winners are grinners

Well it has taken all day to get this post together - some of it my slowness and some computer slowness, but finally I think we have both got our acts together. I mentioned previously that I belatedly became interested in Project Spectrum. There's even a Flickr group. For April and May the colours are Pink, Green and Yellow, and there is nothing like leaving it until the last day to post your entry! I decided to use it as a chance to practice with the camera, and get outside.


This little mosaic combines some of our garden, the rubbish bin, Miss L's hullahoop, the dog's ball, a vintage hairbrush, my new drink bottle, Miss L's bedroom light and a very unusual bean bag! See if you can work them out. Before I did this I would have said that I predominantly surrounded with green - my favourite colour, but it is amazing what you find once your eyes are open to it.

Anyway, I know you are really here to see if you a giveaway winner so I won't bore you any longer...

Ladies please send me your mailing address to whizzme (at) bigpond (dot) net (dot) au, and I will post your prize out asap.
Thanks everyone for entering it was fun, and interesting to see how many of you are fabric whores and didn't care what colour fabric you got!! And Stacey the bribe enticement was tempting, maybe we can work out a deal for a hair clip anyway?!

But wait don't go yet. If you did miss out this time, I have decided to have another giveaway next month - still some spring cleaning left to do, so stay tuned. And if you can't wait, I have dusted the cobwebs of my etsy shop and placed some more fabric bundles and other items up for sale. Go check it out.

Show and Tell = Giveaways

Friday turned into the mother of all spring cleans for my crafting stuff. At 3am I finally called it a night to get up Saturday and continue on the rest of the house. The car boot is now full of packages for the local op shop, fabrics and papers but aside for friends and best of all three yes 3 bundles of fabric to giveaway. Well now that I have your interest I must warn you that this post will contain gratuitous photo's before you get to the how to win some fabric part. Of course you could cheat and just skip to the end, but then you will miss out on all the stuff my spring cleaning turned up for Show and Tell! And you wouldn't want to miss that - would you?!

Firstly a selection of just some of the fabrics that have come through my door of late.

-The gorgeous green japanesy print I bought from pyglet and she threw in the other green fabric and patch. Spoilt.
-The scraps are all from Patchwork on Central for only 50c each! I so love a scrap box. Why don't more fabric shops have these? Edited: Sorry should have been clear that I got the scraps from the store- not from the website - sorry.
- A selection of fabrics i just had to have from Cia's Palette. (please excuse the bad spelling above.)
- And finally an even larger selection of things, including some great oilcloth from Sew Mama Sew.
There was also a small parcel from purl with some of this and one of these - but shh it was only small!!


I have also had some wonderful finds while thrifting lately.

-Gorgeous old children's patterns, including little ballerina outfits - I am moving that one up the to do list as we speak.
-A pattern making book complete with stencils for drawing pattern curves - for all that pattern making I do - NOT!
-A vintage Rowan knitting pattern book, and a lovely little book of crazy knitting projects.
-But finally my new pride and joy, is this beautiful vintage, electric sewing machine that I bought for only $20. It is in perfect working order, came with its original toolkit and instruction booklet, and carry case. It is perfect for Miss L to use as it only sews straight stitch (backwards and forwards), and is so heavy it won't move from under her. Even R admitted it was quite lovely to look at. I am a very, very happy camper!!


And despite all the fabric buying and op shop hunting that has been going on, I have managed a few crafting bits and pieces.

-Bibs for some newborn babies that have just joined us.
-A ballet bag for a friend of Miss L
-More doll quilts coming along....

But finally, we come to the part that will really interest you....

I have three bundles of fabric (and a few little surprises) to give away. I have bundled them into this month's Project Spectrum colours (more on that in another post) Yellow, Green and Pink. All you need to do is leave a comment saying hello, and telling me which colour bundle you would prefer. For all those shyer readers, now is the time to dip your toe and leave a comment. Family members are allowed to enter but will not receive any preference - ha! And I will post to anywhere - so get commenting.

I will draw the three winners sometime on Wednesday night, so stay tuned to see if you won.

randomness

*
I have been tagged by Carolyn recently, for the 7 random facts meme. I have shared a few random facts here in older posts, but always happy to oblige a tag. Although, maybe I should get R or Mum to write this, because really I think I'm just plain normal. (stop laughing Jo!). Anyway, here goes.....

1. When I brush my teeth I often point my toe with my right foot like a sort of ballet pose. I don't know why, and usually don't know I am even doing it until R sees me and starts making wise cracks.

2. I love sushi rolls so much, I could eat them every day, and in fact nearly do. Miss L has the same addiction.

3. When I was younger my sister and I used to put a single bed mattress at the top of the stairs and slide down on it to the bottom. Such a lot of fun until Mum and Dad found out why the carpet was starting to come off the stairs.

4. When I smile me eyes crinkle up, so I often am photographed with squinty eyes - noice!

5. I have never been able to hang upside down from the monkey bars - I just can't let go!

6. One of my favourite songs is 'I can see clearly now' by Hothouse Flowers.

7. I grew up blonde and blue eyed. I now have dark brown hair and green eyes. weird!

I really get nervous tagging in case I missed someone has already played, but I'll try
shoofly, carolyn, julie, linda, kristen, justine and Jo, who ignored my last tag!! who kindly did the last tag and I didn't read the post probably - oops


*random photo of my bedside table

spoilt again

Once again I have been spoilt by the present gods, and I was given the most lovely mother's day. The beautiful teacup above was given to me early yesterday morning by Miss L, apparently carefully chosen by herself too. I say early, because I had signed myself up for doing the 4km Mother's Day Classic (what was I thinking), and had to brave the very fresh morning to wheezerun around the botanic gardens. Returning home to a shower and time alone to peruse the Sunday paper - something that doesn't happen very often these days. After a short nap, I was woken to the scrumptious aromas of lunch!

Lamb shanks - my favourite c/o Jamie Oliver, and wonderfully prepared by R, accompanied by a bottle of smooth red. Bliss.
I definitely felt that I am a very lucky mother/wife after this delightful day, but talk about raising the bar. I am going to have to do some thing magical for father's day this year!!

As for the present gods, well I will just briefly mention this bag, this perfume and these yarns, that R bought back from his trip. There was also some surprise Victoria's Secret gifts, but I'm a bit shy, so no pic's!!

In amongst all this present receiving I have managed some crafting. Penelope now has a proper bed, mattress, quilt and matching pillow. I think she looks very comfortable. Well worth all that hand stitching.

P.s. This month's whiplash is mini quilt's too, so onto the next endeavour....

remembering Mum

mothers day, originally uploaded by whizzme.

Miss L and I had a fun collage session together, although I think Miss L's would now be more under the category of mixed media! Hope you have a good day Mum, thinking of you.

favourites

Recently Dani tagged me for the "5 favourite sites", so here they are;

1. No Appropriate Behavior - Laura has got to be one of the funniest people in blog world. I always check to see if she has a new post, because generally I am guaranteed a good laugh. She is upfront, and honest, which I really like - no I'm Mrs Wondermum, look at my amazing perfect family, and perfect home here - thank god. Mum, you won't always like the language she uses, but she is dead funny, and I have often recounted one of her tales to non-blog friends.

2. Aunty Cookie - Shannon is the reason I ventured into the blog world, and she still continues to inspire. Another very funny lady, who knows how to string words together in an entertaining way. Shannon also is a very talented illustrator (she illustrated a book my partner wrote) and I am the proud owner of quite a few of her works. I have also had the honour to pair up with Shannon for Morphe 2 which was a lot of fun.

3. Artista - Irisz is my favourite artist in blog world. There is something about her illustrations that always touches me, and I love seeing each new work. I did a wonderful swap with Iriz, so I now own one of her works, but she now sells prints of some of her illustrations. Irisz also has a second site where she talks about the processes she uses for illustration.

4. Hello my name is Heather - Well, I'd be surprised if you didn't know Heather's site. Not only is it filled with amazing, colourful photograph, she is always creating new items that just leave you oohing and ahhing. Heather has her own fabric range which I love (Flower's little outfit) and has links to some tutorial's that are excellently put together for easy step by step instructions.

It was really hard to pick a 5th site, because there are so many I like and I hate leaving anyone out, but as my bloglines subscriptions currently stands at 111, it would be a never-ending post. So, I decided to pick a blog that I have been reading right from the beginning, and still really enjoy.

5.The Wish Jar - Keri is an illustrator, author and self confessed guerilla artist. Her blog is always making me think, as she writes about her daily thoughts, experiences and creative challenges. I have one of Keri's books, and have really enjoyed using it to kick start new creative juices if I have felt in a rut. Her writing is often inspiring and thought-provoking.

Ok, so that's my 5. Now, I'm not sure if everyone has done this but if they haven't I would be interested to see what sites, Jo, Kirsty, Laura, Megan and Bianca would pick.

eye candy

originally uploaded by whizzme.

1. autumn leaf, 2. Finished!, 3. wip, 4. paperbag swag swap kristin's book 2 closeup (right side), 5. Untitled, 6. Lily's Christmas doll, 7. niñalvientoconflores, 8. adoption february, 9. happy spring (i think)!, 10. Untitled, 11. clara cards, 12. models martha, 13. Doll Quilt, 14. Robots, 15. Polar, 16. tangency

So I'm still enjoying having my partner home, and Miss L is just daddy focused, which means I can get some crafting done again. Yay! But because I still don't have any of my own pics to show you, (and really because I've been spending too much time browsing) I thought I'd show you some of the wonderful treats my eyes have been feasting on. I promise a real up-to-date crafting post soon. Until then, enjoy.

Created with fd's Flickr Toys.

absence makes the heart grow fonder

and it really does. After two weeks away from 'his girls' R returned from the states today, to a very warm welcome. Some very nice pressies, but that will have to wait for another post, although I must say the good man did go all the way to Purl for me and purchased some luscious yarn - good, good man.

Anyway, to keep you entertained until our excitement has calmed, and I have pictures to flaunt, here are some interesting things I came across during my late night browsing*

1. Thanks to Bella Dia, who previously posted about this beautiful timewaster site - just move your mouse, then try out some of the other scenes down the bottom. I also enjoyed their one hour site.

2. Would like some of the silkscreens from here, and love this t-shirt.

3. An Ashley's wonderful art has long been a favourite, (I own this and this), but I must draw your attention to her hello series.

4. I love new visitors, because it means you find great new blog's like this one.

And this little line from Blair's latest post really resonated "I may be a pale green, but I'm getting greener."



*Like a love sick teenager last night, I couldn't sleep knowing R would be home soon, so it was a good chance to catch up on bloglines and the like. sad I know...