Etsy on Martha

For anyone that is interested, the founder of Etsy, Rob Kalin, will be on the Martha Stewart Show on Friday (US time) showing the top selling crafts from the site.

This means that it should be on the How To channel in Australia on Monday 3rd March at 4.00PM AEST with a replay on Tuesday 4th March at 11.00 AEST.

A happy dance in my head....

I had to get out of the house today to get away from the stinky floor varnish for a while, so I decided that I would go op-shopping with the specific purpose of finding myself a brown shirt to use for my Brown Owls uniform.

I found 2 brown shirts, one long sleeve and one short sleeve. I think I'm going to use the short sleeve shirt for my uniform. I had a search through the craft sections and found some nice fabrics and some more craft books to add to the collection.

I also found some packets of elastic and a little bag full of ribbons and string.......

....but then I found the piece de resistance for todays litlle outing......

The Womans Day Book of Handicrafts from 1978! It was $1.50!



Pretty felt flowers attached to pencils....

How to make a shaggy rug.....

More cute little softies.....


I was doing a happy dance in my head at St Vinnies......I was very excited that I found this one.

Now I just have to finish my embroidery to attach to my shirt!

Womans Day Book of Handicrafts - 1973

It's a wet and windy day in Melbourne, so what a great day for some 70's handicrafts to keep you busy......

Here are some of my favourite projects from this book.

This gorgeous full length dress......

These fab retro cushions......

A pretty crochet dress......



Snuggle crochet blankie.......

70's special macrame.......

A collage of Woody Walnut the Owl.....

A felt covered book.......

This pretty pink felt waistcoat.......

Matching woolly jumpers for the entire family!.........

Matching shirts for the boys.........

Lots of cute softies.......



And last but not least, these cute charts are in the back of the book.

On my desk....on a Wednesday.....updated

I'm playing along with Kirsty with 'On my desk...on a Wednesday'.

My desk is not usually this messay but I do have an excuse this week. My kitchen floors have had their second coat of varnish today and there's still a third coat tomorrow and then we can't move the furniture back in until Sunday!

I've had to take the small craft table out of the study (which is also my sewing room) to make a tea and coffee station in the loungeroom (I can exist on takeaway food for a week but I must have access to tea and coffee at all times). Now everything that was on the craft table is on the study desk.

Hopefully next weeks photo will be more civilised!

Update: The pile of books are all of the crafty books that I have bought from the Mambourin Book Shop (they are old library books that the library have donated to Mambourin to sell) - see photos of these on previous posts.

Except for this large crafty book that was on the bottom of the pile. My mum found this for me at a local garage sale. It's the Womans Day Complete Book of Handicrafts published in 1973. It has every craft you could ever think of. I will post some photos of my fave projects from this book tomorrow.

Brown Owls & Pay It Forward Winners!

I had a fantastic time at Brown Owls lastnight. It was so nice to meet some lovely crafty ladies and some fellow bloggers. It was actually quite funny to meet someone and use their real name instead of their blog name.

Thanks to all the girls for helping out us novice embroiderers and organising such a wonderful first meeting. Hopefully I won't be quite as shy and nervous next time.

As you can see from the progress made above over 3 hours, I'm not going to win any speed embroidery championships, but I'm hoping to have my name finished (and maybe even sewn onto a shirt) by the next meeting.

I forgot to post my Pay It Forward winners yesterday. The rules were:

The first three people to comment on this post will receive a gift from me, sometime within the next 365 days. Who knows when it will turn up, or what it will be, but rest assured, it will arrive. All you have to do is promise to make the same declaration on your blog, and send out gifts to three of your lovely readers. Easy Peasy.
If you miss out on being one of the first three, leave a comment anyway because I will draw a random name also. The winner will be drawn next Monday (25th).

So here are the winners:

Sewfunky

Nicola

Melissa Haworth

Leigh

Zoesquid

I changed the rules because I received 5 comments so I'm going to send a gift to everyone sometime in the next 365 days. I will email all the winners this week to get snail mail addresses.

There won't be much craftiness in my house this week as the kitchen floors are being sanded and re-varnished so everything that previously lived in the kitchen is now residing all over the house. There are piles and piles of things with nowhere to put them. At least I now have an embroidery project that I can finish while sitting on the couch watching trashy tv!

Only one more sleep!

Woo Hoo!

I'm a little shy so you might find me hiding in the corner but I'll be there!

It's me again

I just wanted to add a quick note to thank everyone for the lovely comments that they have been leaving on my blog since it started in January!

This is......me taking a photo of myself with my favourite accessory

I'm a little early in posting this one but I'm going to the Flemington Craft Market in the morning so I probably won't have time tomorrow.

This is a necklace that my older sister bought me for my birthday last year. It's called Circled With Love. She bought it here (there's a much better photo of it also). It can be worn dressed up or dressed down and it's my favourite!

What to do when lousy weather strikes.....

We were supposed to go to Rythm of Africa at the Werribee Zoo thisafternoon but the threat of rain and gale force winds was enough to change those plans! So instead, I used Jodies fab tutorial and made this bag instead.


It only took me about 2 hours (I had to unpick a couple of times because clearly, I can't follow instructions properly) from fabric selection to completion. I added an extra pocket (one for each side) and I didn't have any wadding or batting so I improvised and used curtain blockout backing material instead. I have one problem left. I want to add the lovely button detail that Jodie used on the straps, but I've been searching for my bag of buttons for half and hour and I cannot find them anywhere. If anybody out there is psychic, can you please let me know where to find my buttons (not my marbles, I know they're lost).

This weeks mail & a little shopping

This lovely little package arrived in the mail on Tuesday. It's my Brown Owls welcome bag! I loved everything but especially loved the Smencil. Such a cool idea.



This lovely little parcel arrived in the mail on Wednesday. It's an old butter dish that I bought from Ebay. Now that I'm getting fruit, veg, bread, milk, butter and eggs delivered, I needed a proper butter dish so that I could keep it on the bench (it's a bit too difficult to spread straight from the fridge).

The front fence was finished yesterday. This is now the view from the kitchen. Sorry about the photo but I need to clean the french doors as they are all dusty now!

This means that the weekend will be spent cleaning up the garden. I still need to find some plants that are shade loving and drought tolerant. I might just go and check out the local nursery and ask them for some advice (I'm really really bad at gardening).

I managed to finish the bibs for my mums friends grandaughter. Hope she likes them!

Just to finish off, I went back to the Mambourin book shop and found some more craft books. I think these were $2 each. What a bargain! If I but any more craft books I'm going to have to start searching Ebay for some more bookshelves.

Pay It Forward

Thanks to the lovely Ingrid from Lottielulu, I have won a Pay It Forward gift. It will arrive as as suprise in my letterbox sometime in the next 365 days. So now my challenge is to pay it forward to three more lovely bloggers.

The rules are:

The first three people to comment on this post will receive a gift from me, sometime within the next 365 days. Who knows when it will turn up, or what it will be, but rest assured, it will arrive. All you have to do is promise to make the same declaration on your blog, and send out gifts to three of your lovely readers. Easy Peasy.

If you miss out on being one of the first three, leave a comment anyway because I will draw a random name also. The winner will be drawn next Monday (25th).

It's a sweat shop......literally

What is going on with this weather in Melbourne???

It is too hot for my liking....25 degress and sunny would be much nicer. Enough with the 35 degrees and hot winds.

As a result of this lovely weather, I've had to move my sweat shop into the kitchen (it's the only room in the house with air conditioning). Needless to say, my kitchen has gone from serene cooking area to messy sewing area in the last couple of days.

I have managed to finish a few things......

This is an apron for a friends daughter. We were shopping in Queenscliffe on Saturday and she saw an apron in one of the shops that she liked, so I offered to make her one instead. I'm not quite sure on the sizing. I just used an adult apron and made it smaller. Her favourite colour is blue, so I used bright blue cotton with denim pockets for the front, and a blue floral for the back. I hope she likes it!

I've now finished 28 bibs for the twins. I'm going to take a break from these for now. I still need to make some girl bibs for my mums friends grandaughter. I've cut them out but I haven't started any sewing yet.

Then the next request is a baby bjorn cover for my sister. That one is going to take some time to work out. I might have to use muslin to see if it works first before I waste anything nice.

And I must confess that I have been fabric shopping again.........but I had a very good reason. Last week, I put a towel on top of my rotary cutting mat, and proceeded to iron some fabric. My cutting mat really really didn't like this and decided to shrivel up a bit in a few places making it impossible to cut on, so I had to go and buy a new one, (if you look at the top photo, you will see that I now have my table top ironing board out instead). I couldn't help myself but to rummage through the remnant bins to see what bargains I could find while I was there! I really really have to stop buying fabric now, because I'm running out of room to store it all.

This is.....what makes me laugh out loud

Thanks to Poppalina for this weeks theme.

I love these guys.

Organ Donor Awareness Week - Feb 17 - Feb 24

This week is Organ Donor Awareness Week in Australia.

Click here to register online or by post with Medicare.

This is an extremely important issue and I hope everyone can take 15 minutes of their precious time this week to have a discussion with their loved ones regarding this issue. If you would like to be an organ donor, it is extremely important to be placed on the national register. It is even more important that your family and other loved ones are aware of your wishes as they will make the final decision.

This information is from the Medicare Australia Website:

By registering to become an organ donor you could be making the greatest gift one human being can give another – the gift of life.
There are almost 2000 people in Australia on organ transplant waiting lists at any given time. Some of them will die waiting.

The Australian Organ Donor Register is Australia’s only national organ and tissue donor register and serves as a lifeline to the people on those waiting lists.
Registering is the first crucial step.

About the Australian Organ Donor Register

The Australian Organ Donor Register is administered by Medicare Australia on behalf of the Australian Government and provides a simple way for people to record their consent (or objection) to becoming an organ and/or tissue donor.
In January 2005, Australian Health Ministers agreed that the Australian Organ Donor Register would become a Register of consent, enabling individuals to record their legal decision to becoming an organ or tissue donor after death. The Register will be operational as a consent register from July 2005.
Health Ministers agreed that the Australian Organ Donor Register would be the only national register for organ and/or tissue donation.
The Donor Register will ensure that your consent (or objection) to donating organs and/or tissue for transplantation can be verified 24 hours a day, seven days a week by authorised medical personnel, anywhere in Australia. In the event of your death, information about your decision will be accessed from the Donor Register, and provided to your family. It is important that you talk with your family before registering your decision

Australian Organ Donor Awareness Week

Australian Organ Donor Awareness Week (AODAW) is the largest public awareness campaign in Australia associated with organ and tissue donation for transplantation.
AODAW 2008 will be held from Sunday 17 February to Saturday 24 February 2008.
AODAW aims to raise donation rates in Australia by focusing on the pressing need for organ and tissue donation, encouraging families to discuss their wishes, highlighting the success of organ transplantation in Australia and promoting the registration of consent on to the Australian Organ Donor Register (AODR).
Visit our Australian Organ Donor Register

Further information page to find out what’s happening in your state or territory.
People are encouraged to ‘sign on to save lives’

Information from Lifegift - Aust. Red Cross Blood Service

One organ donor can save and improve the quality of life of up to 10 other people. Currently each year Australia has approximately 200 organ donors - this number could be doubled. A simple discussion with your partner, family and friends, as well as registering on the Australia Organ Donor Registry, will ensure your decision counts!

Australian Organ Donor Awareness Week

Australian Organ Donor Awareness Week (Sunday 17 to Sunday 24 February) is an annual campaign to raise awareness of organ and tissue donation and to encourage people to register as an organ and tissue donor. Register Today!

One organ donor can save and improve the quality of life of up to 10 other people. Organ and tissue transplantation can help the many Australians who are suffering life threatening illnesses, including heart, kidney and liver diseases, diabetes and cystic fibrosis.

There were 198 organ donors in Australia in 2007, while there are more than 1,800 Australians waiting for an organ transplant at any time. Sadly, 20% of those waiting for a heart, liver or lung transplant will die before receiving a life saving transplant.

We encourage all Australians to think about organ donation, and register onto the Australian Organ Donor Register (AODR) by calling 1800 777 203, using the link below or collecting a form at your local Medicare office. Also, NSW drivers can tick the box on your drivers licence application or renewal form or contact the RTA, but it must be done in writing!

Then, most importantly tell your family of your decision.

Register to become an organ donor right now!

Australia has one of the lowest organ donation rates in the developed world. An estimated 100 people die each year while waiting for an organ transplant due to the shortage of organ and tissue donors. You can help save lives by registering your consent to become an organ and tissue donor. Remember to tell your partner, family or friends about your decision.

Transplant Australia is another good source of further information.

One birthday present.....completed

Sorry for the dark photos but the light is fading for the night.

This is the completed dolls quilt for a friends daughters birthday. This was the first time that I ever made binding. I usually just use the pillowcase method where you put right sides together, sew, and then turn inside out and sew up the seam. This one is so busy that I think it really needed some plain binding around the edges.

I added three snaps on each side so that the quilt can fold in half to turn into a sleeping bag. I figure that undoing and doing up the snaps will also provide hours of amusement (here's hoping anyway).

Have a nice weekend!