CLOSED Giveaway: Baa Baa Black Sheep, Have You Any Wool?

GIVEAWAY CLOSED!

Yes sir, yes sir, 28 bundles full!  

It seems I have been on the receiving end of some Spring cleaning.  I have received more wool in the past month  from friends and family cleaning out cupboards then I have ever bought in my life!  I have so much that I don't even have somewhere to store it all plus I have no idea how to crochet or knit!!!!!

So, my hands are tied.  I HAVE to do a giveaway!  *super happy face*

There is feather wool, baby wool, mohair, polyester, snowball, nylon, acrylic, macrame jute.  There really is a bit of everything.  

For a chance to win this huge bundle of wool you need to be a follower of my blog, and leave a comment below telling me what you would make!  

Feel free to add the button on your blog or sidebar.

International entries are welcome.

Giveaway will close and be drawn at 9pm Thursday 6th October 2011 (Brisbane Australia Time)

Good luck everyone!

A sneak of our new place...

We have been moved into our new place (upstairs at mum and dads) for a few weeks now.  Over the weekend, we FINISHED unpacking, putting together, finding places for our storage items, and cleaned up!  I am so happy it is all done.  I am loving the space that I am continued to be blessed with for my crafts.

I now store my hairdressing supplies in my craft room, which is new, but I found those great black and white drawers which fits everything in perfectly.  I also have to put my filing cabinet under the desk, but I still have plenty of room.  I also have a window right next to the desk which is lovely for fresh air and sunshine.  In my old craft room, I never ever got sunlight!

Everything is still packed into my cube shelving and white drawers.  And there is that beautiful sunlight I was talking about.  

Waste not want not!!!  I am planning to measure up the top of these drawers so I can have some wood cut which will give me another space to maybe store something, or put something decorative.  I actually use scraps for 50% of my sewing projects.  You'd be surprised what you can make with them!

And a couple of my personal touches.  My Texan corner (hubby is Texan).  All that is missing is something with the Texan flag.  Maybe a project for the future!

My awesome plaque at the door of my room.  My sister got it for me for Christmas.  I love it!

And then there's the lounge room.  In moving in, we had to sell our couch as my parents had a few up in the lounge upstairs.  They're not the most gorgeous couches, but I'm trying to make do with what we've been provided with.

The couches are a little uncomfy, so I have plans to make a few more cushions so that I can lounge more comfortably!!  We also got rid of our coffee table because mum has an antique blanket box that had nowhere to live so we are using that as our coffee table.  I was worried about the top of it getting damaged so I made a topper.  Just a piece of chipboard cut to size, and covered with some nice tough fabric.  And then a piece of felt adhered. to the base so the staples don't scratch up the top of the box.  Not too bad I say!

There's isn't much else to show at this stage.  Husby's study is also the storage room, so his desk has boxes stacked up, our dining room set disassembled and stacked up.  Not the prettiest room.  And then our bedroom.... STUFFED with furniture.  Not pretty, but practical.  

It's time to start adding the little touches that make a home.  Thanks to Pinterest I have plenty of ideas!!  Now I just need to get started!!

Eager Beaver Bunting & a Button Hairclip.

I signed up for the Bunting Swap today.  I think I was excited, because I've already made my bunting!!!!!  I signed up to make 6.  

I wanted the colours, and patterns to work together in a funky way, and I wanted to use doilies.  

Originally I was going to do the traditional triangular bunting, but thought I'd mix it up a bit by basically cutting the bottom of the triangle off.  

I love they've turned out.

I also have attempted another funky hair clip.

I have started making another in black and white, and will probably keep on making other colours down the track.  I just love how they look!!!

Bunting Swap and stuff I've been making.

I'm joining into the Bunting Swap, and you should too!

And on another note.  I'm wearing funky accessories today which I made myself.  So I need to show you cause I think they're cool...

(oh and sorry for the horrific quality photos, I'm at work today!)

My brooch, and my somewhat matching hair clip!

Yay for funky stuff!  I have made a few more things too.  I'll definitely have to show you, along with my new craft room setup in the new house!

Project: decorate hair.

As some of you know, I like to make funky, bulky, colourful & different hair accessories.  Slight problem!!  I am bored with my collection of goodies.  Time to source some new inspiration and get a making!! 

Thanks pinterest.  I have put links to each of the images cause I don't have my very own pinterest account yet.  I'm waiting on them to get back to me.  I have been fighting the pinterest urge, and have now given up.

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Getting back to normal

Hey folks.  Well the move is over.  Here is the basic overview of what went down:

- I packed 90% of the boxes, and unpacked 95% of them
- I probably spent about $50 on packing tape
- I spent $0 on boxes though!!  Thank you Good Guys cardboard bin.
- I threw out alot of stuff
- We had planned to hire a moving truck to make everyone's lives easier and do the move in one go.  BUT, we couldn't, because our unit complex is annoying and we couldn't bring the truck inside the gates and so it would make it MORE work to walk everything outside the complex to the truck. 
- We moved by trailer.  ONE trailer.  Thank heavens we didn't have to go far.
- We took loads over every day and every night for the 5 days leading up to the official moving day.
- I did several loads on my own, thus killing all the muscles and bones in my body.
- I managed to unpack my craft room in the new house before the actual moving day.
- Moving day was hard work.  I lifted things that I shouldn't have, because they were way too heavy.
- I had no strength left in my hands by the end of it all, and kept dropping things.  Luckily nothing broke.
- I hate going up and down stairs.  They were on BOTH ends.  They were the death of my legs.
- I made a Beef & Vegie Casserole in the slow cooker, which was our lunch.  Plus I made 2 pumpkin pies the night before and they went down like a treat too.  Have to feed the troops so they keep on helping!
- Take away food was pretty much all we ate that week.  I am SO sick of take away.
- It takes a whole lot of brain energy to figure out where everything is going to go, when we are in a smaller space now.  More things need to be sold.. doh!
- There is no easy way of storing dining room chairs.
- Not having your fridge and pantry in the kitchen is kind of annoying.
- Spending two days straight cleaning the old house makes you grumpy, especially when one of those days is a public holiday and I am not doing something fun like everyone else.
- Scrubbing kitchen tile grout with a toothbrush will cause tail bone pain after a while.
- The property manager did his inspection after we handed in our keys etc, and decided that everything looked fantastic.  BUT.  There was a cracked tile under the stairs in the cupboard and it needed to be replaced.  What?  You are kidding me right?  It's under the stairs, out of sight.  Get a life!!!!  We didn't even crack it either.  The previous tenants did, but we missed it on the entry report, so WE got stuck with fixing it.  Mega annoying!
- Husby and Dad spent 4 hours replacing it on Saturday.  It also ended up costing husby $170 to buy a tool to cut the $45 brand new diamond cutting blade off of dad's old angle grinder which broke and had the new blade stuck on it.  Then dad bought a new $200 angle grinder.  Plus the grout, tile and glue that needed to be purchased, it ended up costing about $440 to replace a tile.  Oops. 
- Good news is, we got a FULL refund of our bond, much to the displeasure of our property manager.  His face was classic when he realised there was nothing he could fault us on and had to return our bond.  I get the feeling he doesn't often return it all.
- Our bedroom is my childhood bedroom.  It's kinda weird sleeping in a bed with your husband in your childhood bedroom.
- Oh, did I mention we moved back in with my parents?  It's super strange.  But we have a fairly good space to ourselves.  We have the whole upstairs which is 3 bedrooms, a loungeroom and a toilet.  Bathroom is downstairs, and we share the kitchen and laundry.  Thankfully mum has a huge kitchen bench so we can both cook at the same time.
- We will save tonnes over the next year.  Our rent is substantially lower, so we will save $30k alone in what we aren't paying in rent anymore.  Yes Americans, we pay the earth in rent every week.  We used to pay $340 p/w ($1360 p/m) for a dump hole.
- I hate moving.

That's pretty much everything.  Over the weekend I had a little spare time and made a few things, which was so nice to do!  I haven't been able to create for a few weeks.  I hope to share later on this week, and I really really need to put more stuff in my shop!!  So much catching up to do!!!

Hope everyone is doing well!

Featured!

I popped onto Madeit this morning and was pleasantly suprised to see this!!!

My doily table runner has been handpicked to be on the front page today!!  It has lifted my sad, sorry and sick mood substantially!  Thanks Madeit!

Moving & stress relieving card making

As you may (or may not) know, I am moving.  Moving day is in 9 days!!  Lucky for us, we can take smaller loads of boxes and fragile items over to Mum and Dad's place (where we're moving) and start organising them there.  Moving day should then only consist of furniture items, if we get all the other things over there ourselves in the meantime.  It's been really hard figuring out what to pack in which box, because this isn't your typical move.  Husby and I will be sharing the kitchen & laundry with my parents.  So this means we won't be needing quite a few items, as we will use theirs.  SO, we have gone through the kitchen a few times and had to figure out which box the item went into... the donate box, the storage box, the unpack box, or the try to sell at car boot sale box.  Things that are being packed to be stored, I am packing very carefully, with lots of newspaper, and ensuring there are firmer items at the top of the box to create a steady base for the box that will likely be stacked on top of it for a year!!!  

We have three bedrooms and a small lounge area to ourselves.  We are going to use husby's study room to store most of the boxes, which will be stacked up a few boxes high, so I really need to be careful how I pack.  Each box has a packing sheet taped to it, which has the room it belongs to, whether it is a storage or unpack box, and all of the contents written on it.  I am glad I do packing sheets because I have had to open 3 boxes in the past week looking for things I had prematurely packed and I needed!!! 

I am also INCREDIBLY, stupidly, ridiculously, crazy busy at work at the moment.  I work in an Accounting firm in the Reception area and it is Tax Season!!!!  Kill me now!!  I barely have time to go to the loo!!!   It's incredibly stressful and fast paced.  Just the way I DON'T like it!  

And to top it all off, I am once again sick!  This time round, I have tonsilitis.  It's been about 3 weeks now.  I am on antibiotics but they don't seem to be doing the trick.  There have been a couple of moment in the past few weeks where I wanted to rip my tonsils out myself!  I even had trouble breathing and swallowing one night.  Horrendous.  

So this is why I need stress relief people.  Sick, moving, over-busy work.  

I was smart when I packed up my craft room.  I left out all my card making supplies!  

I have been making cards just about every night for the last week and it has been great.  As usual I don't love every card I make, but I figure someone out there will.  Only problem is, I've had no desire to clean up after each card project.  So my desk now looks like this...

It's gonna be SO FUN to tidy up when I get around to it hehe!!  Here's what I've made in this past week...

I've made several of each card design, so I have a nice stack of cards to add to my stash.  I've been having fun using my new stamp & paper sets that I have recently ordered from Stampin' Up!  Notice that most of the cards are sewing themed?  Awesome huh!!  They came out with a whole bunch of sewing themed stamp sets and a paper set in their latest mini catalogue.  I had to buy the lot.  And I'm thinking of buying more paper before it becomes unavailable too!!  Something I found out, is that they have made the patterned paper into fabric in the USA.  Jealous!  I think I'm going to have to try and get my hands on some.  It is simply divine!!

Well that is what I've been up to lately.  Back to packing I think!!

Mind confessions of a crazy packer.

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 Mess.  Chaos.  Brain overloading.  Boxes for storage.  Boxes to be unpacked.  Craft supplies to sort, cull, sell, giveaway.  Wrapping breakables in newspaper.  Is the box too heavy?  Did you reinforce the bottom with enough tape?  Where is the tape anyway? Crap we ran out of tape.  Where are the packing sheets?  I can't find a pen.  Where the hell can I put these boxes?  We ran out of newspaper.  Do you think that the other tenants in our complex will notice I've stolen ALL of the newspapers for the last two weeks?  I'll be stealing them for another week or soo too.  Where's the Sharpie?  Crap, ran out of tape again.  Will there be enough room to store all these boxes?  Listing furniture for sale online.  Oh crap, the couch sold 3 weeks earlier then expected.  What are we going to sit on?  Hand in notice of intention to leave to landlord.  Waiting for list of 'what to clean and fix' before we leave.  Crap I packed all the cleaning rags already.  What box are they in.  I can't find them.  Idiot!  Oh well, just rip up some towels and buy some new ones to use.  Crap those new towels were expensive.  Crap, I say crap alot.  I need another box.  What?  We ran out of boxes.  You guessed it... crap!  "Hey can I still have all those moving boxes you were getting rid of?", "you're a legend!".  Make a cake.  Open cupboard to get out baking tin.  Crap, I already packed it.  Unpack tin, bake cake, wash and dry tin, pack it back away.  Good thing I am OCD about writing contents of boxes on packing sheets.  Where are the Fragile stickers?  Where are we going to store the dining room set?  Ooops, it's 7pm and I haven't cooked dinner yet.  Should we throw this out?  When is the piano removalist coming?  It's going to cost HOW MUCH to move????  Think = go jump.  Say = sounds good.   Eat all the food in the freezer and pantry.  I'm sick of eating canned food.  Keep eating canned food.  So, wanna eat pasta every night for a week?  Wash the black ink off my hands from the newspaper for the 20th time tonight.  Who wants to buy my microwave?  I don't know either.  Crap, we ran out of tape again.  Dreaming about packing.  Living a life of packing.

We will start moving some things into Mum and Dad's starting up this weekend.  We have already run out of room for all the boxes that are packed thus far.  We will be storing ALOT of our stuff for the year we are going to be living with them.  We don't have much room.  We're selling alot, giving away alot, throwing away alot.  The whole process is making me crazy... incase you didn't notice.  So nothing crafty and delightful today, and I can't promise anything fabulous for at least a few more weeks.  One good thing though, I'll still have my own craft room.  Bliss!  Wish me luck!




Stuffed shirts.

One last post to show you what I've made in preparation for my demonstration on Thursday night.  3 cushions covers made from men's shirts.  

The circle cushions are both (obviously) made from old button up/collared shirts.  The square one is made from an old polo that husby was throwing out.  I almost stopped breathing when I started to cut into that Ralph Lauren shirt (top left), but my dad assured me he would never wear it again and I could cut into it.  

I did my first button hole on the square cushion cover!!  It took me a good 20 mins to figure out how to even attach the appropriate foot on the sewing machine, but I got there in the end.  I probably could have made the hole a little smaller, but I am nonetheless pleased with my effort.  

I'll have to remember to take photos on Thursday night of all my demo items and display.  Husby also mentioned that he thinks the round cushions looks like old mens round bellies, and I have to agree.  Funny!  See ya!