NadoligLlawen/Merry Christmas to all our members ansd readers from AmeriCymru.

Today, we're excited to unveil the Aviary Extension..

Aviary provides a suite of creative online tools to help people create and improve upon photos, designs and audio clips. This Ning Extension allows you to edit photos directly inside the page. You can apply useful tweaks like cropping and red-eye reduction; edit the contrast, brightness and colors; add text to photos; and if youre feeling creative or playful you can add stickers as an overlay to put mustaches, hats and tons of other fun items directly onto the images of people in your photos.

If a picture is worth 1,000 words, imagine how many more words you will share when confronted with fun pictures like this:

Even more useful and fun: You can use the Ning Aviary Extension to apply these types of transformations to your profile photos, if you wish.

Whenever you hover your mouse over photos you are able to edit, youll see an option for Photo Stickers & Effects. Clicking that link will start up Aviarys editor and encourage you to apply updates, transformations and filters to your photo. Once youve completed the changes you want to make, click on Save and the modified photo will be saved back to the network.

This superb design, the official West Coast Eisteddfod: Welsh Festival of Arts 2011 t-shirt ( designed by Celtic Jackalope ) is available for purchase now from this site.

Simply send $25 ( if you are in the U.S. ) via PayPal using the 'Donate' button on the right hand column on this page. If you are outside the U.S. please send $34. Both amounts cover shipping costs ( U.S. and Global priority shipping ) THEN email your postal address to americymru@gmail.com . Please allow 2-3 weeks for shipping. A proportion of every sale goes to support the West Coast Eisteddfod: Welsh Festival of Arts.

Shirts are double sided with attractive large three-color back print and smaller version printed on the left chest. Shirts are high quality 5.5. oz pre shrunk 100% cotton.

Shirt designed by renowned Celtic Artist: Maxine Miller and produced by CelticJackalope.com.

For more information on Maxine Miller's Work and other CelticJckalope Products, please visit: http://celticjackalope.com

Madog Participants with Dafydd Iwan

A German explorer, John Lederer, came to the top of the Blue Ridge Mountains in 1669. He viewed the Shenandoah Valley hemmed on the eastern and western borders by an array of mountain ridges extending northward and southward as far as the eye could see. Reposing lengthwise in the center of this valley lay the Peaked Mountain or Massanutten Mountain. Between Jon Lederer and this Peaked Mountain lay a prairie across which wound the Shenandoah River, the beautiful Daughter of the Stars. On the east bank of the river the forest primeval waved its proud and haughty branches. *

It is in this breath-takingly beautiful setting that Cymdeithas Madog will hold its 35th annual summer course. Even when the surroundings are more prosaic, Cymdeithas Madog leaves a lasting impression on those who attend.

Much of that impact can be credited to our fine tutors, gathered from Wales and North America, who always have time to encourage and inspire course attendees with their enthusiasm for the Welsh language. This years roster will be familiar to many returning students:

Level 1 - Annette Evans

Level 2 - Kevin Rottet

Level 3 - Deian Evans

Level 4 - Marta Diaz

Level 5 - Hefina Phillips

Level 6 - Chris Reynolds

Level 7 - Geraint Wilson Price

Cymdeithas Madog has developed a varied week, rich in Welsh culture as well as language. Workshops dealing with many aspects of Welshness (Cymreictud) are given by tutors and increasingly also by students. The folk-dancing (twmpath) night, the ever-popular and extremely competitive pub quiz night, a Noson Lawen, (a chance for all and sundry, mostly sundry, to exercise the creative muse and generally to have fun); and of course, the Eisteddfod, the crown of the week, when students put their learning to the test, under the careful eye of a panel of judges. The ceremony surrounding the Eisteddfod is like nothing you could imagine, even in Wales itself, but seeing is believing!

Please consider joining the St. David's Society of D.C., the St. David's Society of Philadelphia, and the Welsh Society of Fredericksburg in Winchester, Virginia for the 35th annual Cwrs Cymraeg Welsh language week. Cwrs Cymraeg 2011: Dyffryn Shenandoah will be held July 17 - 24, 2011 at Shenandoah University.

Online registration is available now!

PRICES

Adult Resident (double occupancy) $ 900.00
Adult Commuter $ 700.00
Discount for Students (of above rate) - $ 50.00
Tag-along (double occupancy) $ 425.00
Upgrade to Single occupancy + $ 75.00
(Fees are quoted and payable in U.S. dollars.)

To save a place, send $100.00 (USD) deposit to:
Rebecca Blaevoet, Course Registrar
c/o KarenAlice Jones
2670 Glen Eagles Road, Lake Oswego, OR 97034
registrar@madog.org

Visit our website at www.madog.org to register online and obtain more information

We also take deposits via PayPal through our website

New Ratings Widget

For some time we have lacked the ability to rate blog posts, forum discusiions etc. This is now possible with the new Outbrain widget which has been added to the right hand column below the search engine --------

The widget provides recommendations for other ( related ) content that 'you might like' on the site. There are also external sponsored recommendations. So if you have written a post you might want to rate it and encourage others to do so. The more ratings you get the more likely it is that Outbrain will feature your content on other site pages ( currently more than 13000 ). The more its read, the more likely you are to attract comments and win the monthly 'Top Blogger' competition.

New Text Editor

We have recently installed a new text editor on the site. This editor will be standard for blog posts, comments, forum discussions etc. It will appear anywhere where you might want to add text. It has a number of capabilities which were lacking in the old editor/s e.g. colored text but it may take some getting used to. If anyone has problems with it please let us know by commenting on this post. As with any new release there will be some bugs and if you come across one we want to get it ironed out as quickly as possible.

As an example you may notice that smiley's do not display in the normal way. There is a work around for this. When in visual mode ( does not work in html mode ) simply drag and drop the smileys from the display below into the editor window and they will appear thus:-

Hello Pobl, ers talwm! / Welcome back people!

It's been a while, as you might of noticed and we wanted to update you all with what's happening in SFA land.

Cian's follow up to 'Outside In' is due for release Sep 23rd and is called 'They are nothing without Us' . Please come to

www.pledgemusic.com/projects/cianciaran for more info.

follow: @cianciaran

Gulp are releasing their new single Play on July 29th and are playing gigs over the summer.

info: http://gulpgulp.co.uk/

follow: @gulpworld

Daf's new project, The Earth , will release their debut album on September 30th, titled OFF/ON 1, releasedon strangetown-records. For further news and information visit www.theearthearthearth.com or follow on twitter

@theearthband

Follow Gruff's gradually emerging American Interior project on americaninterior.tumblr.com

There's also a new Neon Neon album called Praxis Makes Perfect out on Lex records, you can find it here: http://lexprojects.com/releases/neon-neon-praxis-makes-perfect/

And finally Bunf is continuing work on his eagerly anticipated LP whilst still working on collaborative projects ,

https://soundcloud.com/the-pale-blue-dots

For future reference you can get up to date updates here;

https://twitter.com/superfurry

and here

https://www.facebook.com/superfurryanimals.sfa

Isod mae hanes diweddaraf aelodau'r SFA. Gan ystyried nad ydym wedi cysylltu ers tipyn, gobeithio i fod dal o diddordeb! Er gwybodaeth mae modd dilyn SFA yma hefyd, https://twitter.com/superfurry a https://www.facebook.com/superfurryanimals.sfa

Mae record hir newydd Cian - 'They are nothing without Us' , yn dod allan Medi 23ain.

Os am fwy o fanyloion cliciwch yma: www.pledgemusic.com/projects/cianciaran

dilynwch: @cianciaran

Mae Gulp am rhyddhau eu sengl newydd Play ar 29ain o Orffennaf ac yn chwarae gigs dros yr Haf. Am fwy o fanylion ymwelwch: http://gulpgulp.co.uk/ dilynwch: @gulpworld

Bydd prosiect newydd Daf , The Earth , yn rhyddhau eu album cyntaf or enw OFF/ON 1 ar Fedi'r 30ed drwy strangetown-records. Am fwy o fanylion ymwelwch www.theearthearthearth.com a dilynwch @theearthband

Dilynwch brosiect hir dymor Gruff , American Interior yma:

americaninterior.tumblr.com

Record hir newydd Neon Neon ar gael yma:

http://lexprojects.com/releases/neon-neon-praxis-makes-perfect/

Ac yn olaf mae Bunf yn gweithio ar i LP newydd ymysg prosiectau eraill.

https://soundcloud.com/the-pale-blue-dots

Diolch eto am eich cefnogaeth ! / Thanks again for your continued support !

P arch! / Respect!

SFA ok .

Many people are celebrating at this time of year and we have one more reason to celebrate. The Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy has facilitated the purchase of the David and Gladys Wright House in Phoenix, Arizona, through an LLC owned by an anonymous benefactor. The transaction closed on December 20 for an undisclosed price. The property will be transferred to an Arizona not-for-profit organization responsible for the restoration, maintenance and operation of the David Wright House. The change in ownership guarantees that the house will survive and be preserved. LEARN MORE .We expect city Landmark designation to follow shortly but there is no longer a demolition threat. We will also pursue long-term protections for the house.

Thank you for signing the petition and being part of this success! It was very important to demonstrate that so many people around the world cared about this house and took the time to voice their concerns.

As plans progress for the David Wright House there will be opportunities to contribute to its restoration. Details will be posted on the Conservancy website as they become available.

If you want to be a part of protecting other Frank Lloyd Wright Buildings in the future we invite you to join the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy!

Join the Conservancy
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