Okay, I’m actually writing this really late on Saturday night and I won’t lie: I’m a little tipsy. I went to a birthday party and I’m really tired and I’m not a big drinker so all of those things add up to a slightly more than tipsy DaniDo.

So, Sundays cue (the last one!) is going to be kinda weird, because I’m in a weird mood. Find me an article with a picture of someone with tattoos. Or of something related to tattoos. As some of you may know, I have tattoos and I even have a knitting tattoo and I’m sort of obsessed with them. So that’s what I want. I found at least one, so I know there is at least one. I won’t tell you what department.

That’s it! Our last scavenger cue for the big Handmadenews.org hunt! Tomorrow I’ll notify the winners of the contest.

Happy hunting ya’ll! Thanks for playing along, it’s been fun.

A bit late I know, I forgot to set this up before I went to bed last night. My apologies.

Today we are looking for an article that gives advice, tips, or strategies for someone pursuing their own crafting business.These types of articles are scattered all over the site but focus primarily in the Craft Business section.

Tomorrow is the last day of this contest but I want to thank all of you who have participated in this contest this week. On Monday I’ll email the winners and then announce them on the blog. However, just because the contest is ending doesn’t mean you should give up on Handmadenews.org, I hope that this contest has given all of you a chance to really dig around on the site and see the depth and breadth of the knowledge, passion and experience of the hard working editors and columnists over there. Dozens of articles get posted every single day so there is always something new to read.

Speaking of, if you haven’t seen it yet, I have a new article up this week as well; Expanding Your Horizons.

Happy Friday to you all! Today is going to be a bit trickier for you, I’ve been lobbing low and easy ones this week so far but today I’m going to make you dig a little. Here’s what I’m looking for: I’d like an article written by a columnist who is not from the U.S. This is going to require that you click on the little bio links at the tops of each of the department pages. I happen to know of at least 2 columnists who’s bio’s I’ve read recently who state very clearly that they’re not American so I know they exist. Please be sure to cite the article you found (link it in the comments please) as well as a note on where the author is from.

Also, for those of you on Twitter you may know about this little thing the Twitterverse does called Follow Friday (#followfriday), well today I’d really love for you all to follow Handmadenews.org on twitter! This way you’ll get great updates via twitter when a new and interesting article is posted on the site. Their twitter name is handmade_news, the underscore is very important. Also, if you tweet about this contest tomorrow and use the hash tag #hmn or @handmade_news I will award you double entries! (You gotta let me know somehow though.)

This baby is winding to a close quick, the hunt will be over on Sunday so make sure to get your entries in now and to tweet, plurk or otherwise promote the contest or Handmadenews.org in general for those extra entries.

We will be awarding 3 different prizes:

1st place prize will go to the person who did the most scavenger cues (starting on Monday and going through Sunday) and extra entry opportunities (so the person with the most entries in general) 1st place gets to pick which one of the prizes they’d like first.

2nd place will go to the person who has the second most entries and will get second pick of prizes

and 3rd place will be randomly drawn by the random number generator (but 1st and 2nd place winners will be removed from this drawing) and will get 3rd pick of the prizes. There are 5 prizes currently up for grabs so there will still be a pretty good selection even for 3rd place.

To recap what our fabulous prizes are:

1) A hank of my hand spun or hand dyed yarn or rovings (see my Etsy shop or my ArtFire Shop for examples)

2) A hand knit mug cozy or scarflette (again, see my shops for examples of these items), this item will be custom made for you based on your preferences for color/fiber.

3) A copy of The Intentional Spinner by Judith MacKenzie McCuin, brand new. (This is a fantastic book, I just happen to have a spare copy)

4) Fellow Inspiration columnist and jewelry maven Lori from Risky Beads is offering a free pendant from her shop as well!

5) My editor, Paula, of Picard Creative, has graciously donated 2 handmade art journals that are pocket or purse sized.

So there you have it!

Happy Hunting!

Happy Thursday all! So today you’re looking for an article on Handmadenews.org about time management, decluttering, organization or workspace environments. There’s no specific department for these types of things, though I’ve seen several articles that cover these concepts all over the site. Shouldn’t be too hard to find.

So far NO ONE has asked for their extra entries for plurking, tweeting or blogging about this contest yet. What are you guys waiting for?!? It’s free entries essentially! All you have to do is mention this contest (and link to it) on any of your social networking sites, then let me know and you’ll get an extra entry into the contest.

We’re going to have more than one winner too, by the way since several of the lovely ladies of the Inspiration Department have offered up goodies from their own shops. So, please tell people about this, we WANT to give you guys free stuff! C’mon, what’s better than free stuff? Nothing. If you promote this on your twitter simply add @danidocrafty to your tweet and I’ll see that you did it. Blogs and plurks require you to email me the URL link.

I really hope you all are enjoying the new articles up on HandMadeNews.org every day. I’m thrilled to be apart of this team and I love reading my fellow columnists insights each day. That in mind, let me give myself a tiny little plug here too: I’ve got a new article up in my New Pathways to Inspiration series that you may want to check out.

Good morning! Today I want you to look for an article about crafting ‘greenly’. I’m looking for eco friendly or environmentally conscious designs, designers, crafts, supplies, techniques, etc. Go to Handmadenews.org and poke through the articles until you find something truly eco friendly. (Hint, there is a Green Wise Department) Speaking of the Green Wise department, Wonder Webmistress Amy is their newest columnist! Everyone be sure to congratulate Amy in the comments here when you post your ‘green’ entry and keep an eye out for her articles in that department very soon! Be sure to link to the article in the comments section to get your prize entry!

We’ve also added a new prize to the list as well! Paula, my fabulous editor, has graciously offered up hand made art journals as prizes. Paula does wonderful collage art and fantastic buttons. Check them out at Picard Creative.

Also, be sure to email me at daniella@danido.com if you tweet, plurk, blog or otherwise promote this blog or handmadenews.org in some way; you’ll get extra entries into the contest.

Happy Hunting!

Good morning! Today I’m looking for an article that inspires you somehow. (Hint: you may want to start looking in the Inspiration Department) It doesn’t have to originate in the Inspiration Department, I can assure you there is plenty of inspiring articles on other parts of the site, but since that happens to be where I ‘live’ I’d of course recommend starting there.

In your comment linking to the article tell me how or why it inspired you, please.

The lucky winner of the One Beat sock yarn give away is Adrienne! She has been notified, but in the meantime check out her blog and her GORGEOUS knitting AND she has sock patterns for free and for sale. I used random.org to generate the winning entry number. Congrats to Adrienne!

Now that that contest is over, I’d like to announce another contest I’ll be running but this one is a little different. As many of you know I’ve recently begun writing for handmadenews.org which is a great cross-crafty news site. I write for the inspiration department but the entire site is chock full of wonderful articles, ideas and inspiration. It’s a relatively new site and all of the columnists and editors are working hard to share our knowledge and love of the handmade movement with the rest of the crafting community, so I’m going to try and do my little part here: I’m hosting a give away to promote the site!

Here’s how it’s going to work; it’s sort of like a scavenger hunt for great news articles. Each day for the next week (starting today going through Sunday May 31st) I’m going to post a new item I want you to look for on the site. It’s just going to be a general guideline; like ‘Find an article about unusual supplies’ or ‘Find an article from a columnist who is also a knitter’. This will be a great way for you guys to really delve into the site and get into all the great information there is there. Every day that you comment on the blog post that gives you the thing to hunt for you will get an entry into the contest. You can also earn extra entries by blogging, tweeting, plurking or otherwise promoting this contest OR handmadenews.org in general. In order to get the extra entries you must email me at daniella@danido.com with a link to where you posted about the contest or site.

Here’s the cool thing though; there’s no specific ‘right’ answer that I’m looking for so there may be multiple articles that correspond to the direction I give you. So you can enter more than once per hunting question! Tons of new articles are posted every day on the site so you’ve got a great pool to search from in a dozen different departments. Entries will close at midnight PST the day I post the hunting question though; so you can’t come back at the end of the week and enter for each day, the point here is to go to handmadenews.org each day to read the new articles that are posted.

And now for the good part: what you win! Because Hand Made News is a truly diverse crafting community and because I’d like this contest to have broad base appeal the winner will have a choice of prizes:

1) A hank of my hand spun or hand dyed yarn or rovings (see my Etsy shop or my ArtFire Shop for examples)

2) A hand knit mug cozy or scarflette (again, see my shops for examples of these items), this item will be custom made for you based on your preferences for color/fiber.

3) A copy of The Intentional Spinner by Judith MacKenzie McCuin, brand new. (This is a fantastic book, I just happen to have a spare copy)

4) JUST ADDED! Fellow Inspiration columnist and jewelry maven Lori from Risky Beads is offering a free pendant from her shop as well!

Or if there is something not listed here that is offered in my shops currently that you’d rather have (with exception of the sock club listings) it’s all fair game.

Remember, the trick to winning this contest is checking this blog every day for the hunting cue and then visiting handmadenews.org to read the articles and find one (or more!) articles that fit the description and then come back here and leave a comment on the corresponding blog post with the articles that you found that work.

Today’s hunting cue: (we’ll make it an easy one since the day is almost over already and it’s a holiday) Find me an article that describes the process of some kind of crafting project. This does NOT have to be a knitting related article! Really dig and see what you can find, try to find something that is new and interesting to you.

Check back tomorrow for a new hunting question!

I enjoyed being a collage graduate for about 15 minutes on Wednesday before immediately getting back to work. I’ve applied to the local university for the next set of degree programs; Sociology and Womens Studies and I’m hoping to start in the fall. In the meantime the Crafting Empire of Doom was long over due for some TLC so on Friday I did some shop restocking dying. Mostly fiber, with yarns to come shortly.

There are 2 superwash merino rovings, 2 bamboo/merino blends and 2 BFL rovings in there. Some of them are already up for sale in my Etsy Shop with the rest being added today/tomorrow-ish. My favorite is the one in the top left hand corner, it’s one of the superwash merino rovings and I just love how the hot pink and teal look next to each other. I kind of don’t want to sell it. It’s been in my shop for about 2 days now and no one has bought it, if it’s still there this time next week it may just ‘disappear’.

I also dyed this hank of my merino/nylon blend sock base for Knit Las Vegas regular, Rock Your Socks Off member and all around awesome lady; Donna Lee of Wee Couture.

You know I don’t normally ‘do’ pink but for some reason I’m really digging pink in my dying lately. I love this yarn, I was almost hoping Donna wouldn’t like it so I could keep it for myself. Of course, though, I’m thrilled she loved it and I can’t wait to see what she knits out of it. She does the most intricate and complex socks of anyone I know and everything she knits is absolutely exquisite. I’m super lucky she likes my yarns because she regularly buys and knits things from them.

Also, I’ve got several little hanks of handspun that are going to be sold as mug cozy kits in my shops as well:

They’re all between 30-50 yards a piece which is the perfect amount for one of my Mug Wraps. A great way to use up the ends of my bobbins I’ve found is to create these tiny little hanks of random bits and pieces of singles. They’re all one of a kind too. I thought it seemed like a good idea for mug cozies. Look for those in the shops this week too.

In other news: I’ve got a few more articles up on Handmadenews.org since the last time I posted if you wouldn’t mind checking them out I’d be oh so appreciative. On The Road and New Pathways to Inspiration – Swaps.

New things in the works:

• Starting up a new business venture with Wonder Webmistress Amy that involves soap for sensitive skin. More I dare not say until it’s all nailed down, but you can expect some news, products and information on that shop in the very near future.
• Also gearing up to start selling my items as part of a cooperative effort involving some of my favorite Phat Fiber folks who’ve started their own offshoot hyena cart shop.
• Working on getting supplies and organization down for a fiber club in the near or somewhat near future. I was aiming for June, but it looks like I may need to push it to closer to the Fall. Just not enough hours in the day.

I’m going to be attending the Estes Park Wool Market in mid June with bestie Christina Marie, I’m super looking forward to that. Hoping to catch up with a few Phatties in real life there and fondle some sheeps while I’m at it.

I’ll sneak a picture from graduation in here too, crappy Blackberry camera phone picture but I think it accurately captures the joy in our faces.

That’s my honey Mike and I in our ridiculous caps and gowns (and sashes and cords because we’re both honor students.) Glad it’s over and looking forward to getting started at university ASAP.

Oh! Contest winners for the hank of One Beat sock yarn will be announced tomorrow night, if you have any more sock patterns you’d like to share with me get them in now!

Things have been super hectic this week and all of a sudden it’s Wednesday and I don’t know where Monday and Tuesday went. I graduated on Monday (there are pictures, I just haven’t taken them off the camera yet) and I went to California on Tuesday to visit my grandmother who has been in the hospital since Saturday. She’s supposed to get sprung today, so everyone cross their fingers that she gets to go home today.

I’m going to be dying for June’s Rock Your Socks Off club members this weekend, and I’m happy to say we have a new member this month as well! If for whatever reason you’ve been putting if off but you really want to join if you buy a membership between now and Friday you can still get in on June’s club even though it’s after the 15th of the month already.

Also, please be sure to check out my articles on handmadenews.org, I’m the newest columnist for my department and I need all the help I can get. If you like one of my articles you can click the little thumbs up thingy at the bottom of the article to let me know it was a good article; if you feel particularly moved by it or think it would be of interest to others please take a moment to comment on the article or even forward the article to a friend or family member. Really want to help me out? Maybe pick up some advertising space on handmadenews.org and you can even get specific advertising on my page in particular.

This weeks articles are here and here. I am contracted for at least 2 articles a week so definitely keep checking my bio page for a current list of all my articles that are up.

Two awesome things today:
1) I was chummed on the Lime n’ Violetmach zehnder modulator blog!
2) My first article has posted to the Handmadenews.org site!

So, I’m going to just *squee* over here for a second and then get back to knitting. Please enjoy me on the internets today.