Year One

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Today Travelcraft Journal turns one! I pubished the first post one year ago today. I was excited about finding and sharing ways to be creative and explore the world around us – even in the midst of real life busyness and constraints. I didn’t know where this little blog project would go, but I felt optimistic. A year later, I am thrilled and grateful at where the journey has already taken me and still excited about what’s next.

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Setting up camp at Lakeside

Over the past year, I gave you some tips on packing, booking flights, and airfare refunds. I shared some of my adventures with you, like Colorado road trippingintroducing our Chinese friends to camping, a whirlwind(y) tour of Chicagosneaking into Arcosanti – despite tales of angry naked hippies – and living to return for breakfast another day.

Closer to home, we explored the Phoenix area – taking side streets, checking out a travel expohiking South Mountain and looking for the last spring wildflowers, reluctantly enjoying brunch, seeing festive lights and maybe wolves at Glendale Glitters, getting lost in a museum full of Arts & Flowers, and, of course, the time we started out on a new hike and I ended the evening exiting the restroom to roaring applause. (Just one of many proud moments this year.)

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I also shared some things I made – a paper bag journalupcycled gift tagsflowers pressed while traveling, super sangria, a desk fortPeruvian bean chili, and mini envelopes. I presented on DIY gift bags at Craft Hack and travel journals at Southwest Maker Fest. But I always encouraged you to stop the DIY guilt. Make what makes you happy and don’t let anyone tell you to do more or less than that.

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Sailboats on Lake Michigan.

Only a few weeks after starting the site, I decided to go to Chicago for the BlogHer Annual Conference. I learned a ton about blogging and book publishing and met so many amazing people, including randomly bumping into one of the founders – twice. In between those two meetings, I had the idea that a session on blog design might be helpful to a lot of people, so I suggested it to her. That topic idea morphed into a mobile design talk at BlogHer Pro that fall. I’ll be speaking again when I return to the annual conference this July.

The Golden Gate Bridge over the San Francisco Bay

In the meantime, I talked to a friend about my idea for writing travel books and realized I needed to hone my voice and idea before pursuing it. But it’s still something I plan to do.

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Water lily pond, Denver, CO

After seeing a panel at BlogHer that included the founder of Brit + Co., I started following the creative living site on Twitter. When they tweeted that they were looking for freelance contributors, I submitted an application and began this process that ended up stretching out about two months. Finally, I was accepted as part of the contributor team, and I continue to write for them on food, tech, and DIY topics.

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Recently, I launched a newsletter with Travelcraft Journal highlights and free goodies. We were granted our first media pass for Phoenix Comicon. (I know I acted in my last post like it wasn’t a big deal. But I’m actually really proud of it.)

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And now here were are, celebrating Year One! Wanna join the party? Enjoy a favorite treat in a favorite place and post a photo on Instagram with the hashtag #tcjturns1. (Or post it elsewhere and link to it in the comments.) If you message me your address, I’ll send you a nifty Travelcraft Journal sticker. Consider it a party favor and a thank you for being part of this community, because, really, you guys rock!

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Southwest Maker Fest wrap up

 Southwest Maker Fest

So Southwest Maker Fest turned out to be eclectic and awesome. They had a street (or maybe it was two) in downtown Mesa blocked off for a live music stage and a whole variety of booths. In a matter of minutes, you could stroll by an open-source car, handmade flutes, geeks with 3D printers running, and an overalled man showing people how to weld.

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There were presentations and demonstrations going on throughout the day at nearby venues. I gave my travel journal talk at an art gallery/event space.

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Afterwards, I went to help out at the Gangplank booth for a bit. (Yep, I was one of the geeks at one of the 3D-printer-equipped booths.) I did my best to answer people’s questions about the collaborative workspace – but there’s really more going on there than I can keep up with.

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By the time I was done there, I was so tired and hungry. Phillip and I took a quick tour of the booths on our way out, but we weren’t able to engage as much as we would’ve liked.

I’ll have to learn to weld another day.

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All in all, it was a good start for Southwest Maker Fest and great to see a sampling of Phoenix’s diverse maker community come out of the woodwork and get together. I’m looking forward to the next event.

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If you weren’t able to be there this year, you can get on the list to be notified about next year’s event. I’ll also be presenting about travel journals again at Craft Hack in May (watch the Facebook page or sign up for the Travelcraft Journal newsletter for details).

Photo of my talk by Trish Gillam.

Postcards from Travelcraft Journal

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I know you’re really busy. And you probably don’t have time to read every Travelcraft Journal post.

So I thought I’d help you out and make a monthly summary of the highlights, plus some extra goodies that you’ll see there first. We’ll call it a newsletter. But really it’ll be more like a collection of little postcards.

The first one will include Travel Expo tickets and travel scrapbooking checklists. And it’s coming out this week!

So get in on the ground floor and sign up here…


Maker Fest, BlogHer + blog news

Like I said, I have things to tell you guys!

Let’s start with things that have dates (especially the one coming up tomorrow) and move on to blog updates. Sound good? (No? Then just read in whatever order you want.)

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1. Southwest Maker Fest

Tomorrow is the first-ever Southwest Maker Fest! It’s a free one-day event in downtown Mesa with singing robots, quilts, and possibly a collaborative welding project. (I know! Intriguing yet terrifying! You should definitely go.) I’ll be doing a workshop on making travel journals at noon at OneOhOne gallery. (Full program.)

I’m told the Maker Fest will have lots of kid-friendly stuff – as well as dangerous stuff, which kids also like. spark! Mesa’s Festival of Creativity will be going on at the Mesa Arts Center through Sunday, and it’s also free, so you can stop over there too.

 

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2. BlogHer

Coming up this summer, I’ll be speaking at BlogHer. The conference I spoke at in October was BlogHer Pro, which is for people using their blogs for business. This one is the big conference – for all the bloggers. So…maybe even more terrifying than collaborative welding. (Saying yes often is.) But I’m in a break out session, so I keep telling myself there won’t be more people in the room than at Pro. Probably.

Me with my BlogHer Pro speaker badge

3. About Abouts

Also, I updated the About page, so now there are separate pages for About Travelcraft Journal and About Me. The About Me page is probably more information than you ever cared to know, but I needed somewhere to put all that. I’m finding myself in more and more situations where my graphic design business (Bold Avenue) and this blog (Travelcraft Journal – or TCJ for you insiders) are both relevant, so I needed a place to talk about different aspects of what I do and explain the connection. I might change this up later as I continue to spruce things up around here (it’s like blog spring cleaning!), but, for now, that’s what’s happening.

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4. Comments welcome!

I realized a plugin I was using to include social media comments was requiring a login and making it a pain to post a comment here. Sorry about that. That barrier is removed now, so comment away! (I mean, be respectful to others and not spammy. Other than that, comment away!)

OK, so that’s way more about me in one day than I’m comfortable with. What about you? Now that commenting is easier, tell me something you’re up to. Also, I’m working on an FAQ page, so let me know if you have any Qs.

 

Southwest Maker Fest logo via Southwest Maker Fest. (Surprise.)