Hello all!!! I just finished a web page that highlights the Shu Brocade Factory that Diana and I went to in China. I brought home 3 stunning embroideries and recently decided to donate one of them to the Panda’s Unlimited silent auction for Tai Shan’s 3rd birthday bash in Washington DC!!

I’m so excited!!! I am planning to attend the dinner at the zoo and get to meet Tai Shan and family for the first time ever!!! Since I am going to be there anyway I was asked to give a short talk and slideshow about my trip to Chengdu. Woo Hoooooooo…nothing makes me happier than taking travel and pandas!!!! I’ll keep you all up to date on the event in July at the National Zoo!

Here is the link to the album so you can see the lengthy process that the artisans go through to make a single weaving. It blew us away. I’m so thrilled we were able to take photos. We really got the royal treatment at the Brocade studios. We were some of the only visitors that time of day.

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE EMBROIDERY AND THE PROCESS

Graffiti Gossip has had a serious facelift and I am still working on it..but I couldn’t wait to show you what I have so far!! The technology of blogging has BLOSSOMED since I created GRAFFITI GOSSIP 3 years ago…I mean it’s a whole different animal!!!

Steve was creating his own blog this week and was showing me all the fun plugins in and widgets and I couldn’t resist bringing my own blog up to date as well. Because photography is such an integral part of my blogging I wanted to find a way to incorporate my Flickr albums here as well. OH BOY…they had a widget for that too!!! Woo Hoo!!! Flickr is the worlds premier photo sharing website in the world.

Below is a list of all the changes so far with more fun stuff to come. I still need to design a header/banner but that will come in time.

NEW BLOG FEATURES INCLUDE:

• EASY TO FIND ORANGE THOUGHT BUBBLES WHERE YOU CAN COMMENT ON EACH BLOG POST

• STARTING WITH MY NEWEST IMAGES AS OF TODAY…EVERY THUMBNAIL IMAGE IS CLICKABLE TO SEE LARGER AND VIEW DESCRIPTIONS

• EVERY IMAGE WHEN YOU ARRIVE AT THE LARGE VERSION HAS A COMMENT BOX BELOW IT WHICH IS INTEGRATED WITH MY FLICKER ACCOUNT. YOUR COMMENTS WILL SHOW UP IN THE BLOG AS WELL AS FLICKR WHICH IS FUN! THE IMAGE COMMENTS ARE DIFFERENT THAN THE POST COMMENTS WHICH YOU ACCESS VIA THE ORANGE THOUGHT BUBBLES
  

• IN THE LEFT HAND COLUMN TOWARD THE TOP IS AN 8 THUMBNAIL WIDGET SHOWING MY MOST RECENT IMAGE POSTINGS ON FLICKR. REFRESHING THE SCREEN WILL SHOW A DIFFERENT ASSORTMENT. CLICKING WILL TAKE YOU TO LARGER IMAGES AND DESCRIPTIONS

• YOUR MOST RECENT COMMENTS LEFT IN THE BLOG WILL BE IN THE LEFT COLUMN UNDER “YOUR GOSSIP” . HANDY WHEN I’M ON A TRIP AND THERE ARE LOTS OF NEW POSTS BEING MADE. YOU CAN SEE EASILY IF I HAVE REPLIED TO ANY OF THE COMMENTS THIS WAY TOO.

• LINKS TO MY ART AND MY PHOTOGRAPHY ARE ALSO IN THE LEFT HAND COLUMN

• POSTS ORGANIZED BY “TOPIC” AND MY ARCHIVES (OLD GOSSIP) TAKE UP LESS ROOM WITH PULLDOWN MENUS

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