Wanted - One Stolen Handbag - with html button

When I logged onto Facebook tonight, I saw the most awful news....

After the excitement of receiving a copy of her new book, and all the hard work involved in packing up all of the stock to take along and set up her stand at the Australasian Quilt Convention, someone has visited today and stolen one of Nikki's sample handbags. 

To make matters even worse, this was one of the showpieces that she took along to introduce people to the book. It also has one of her dearly loved (and no longer with us) Gran's buttons from her stash.

Things like this just SHOULD NOT happen!

It would be wonderful if we could somehow spread the word all over the blogs, twitter, facebook etc, and try to find Nikki's bag and return it. Whoever stole it does NOT deserve to keep it. Karma will get them somehow, somewhere.

Feel free to save the photo above, blog it, put it on your sidebar, and link it to Nikki's blog post here or link it to this blog post, or use the html below:

For the original 400x358 px size image

<a href="http://nicolemdesign.blogspot.com/2011/04/aqc-good-bad-and-heartbreaking.html" target="_blank">

<img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ge6LJojyE4s/Tal-tmBW9GI/AAAAAAAAFuE/oB9QBhCMQeg/s400/wanted.jpg" width="400" height="358" alt="Wanted" />

</a>

                           

For a shrunk down 200x179 px size

<a href="http://nicolemdesign.blogspot.com/2011/04/aqc-good-bad-and-heartbreaking.html" target="_blank">

<img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ge6LJojyE4s/Tal-tmBW9GI/AAAAAAAAFuE/oB9QBhCMQeg/s400/wanted.jpg" width="200" height="179" alt="Wanted" />

</a>                                   

A huge thankyou to Lisa from Princess and the Monkey for the html codes!


You just never know - we might actually find it!

Big House Collective

My little sister is involved in a lovely new business in Ballarat named Big House Collective.

It's a beautiful big old house on Sturt St which they've filled with retro, vintage, and collectibles.... along with art and handmade goodies!

I have a little cabinet filled with my handmade goodies on display.

These are some mobile phone photos (the quality isn't great) that my sister sent through yesterday .

I'm hoping to get down there over Easter for a visit..... although I've already been shopping. I spied a lovely vintage letter sorter in the photos on their Facebook page, so I've snapped it up before anyone else could!

They also have a brand new blog, which I spruced up a little for them lastnight - hope they all like it!

Acetylcysteine - Part 3 and still no answer

Unfortunately I've had this ongoing saga dragging out for more than a year now, where I've been waiting for a replacement nebuliser medication named Acetylcysteine to be added to the PBS.

Introduction
Part One
Part Two

Prior to March 2011, the PBAC were responsible for approving medicines under $10 Million per annum. For products over $10 Million the PBAC referred to the Federal Cabinet for approval. 

From March 2011, Nicola Roxon decided to change the rules and make the Federal Cabinet responsible for the review and approval of all PBAC recommendations, further delaying the approval of Acetylcysteine.


I wrote to Ms Roxon (Federal Health Minister) and Mr Peter Dutton (Oppsition Health Minister) in early March 2011. As yet, I have had zero response.


My sister also wrote to Ms Roxon, but apparently she may have used much stronger language than me, as today, she actually finally received a response (after six weeks).

So this letter doesn't tell me anything that I don't already know, and doesn't direct me to do anything that I haven't already done.

At this stage I'm still wasting an entire day every four weeks driving an 80 kilometre round trip to a major city public hospital to wait at a specialist clinic in order to get an approved hospital prescription to take to the hospital pharmacy where I sit and wait for another hour for it to be filled....

Some days I really feel like tearing my hair out.... it's no wonder I'm going grey!

Overdue

It's been a really long and really really really (is that too many really's?) busy week.

I haven't yet had a chance to show the lovely prize that I won last week over at Mon Alisa Design!

There were two prize packs up for grabs, and one of them contained this beautiful Irish Linen floral teatowel. Lets see..... it's orange, it's floral, it's linen and it's a vintage teatowel. That's four things that I absolutely adore all rolled into one.

There was also a little vintage bottle (for my treasure shelf), a doiley, some lace, and cute little vintage cards. I'm hoping that some of those little cards may fit into my printers tray.

Thankyou so much Alisa, I love all of it.

I actually have my first free afternoon of the week today, so I'm off to sew. Yippee!

My Creative Space

An unfinished project that just needs the finishing touch added...

I tested Nikki's new Glam Purse pattern last week. There are lots of options to choose from so I went with the gathered overlay and the firm bottom (if only I had one of those)!

I just haven't had the chance to actually sit down and relax and stitch the frame into place yet. I've decided that I'm going to make myself two detachable straps - one short and one long - so that I can change them depending upon the occasion.

I'm hoping to finish it on the weekend so that I can play show and tell with it next week!

The home of My Creative Space

Belting - Part Three

Belting - Part One

There would have been a Belting - Part Two... except that I forgot to take a photo of it before I gave it away. It was a supercute Pirate print with little fishies on the reverse side .

Belting - Part Three - a request for a little green car belt for Aidan (but I couldn't resist making one for Amelie too - whoops!).

Owl fabric from here...

PS - If you'd like to win a sweet Easter Bunny, pop on over and check out this charity giveaway at Voodoo Rabbit.

Dreaming

..... about this beautiful fabric from a very lovely (and most generous) lady.

I'm thinking wrap skirt panel plus an a-line skirt.

In the meantime, Frances is quite enjoying her new draped dress.... it sure beats being naked on a chilly Melbourne morning!

Yesterday

....was a morning filled with sunshine (what a pity it didn't last all day).

Nico had stayed for a sleepover Saturday night so we broke out the textas after brekky to make these supercute Easter Baskets by Draw Pilgrim.

 There's a link to download the PDF and make your very own!

Cosmopolitan Fun Fearless Female Awards 2011 - A call for your help!

When I arrived home Monday night to find that the Cosmo FFF nominations had been released, I forgot to explain how it all works. I was completely lost in the flurry of excitement.....

At that stage, I didn't even realise that it was also in the print version of the magazine.

I'm there at the top right hand side of the page.

This is currently the first round of voting.


Terms and Conditions from the Cosmo Website:

• FIRST ROUND OF VOTING: Voting for the first round finalists will begin on 4 April, 2011 and will close at noon (AEST) on 9 May, 2011. To vote for who you think should be selected as a winner go to cosmopolitan.com.au and follow the prompts. To provide a valid vote, readers will be asked to complete a full voting form (whereby they select their choice of winner in each category). Voting form must be submitted as instructed. The 3 nominees in each category with the most number of votes will proceed to the Final Finalist Round. 

 

• FINAL ROUND OF VOTING: commences 6 June, 2011 and closes 11:59pm (AEST) 18 July, 2011. The three finalists from each category will appear online at cosmopolitan.com.au between 6 June, 2011 and 18 July, 2011. Readers will be called to vote online for the Finalist they believe should be the winner of each category and the overall Cosmopolitan FFF brought to you by Libra. 

So this is my call for everyones help.....

I would dearly love to make it through to the final round as one of the top three in the blogging category. I'm up against some really stiff competition (especially the fashion and foodie blogs).

To make your vote count, you have to vote in every category, but you don't have to enter your details at the end (that's just for if you would like to enter the competition). Keep voting throughout the month too. There's been over 100,000 votes in the entire competition so far.

If you could please ask your friends and family to vote, share the links amongst your various social networks, tweet, facebook, blog etc.

Us crafty peeps are fabulous at banding together for a good cause, so lets see if we can win!

Tutorial - An easy way to create fabric letters for applique

A friends little boy has a birthday coming up very soon, and he needs a new pencilcase.

I really wanted to personalise it with his name, but I also wanted to use my favourite font, so I came up with this super simple solution.

Download the PDF Tutorial 

You will need the following:

A sheet of A4 sized Freezer Paper
Inkjet printer
A piece of fabric large enough for your printed letters
A piece of fusible webbing the same size as your fabric (I use applifix)
Sharp scissors
Iron

Step 1:

Create your chosen letters using Microsoft Word (or any other such program). Place the sheet of A4 freezer paper in your inkjet printer, taking care to ensure that the print will end up on the paper side (not the waxy coated side).

Print the letters onto the freezer paper.

Step 2:

Cut your piece of freezer paper down to an appropriate size.
Cut your chosen fabric so that it's a bit larger than your freezer paper.
Cut your piece of fusible webbing the same size as your fabric.

Step 3:

Place your fusible webbing onto the back of your fabric (making sure the fluffy gluey side is touching the back of the fabric), and iron into place.

Leave the backing paper intact.

Step 4:

Place the freezer paper on top of the fabric and iron into place (waxy coated side faces the fabric).
I used a rajah cloth on top to protect my iron from the ink.

There will now be a paper layer on both sides of the fabric.

Step 5:

Using a very sharp pair of scissors, cut the letters out.

Step 6:

Peel the backing paper from the fusible webbing and place your letters onto the piece of fabric which will be appliqued, and iron into place.

It's best to use a rajah cloth or scrap of fabric to protect your iron from the ink.

Follow the correct manufacturers instructions for the brand of fusible webbing that you're using.

Step 7:

Once cooled, carefully peel off the freezer paper.

Step 8:

Now you can choose to do whatever you wish - machine stitch, hand stitch, straight, blanket, zig-zag.... whatever takes your fancy!

 
I used the Zippered Pouch project from Nikki's book, You Sew Girl to create this fully lined pencilcase using my Dragster Dominoes Fabric and the appliqued fabric letters.

Now I just have to wrap it up for the birthday boy!

Patchy

I snapped this photo when I was at my sisters house last weekend.

She loved my Beccasauras vintage sheet patchwork doona cover so much, that she wanted one of her very own.

It's a bit of a collaboration - she wanted pinks and purples, so lots of the squares are from my vintage sheet stash.

Now she just needs a nice padded headboard to finish it off (hint hint BIL)!

My Creative Space

Gosh is it Thursday already??? My Creative Space has come around again very quickly indeed.

The one advantage of the end of daylight savings is that there's actually some lovely light for taking photos bright and early in the morning.

It's been a long hiatus, but I think it's high time that I played around with making some flower brooches.

Crazy stitching here I come!

The home of my creative space...

You Sew Girl - The Giveaway

Well, what an exciting couple of days it has been!

Along with my Cosmo Fun Fearless Female Nomination on Monday, I also received a signed-by-the-author pre-release copy of You Sew Girl.

I've been watching Nikki toiling away over the last year or more, putting her heart and soul into the making of this book - writing, editing, making samples, testing, taking photos, getting everything perfect.

I was so proud to be able to help along the way by testing some of the patterns, and heading along to one of the photo shoots.

It's so wonderful to see the end product - an amazing craft book by a fabulous Australian author!

There are so many projects inside that I can't wait to make, and all of the patterns are in an envelope at the back of the book.

It's also full of all the best tips and techniques to improve your sewing skills.


Now of course, there's absolutely no way that I'm giving up my copy (and it already has my name on it)..... but I do have an extra copy which I'm giving away to a very lucky blog reader. All you have to do is leave a comment on this post. The giveaway will close on May 1st (the book release date) at 8PM, and the winner will be chosen by the random number generator.

If you can't wait that long, you can actually reserve your very own copy and pre-order You Sew Girl.

After May 1st, it will definitely be available at all good bookstores, and directly from Nikki's shop..... a little bird might have also whispered that there *may be some copies available to buy from the Nicole Mallalieu Design stand at the Australasian Quilt Convention?


*Please don't hold me to that, just in case the planets don't align and they're not quite ready in time!

For Owls Eyes Only

I've been cutting into all of  my 'designed by me' fabrics lately (instead of hoarding them like I would normally do).

There should be a huge package of goodies arriving at Little Shop Of... today, including these super cute Sunnies/Specs Pouches.

Check out that pink fabric underneath - it's one of my scores from last weeks op shopping adventures.

I found this handmade skirt on the rack which I snapped up immediately, either to refashion to an a-line skirt, or to chop up for fabric......

.......but then it turns out that all of the leftover fabric was there too, along with this lovely turquoise crochet fabric. The op shop lady hinted that it was from a deceased estate, and asked if that bothered me at all.

Of course it doesn't bother me in the slightest - it's all just part of the magical recycling / reusing circle of life!

Cosmopolitan Fun Fearless Female Awards 2011

Oh my goodness, I have the most exciting news to share!

I've been nominated in the Cosmopolitan Fun Fearless Female Awards in the Blogging category.

You can find my profile right here!

By the way, that lovely background is the first sample of soon to be released Granny Square Design fabric.

Please feel free to share the details with friends, family, the world - let's make sure there are lots of votes for crafty blogging!

Happy Bireasterday

April is always a crazy month in my family.

There are four family members with a birthday during the month, along with school holidays, Easter, and Anzac Day.

So to get the ball rolling, we all headed down to Clunes for the day to celebrate the first two birthdays and a slightly early Easter!

There was a bit of batless Totem Tennis action (while toting a manbag filled with hot wheels cars)

While Nana took the boys for a walk down to Widow Twankeys for traffic light lollipops....

..... the front garden was overtaken by easter eggs.

It's always fun to sit and watch them scramble around the garden to find them all!

Just to prove that we really were in the country. What's that driving down the road????

Ummm just a horse and cart!

After all that running around, they finally had time to sit down and FEAST!

Late Breaking Sale

Late breaking news!

I won't be doing any markets for the next few months so I need to clear out some of my market stock.
I'm having a quick sale over at my CurlyPops page on Facebook from 8PM tonight (that's in an hour and a half peeps).

If you'd like to pop on over for a look just LIKE the CurlyPops page.

Note: All photos will include the sale price including postage. First person to comment with SOLD is the winner.