Friends

renaissance2010
Turning to photography as a creative outlet during a valiant fight with breast cancer at age 34, renaissance10 survived and set up a photo contest to help raise funds for the Lavender Trust, a nonprofit that provides information and support to younger women with breast cancer. In the first two years, the competition brought in over £65,000 (that's $107,260.73 U.S.!), with entries from 130 countries last year. Renaissance10 recently joined LiveJournal to meet other passionate photographers and find supportive friends.

curiouscupcakes
Holy buttercream frosting! If you have a sweet tooth for sugary goodness or a wandering eye for whimsical confection, this is pure ecstasy iced in deliciousness. Hailing the beloved cupcake as the artisinal canvas of choice, you'll enjoy recipes, photos, and bountiful tips to bake up a batch, whether your taste leans toward French classics or funky and flavorful.

mission101
With New Years in the offing, it's an ideal time to reflect on past accomplishments, make peace with disappointments, and refocus the lens on future goals. This community welcomes you to create a bucket list of 101 things you plan to accomplish in the next 1,001 days. Offering support, guidance, and inspiration, this is a great way to jumpstart those pesky resolutions.

I would like to bounce ideas off people. I have a project that I think would be suited to Pennsic. (Though I may pretest a version at one of the larger weekend events)

I want to do a Spice tasting and education on those used in period. (I live in NYC I can get many of the odd spices for much less money than others can as well as different versions of things)

( Cut for those with no interest in this )
So has anyone run something like this or gone to a tasting class?
Do you think it’s a good idea?
Would you go if it was convenient?
What would you change?

To those to whom these words come, greetings from Olwynn ni Chinneidigh, Laurel Queen of Arms and Juliana de Luna, Palimpsest Herald.

The Laurel office is starting to review our policies and procedures for submissions. We expect that the eventual outcome will be a complete rewrite of the Rules for Submissions.

To start this process, we're asking the populace and heralds to give us feedback about the heraldic submissions process and how it should work. A survey which asks some basic questions can be found at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GLJZDDZ ; we'd appreciate it if interested people would take time to answer the questions there. Anyone can complete this; we promise to read all answers. We expect the survey to take fifteen to twenty minutes. Additional comments about or ideas for this process can be sent to rules@heraldry.sca.org.
We have several goals for this process:
- to make the Rules for Submissions easier to use for heralds and submitters alike
- to reduce discrepancies between the Rules as written and the rules as applied
- to reflect on the degree of authenticity we want for the registration process and how best to codify rules to evaluate it
- to reconsider the level of difference we should require between names and devices for registration

In all areas, the Society for Creative Anachronism has moved towards progressively better understandings of what people did in our period. Given this, we are not interested in discussing rules changes that would substantially lower our standards for registration of names and armory. But we are interested in exploring ways to make it easier for people register items that are in period style, whether or not they fit the rules as they currently exist. We welcome ideas about how to do that from all sources.
We look forward to hearing from you! The deadline for the survey is January 31; we will continue to accept comments by e-mail until the review of the rules is completed. Please forward this message to other mailing lists, so that as many people as possible can respond.

Juliana and Olwynn

NOTE: I have attempted, deliberately to turn off comments on this post - the best way to have your suggestions and voice heard is to fill out the survey and/or email to rules@heraldry.sca.org. When the time comes for making decisions and changes, side discussions and comments may fall through the cracks, but the survey answers will be all in one place.

i_hope_that
For many of us, the holidays can be kind of rough. If you're searching for a network of understanding friends, this ultra-nurturing community encourages you to express your heartfelt wishes and offer other members encouragement and acceptance. Not for the terminally snarky or emotionally-challenged, this is a good-spirited place to lend comfort and support.

diygifts
Feeling crafty? If you've got a few last folks on your holiday gift list, this is a great place to seed your creativity and generosity. You'll also discover wonderful DIY tips to decorate your home and entertain guests. Offering a no-frills-no-skills attitude that welcomes the cash-challenged and arts-phobic, you're sure to get ideas and make friends in the process.

cooking_club
A fun and friendly community dedicated to those who love to cook, whether you're a meat-and-potatoes type, an aspiring gourmand, and/or a vegan. In search of a brilliant dish to use up those weekly leftovers? Post your ingredients and you'll be whipping up a feast by dinner. You can also share favorite recipes. For Type A chefs, you can spice up your culinary repertoire with exciting cooking challenges.

stepstomarrow
When granddaughter, Jada, was born with leukemia, a donor-match was located and Jada made a miraculous recovery. In honor of her grandaughter's health, Jeanna has decided to walk across the country (in the dead of winter) to raise awareness and build support for the bone marrow registry (all that's required is a cheek swab). Follow Jeanna's remarkable journey as she travels the United States by foot.

Every day the Met has an Artwork of the Day. About a third of them are pre 1600 works. One of the best things about it is that if you click though it has a lovely zoom feature to really get a good close up view of details.

I started an LJ feed for it last year. It perodicly blanks out past feeds im not sure why.

Here are examples of works from the past month.


Scene from the Life of Saint Nicholas, ca. 1200–1210



Saint Barbara, ca. 1490



Plate with the Battle of David and Goliath, 629–630