Just in case...

...you're trying to get hold of me and I don't answer...

My computer is doing stupid things AGAIN, error screens and crashing all over the place.  

Sometimes it's on for a day, sometimes it's on for 5 minutes...

So I thought I'd let you know, in case you are waiting for a reply, that I'm at the merciless hands of this box of electrical stuff, that has the third new hard drive in it in the space of 12 months.... and I'm not being a snob, I'm just... stuck... trying not to pull out my hair!

Until next time, whenever that may be!

Natasha xo

One World One Heart Giveaway 2010!

Entries are now closed ~ thanks to all the entrants!  The winner has been selected using Tara Frey's random number generator, and the winner is #7, Grace!

Welcome to the magic carpet ride! The wonderful Lisa of A Whimsical Bohemian has done it again! Since 2007, Lisa has been hosting this marvellous huge blogging giveaway extravaganza, and this year is proving to be extra enormous, with over 690 participants already!

I'm a little late in joining in, but better late than never!

So come take a ride, click on the image above to be taken to Lisa's blog with the full list of participants, where you can enter everyone's giveaways!!!

My giveaway is open to all bloggers or people with a google id {sorry, my blog settings don't accept anonymous comments. Basically, if you can leave a comment on my blog, then you've entered.}

{International entries are welcome of course!}

{If you don't have a blog, you can set up a google account to leave a comment, just make sure I have a way to contact you if you're the winner!}

Leave ONE comment on this post to enter, it's as simple as that :)

Enter any time until February 15th, 2010. I'll draw a random winner and announce it here on my blog. I'll contact the winner for postage details and I'll ship it off ~ easy peasy!

Here's what I'm giving away...

A set of three faux cupcakes, and a hand sewn cuff bracelet, all made by me, going to one winner.
The faux cupcakes are super cute to keep on display on your cake stand while there's no "real" cake on it {you might never want to bake again!}


And the cuff bracelet is made from vintage lace, tulle and more vintage lace and vintage pearly beads. It fastens by pure silk ribbon and is completely hand stitched together.




So enjoy the magic carpet ride, and good luck!

Natasha xo

Hope For Haiti (Auction 2 ~ Handmade wool felt ball necklace)

AUCTION IS CLOSED, THANK YOU! WINNING BIDDER ALISON GIBBS

Please scroll down for information on this auction :)

This lovely one of a kind necklace was made completely by hand by me. The balls are all wet felted wool balls of various sizes and designs ~ some with a strip of colour through, some mixed, some plain. They're hand sewn onto a very soft textured yarn hand knitted necklace. I hope this will help raise some funds for the earthquake devastated people of Haiti.

Necklace measures 66cm (26") in circumference.
Bidding starts at US$1

So, the way the auction will work...Please place a bid as a comment on this post, for the FELT BALL NECKLACE. The amount should be in US DOLLARS.

Please check the comments, for the highest amount to outbid the highest bidder.

Please keep checking the comments to see if you are still the highest bidder.

Auction ends in 48 hours, Midday Thursday 28th January (Australian Eastern Standard Time), or 8pm 27 January US Eastern time.

The winner will pay their winning bid directly to Hope For Haiti Now (http://www.hopeforhaitinow.org/)

The winner will then forward me the receipt for their payment.

I'll then pay for the shipping, and get the item to you. At no time does any money come to me whatsoever.

Thanks, and happy bidding!
Natasha

Hope For Haiti (Auction 1 ~ Leroy's Artwork)

AUCTION IS CLOSED, THANK YOU! WINNING BIDDER FIONA FAULKNER 

Please scroll down for information on this auction :)

This lovely artwork was created by my 6 year old son to help raise some funds for the earthquake devastated people of Haiti.

He drew using markers on canvas board, and it features a purple zebra, koala in a tree, firefly, butterfly, dragonfly, flowers, rainbow, birds and those yellow squares are hay bales.

He has written the word "Haiti" in "rainbow writing"He has signed it front and back, and added a cartoon of himself at the back too.

It measures 8" x 10" (20cm x 25cm)

Bidding starts at US$1

So, the way the auction will work...
Please place a bid as a comment on this post, for LEROY'S ARTWORK. The amount should be in US DOLLARS.

Please check the comments, for the highest amount to outbid the highest bidder.

Please keep checking the comments to see if you are still the highest bidder.

Auction ends in 48 hours, Midday Thursday 28th January (Australian Eastern Standard Time), or 8pm 27 January US Eastern time.

The winner will pay their winning bid directly to Hope For Haiti Now (www.hopeforhaitinow.org)

The winner will then forward me the receipt for their payment.

I'll then pay for the shipping, and get the item to you. At no time does any money come to me whatsoever.

Thanks, and happy bidding!

Natasha

I'm home :)

Hello blogging friends! I'm home again, after a fabulous time away. I've been home a few days, actually, trying to catch up on housework, unpacking and play dates. The little guy starts school in a few days, so it's rather busy around here!

I mentioned that I had been making wet felted wool balls while I was away, well here's the yummy pile of them. I turned most of these into necklaces. One for me, and one you'll see in a moment, in another blog post.

Leroy and I wanted to do something to raise some funds for the earthquake devastated people of Haiti. I haven't got words for how utterly sad and awful I feel for these people. I feel like whatever I say will be totally trivial and not worthy of what these people are going through. So instead, Leroy and I have made a few things that I'm going to auction off here on my blog.

The posts will be up straight after this one. So please, come along, bid generously. Every cent the winning bidder bids, will go directly to Hope For Haiti Now (www.hopeforhaitinow.org) ~ and I will pay the shipping to you.

Oh, and to my Aussie friends, Happy Australia Day! We're off to have a "snag on the barbie" for our nephew's birthday!
Cheers,
Natasha xo

Leadlight, and Cool Tools

Hello again from the island. Doesn't that sound exotic, I'm on an island?! Well, I guess I am, though it's not Queensland and exotic, but it really is lovely. I'm loving my time away in the sun.

Thanks for the well wishes on my last post. It's such a cool honour to be published, and I'm so thankful that I am so lucky.

So this is my last post while I am away on holidays {aka: vacation}. I'll be home again soon :)

I wanted to share with you one of my storage cupboards that lives outside on the verandah/patio area. This is still in progress ~ I've been meaning to paint it for 10 years.....I keep changing my mind about it.

The leadlight panel you see was one that I created about 12 years ago. Mum and I took a leadlighting course together, and for our "free choice" project, I decided to make something pretty complicated, knowing I'd probably never do another leadlight project again. It has 61 little pieces in it.... Most of the people in the class did pieces with 15-20 pieces in theirs. I had to over-complicate mine, of course!

I enjoyed leadlighting, however, it was HARD! We didn't just do the easy type with the stuff that folds over glass and gets soldered together. We did it the traditional way with H shaped pieces of lead, horseshoe nails, and such. Lots of cut hands!

So this little cupboard has become my little heirloom, and because it was so much work, I'm not in a hurry to paint it.

It houses my glues, sprays, picture frame paints, brushes, and tools.

So the cool tools I mentioned in the title are right here. They're just awesome. Every girl needs herself a set of these. You can get them at Ikea, and the WHOLE set costs around $10, give or take a dollar or two. I'm sure you could get these at any Ikea in the world. I swear by my tool set! {I just wish it was green, pink, or white}

The hammer is great, I use it to pull out nails from old picture frames.... the pliers get used all the time (they've also got a cutter in them).

The screwdriver and its magnetic head with all those little attachments... oh wow, what a wonderful invention! It comes in really handy for kids toys that need the battery compartment to be unscrewed. And the allen key is great for that Ikea furniture you have that you might need to disassemble, but you forgot where you put the allen key that came with the furniture. I bet some of you are nodding..!

So that's my tip for a must-have tool set. Hubby's not allowed near it. I'm keeping it nice and clean, and in the one box. LOL!

So that brings me to an idea that I'd like to run perhaps each month. How about a "Cool Tips" monthly feature.... Each month, I'll share a cool tip, cool product or something useful I've found, and you can join in, too. You could either leave a comment about it, or post it on your blog. When I get home, I'll create a blog button that you can snag if you want, and I'll sort out my blog to have a categories section so you can find all the cool tips in one place, which could be a great reference/resource point for all of us. What do you think?

Have a great week, and I'll "see" you when I get back home.

Natasha xo

Apronology & Crescendoh!

Hello bloggers! I hope you are having a fun January, wherever you may be. We're still at the beach, and will be for a bit longer. Today's a scorcher, it's 43 degrees celcius, which, at a guess is something like 110F. While people in the UK are snowed in, and Florida is getting unusually icy, we're sweating like crazy here!

I'm visiting the internet cafe again, after about a week of no computer use. I would have thought it would be hard to live without a computer all this time, but it has been really lovely having a break from being so "connected". People wonder why I don't just get a laptop, but I doubt I'd get much playing time with the little guy, or beach-time, if I had one!

So I wanted to tell you some exciting news! Last year I was approached by Apronology's lovely editor, Beth Livesay, to send in an apron I made for Laura. Laura was so sweet and submitted it for me {thanks Laura!}

What's so exciting for me, is that I have an article in the 2nd annual issue of Apronology magazine! It's available from Feb 1st, in news stands in the US, or online for the rest of us {here}

I'll be showing you how to make an apron along the lines of the one I made for Laura, pictured.

From memory, I even have three or four pieces of that broderie anglais vintage cotton lace I used on the waist, that I'll make available on my website when I get back home.

... and in other exciting news, many of you will know and read Jenny Doh's blog ~ Jenny is launching her new website, Crescendoh, very soon. I'm so excited an honoured to be one of the four guest curators for the week of March 22-27! There are so many talented artists who are going to be guest curators, you can check out some of them here. What an honour it will be to share our "Art Saves" stories, and links. I'm really looking forward to Crescendoh's launch :) Thank you, Jenny!

Ok, well, I've been on the computer for over an hour, and there's no air conditioning in this internet cafe. It's about as much heat as I can handle, a room full of warm computers making it hotter than any other place on this island!

Until next time! Stay cool! Or warm!!!

Natasha xo

Gorgeous sewing box

Hello blogging friends! Happy New Year!  I'm checking in at the internet cafe while away on holidays (that's "vacation" to my US friends).  I've been busy hand sewing and enjoying this warm Summer weather we've been having. 

The little guy's real birthday is tomorrow (we had the party a month early) so we've got some fun days and activities ahead.

In the meantime, I'll share with you a most gorgeous sewing box that I received for my birthday a few months ago from my sweet friend Tiffany of Shabby Scraps.  I uploaded the pics before I left for the beach so that I could have some pretties to show you while I am away.

{please excuse the typos and formatting, this computer is doing strange things and the internet cafe has actually closed, they're letting me stay on and finish what I'm doing so I am in a bit of a rush!}

When I opened this gift, I just about died.  Seriously, how perfetly gorgeous is this box?  Pink, green and vintage... velvet.... oh my....  Tiffany said that when she saw it, she immediately thought of me.  How wonderful is it to have friends who know you so well, and are so incredibly generous, who live half way across the world?!!!

This box is home to my new little "knitting Nancy" tool, and pom pom maker.  Oh, and wool roving... yes, I succumbed and took up yet another craft....

I've made a few pom poms, but they're not very good, I need a lot of practice!  And using textured yarn is not great for the little knitting tool either because it's hard to see where one yarn finishes and the next one starts!  

But I have managed to make two loops which I sewed together to form a necklace.  On this necklace, I've added various felt balls which I made while down at the beach house, in pink, white and green... of course!  The balls are fun to make, and I'll show them to you when I get home.  You'll have to imagine what it looks like for now, sorry!

I've also been making wet felted creatures, and some clay ones for the little guy.  It's great fun wet-felting, however, all that detergent and wool and rolling in my palms does awful things to my hands, they are beyond dry and horrible, so I'm retiring the wool roving for now, lol!   

I've got out the laces and needle and thread, and been sewing up a cuff bracelet storm, it's fun!

See you next time, and thank you so much for stopping by!  I'm reading as many blogs as I can on my google reader, but I'm behind by something like 240+ blog posts as I check maybe once to twice a week.... so please forgive me if you are waiting on a reply!

Natasha xo