Have you checked out LensHero yet? If not you should. I ran across it by accident killing time the other afternoon and was pretty impressed. It's a fairly straight forward system to help you choose a lens (or several) that fit your budget and your camera system. You can filter them by style of lens (macro/zoom/etc) or have the system suggest something for you. The results are nicely done and include photos of the lenses, your typical specs (aperature/stops), and weight/size information. The page for an individual lens has linked reviews and more technical information. The only thing they don't seem to offer is telling them what you have and suggesting lenses that would fill in the holes in your system, or a space to share photographs taken with a particular lens to get an idea of what's possible. Overall? I think my wallet may get a little lighter now that I've discovered more lenses than I knew existed for my camera. LensHero has the foundations of what looks like it's going to be a great site. They're also giving away some nice lenses and toys to kick off the launch of the site- but be quick. The contest ends on the 23rd though, so be quick.

For those of you that have been following me for a while- I spent some time writing tutorials for Instructables.com and really enjoyed it. I received an email a few weeks ago from one of the editors, wondering if she could use two of my older projects (fusible binding and color picking 101) for a potential ebook project.

And it's available now as an epub through the itunes store. (If you have a reader but epubs don't work for you- think about trying calibre, a free ebook organizer and converter.) You can also see the other projects in the book by vising this page at instructables. Thanks for including me with some other great projects, there are definitely some I want to try!

I need to start writing more- I've been neglecting this space a lot, and in truth I just don't have the same time I used to for making things. My dissertation and research have been taking up the largest portion of time, but as some of you know I stopped eating both gluten and most dairy a few years ago and my life has changed drastically when I no longer have access to convenience type foods. I'm now making and cooking almost everything I put in my mouth, and while it's a wonderful way to live it cuts hugely into my available time. I had originally started this writing to try and document my crafting and making, and at the time I was actively selling things on Etsy. That too has unfortunately fallen short.

I'm planning on re-purposing this space a bit, and starting to talk about some of the other adventures in "making" I've been working on. I've got several posts I'm working on about projects I've been involved in and some cool photography stuff. If you're still reading, I hope you'll stick with me.