her journal CSS templates. I've also got some of her other templates in the feature box, and I recommend checking out her gallery. In addition to the CSS she also has avatars for people to use. Just make sure to read and follow the terms for using things she makes.





Well, the month of April is progress right along quite nicely. Hard to believe it's the 20th already. I can't wait for the month to be over, because May will be so much less stress for me. This is the last month of the class I'm taking, and things will also start to slow down at work to. Maybe I'll actually be able to be productive again at home.




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