this is what i'm looking at right now. not blogged much the past few days because work has been crazy busy, so i've been really tired, and crafting has pretty much been non-existant. except for the stuff i've had to do for work that is (i'm a children's & youth work volunteer).
so instead of pretty crafty pictures you get to look at my computer. my lovely shiny ibook g4 :) because i've just spent the last hour or so playing about with my links list (psst, over there ->) which i thought i would explain a bit about. friends links are basically etsy/crafty type people i know who have blogs and make cool stuffs that you may or may not be interested in. astareal is my friend ses's new business and she makes gorgeous jewellery and custom made felted dreadlocks. lupin makes lovely little things out of felt, including fake moustache disguises, one of which i bought for my friend jo and unfortunately had to post out before i could take a pic to put up on here. she also makes cool recycled map stationery, which i also bought for my friend sarah, as we are both map junkies. we would love to own some of bombus's decoupaged furniture. i shall save some of the others for a bit of a spotlight some other day when i am feeling too lazy to make anything myself to blog ;)
crafty links is full of the kind of stuff that inspires me. you already know about etsy, but one of my favourite websites is knitty.com for the amazingly cool and *free* knitting patterns. if you've seen me lugging around a red bit of knitting, it's supposed to be this. craftster is a brilliant (but very fast-moving) forum full of ideas and tutorials. instructables is again with the really easy to follow tutorials and instructions, and is more wide-ranging and techy than just craft.webcomics - i'm addicted to quite a few. it's my early morning ritual to go through them all as i'm still waking up. copper is my absolute favourite, but it's very infrequent so sign up for the email updates. diesel sweeties is probably the most relevant as it's all pixellated just like my craft, but if i had to choose a webcomic i would like to be in, it would be scarygoround. i just spent £40 on SGR books and this t-shirt, which i have been coveting for a while. my geekier compatriots will appreciate the humour (and idealistic but awkward romance) of xkcd.
and now we come to miscellanea. alice, who posts at wonderland, is a minor hero of mine (she stands next to john allison). her blog is all about videogames, the social internet, and she regularly trawls etsy for gaming craft, of which she was kind enough to feature some of my stuff a while ago. she is also going to be at game city in nottingham which i *really* want to go to, if just to see the godfather of tetris, mr alexey pajitnov himself. on a completely different subject, scarlet mist is an ethical ticket exchange - if you ever need a ticket for a sold out gig, or have a spare ticket you need to get rid of, i urge you to check this place out. i absolutely despise ticket touts (especially ebay ones), and this site has come through for me (as both a buyer and a seller) on many an occasion, and it will only get better the more people who use it. orisinal is the best place on the web for browser based games, and disposable media is the pdf mag i used to write and design for (check out issues 4-6 in the archives).
how on earth do you keep up with all these websites, i hear you ask? well that's the other thing i've been playing with today. OMEGAZOID always had an rss feed if you knew to look for it, but now we have a shiny new feedburner link (the little orange thing) to make it easy. if you look back at my screen in the pic, you'll see a program called newsfire that i use - it basically collects all the updates from all my favourite websites into the app so that i can see when people have posted without having to go to the site to check. it's very handy :) and now you can do it with OMEGAZOID! there's all sorts of readers, from downloadable programs, to widgets, to websites that do it for you, see what fits, and feel free to comment if you need any help :) alternatively, if all that sounds a bit too techy for you, you can also sign up to updates by email in the little form.
anyway i think that's far too much blogging for one night, this is obviously what happens when you let it all build up ;)
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