I'll be AWOL for almost a week!

Why? I hear you say...well that's because it's my annual retreat with Khristina and some of the other gals from her Yahoo Craft group. We'll try not to have TOO much fun, but I'll have lots of pics when I come back.

Until then, stay safe and sew lots.

Hugs
Naomi

And the winner is.........

Obviously the excitement of it being a "mystery" giveaway prize put alot of people off, but I'm sure that the winner will enjoy what I send her....yes, I'm still keeping it a mystery right up until the time that I know it's arrived at it's destination.

Oh, what's that I hear you say? Was it stop waffling Naomi and tell us who won? I thought so, and here I was thinking y'all might be patient with me...just in case you were the winner.

Ok, the winner was between commenter Number 1 and commenter Number 22..hee hee hee. Alrighty, I'll tell you now......I used the trusty random number generator over at random.org and here's a screen capture of whose number the generator drew out the hat for me...well actually not for me, for all you lovely people who entered my giveaway.
Now, if you care to look below, you would see that Kaye only entered an hour or so before I closed off the comments....talk about sailing close to the wind hey? Just goes to show, that sometimes first and last past the post do get called out!

So, as I'm in a generous mood, I drew 4 more numbers out of the hat, and they were 1, 21, 15 & 4......the four of you will be getting a wee package in the mail also. Congratulations to you all, I wish I could afford to mail out gifts to you all, maybe next time I'll put more prizes into the mix, or make it a bumper prize.....who knows, check back from time to time, and you may just catch hold of my next giveaway.

I've now emailed everyone to let them know they've won something.....so now I can publish this and go to bed....lol

Hugs
Naomi

Folded Hexagon Video Tute

If you've been reading my blog lately, you would have seen the hexagon keyring I made, well I now have VERY blurry eyes this morning after sitting up late, scouting You Tube to see if I could find a video that someone had already done on how to make the origami hexagons.....and YAY, I found one. Although it's not in English, it's an easy to follow video. I'll take pics of what to do once you have 2 of them made to turn them into keyrings, although once you've got them made, it's fairly easy to see how I made mine....lol

Also, for those who were waiting for me to do my 'own' video, I cheated...lol

Please feel free to send me links to your blog if you make any of these.

Also, don't forget, today is your last chance to sign up for my giveaway....not many people have entered, so the odds of one of you winning, are pretty good! Click here to enter, if the comments are closed off, then sorry, you missed out. I'll have another giveaway soon, but for now, good luck to anyone who's entered.

Hugs
Naomi

P.S. Apologies for no warning about the dog barking in the background of the video...lol I didn't actually have my speakers on at the time I viewed it....lol It was only thanks to Aunty Sharon pointing it out and me watching the video again with my speakers on, that I realise how annoying the little yapper is...lol So, sorry about that, but if it's too annoying, and you don't speak Spanish/Portuguese anyway....just watch it with no sound...Big Hugs Naomi

A few things I've made in the last couple of days

A friend of mine....Sandy, mentioned at Marion Markets once, that she wanted her friend Lois to make her one of these.....Lois told her where to go (but in a nice way) as they looked like alot of work. The other day, I found a blog that had instructions on it for making them, so on Monday, I made one.....think this one's a little big, especially if Sandy wanted it for a pin cushion....it's approximately the size of a soccer ball..lol Oh well, she's getting it whether it's the right size or not......I've already started a smaller one, but it's also not a Goldilocks one.....the 2nd one is too small, so once I've bought some more stuffing (the 1st one and the tree below have put paid to my stock of stuffing!) and finished the 2nd one off, I'll have a go at one in between the two sizes!

Remember the wee tree I made a few weeks ago? If not, see the post here. It was my entry for a challenge I'm in. Anyway, Raelene decided she'd like to try and make it in a bigger version.....so the above pic is what we came up with.....it's about 23" from tip to the bottom of the container it sits on...which was an old plastic container I'd gotten with flowers in a while ago...and I just made a black fabric (gotta love Homespun) cover and tied gold ribbon around it. We're going to use it on our table Christmas day....incidentally, the fabric we used for the tree is the same as the Tablerunner (backing fabric, that is) that I made here, not that I showed it in the pic of the runner...lol Can you believe that the tree took 500gm of stuffing, which is approx 1 lb of stuffing....alot huh?

I saw a tutorial on a site (I won't name it because the person has been known to 'steal' tutorials and claim them as her own....so if you happen to know where this technique originated from, please tell me, so I can link to that instead of where I saw it) for making folded hexagon flowers, and thought they'd be interesting to make. Once I made one, I decided to make a second one and turn them into a keyring. I made this side of the keyring (above pic), and then ironed it flat....but I'm thinking that wasn't such a wise move...see next pic!

This side I didn't iron it flat, and I think it looks way better, don't you? They're a quick and easy gift to make.

What have y'all been making? I've had a quick look around some of my regular blog haunts, but I'm sure you look and don't comment too, but I'd love to hear what you've been up to.

Hugs
Naomi

Mug pouch giveaway

Rush on over to Susans' Blog as she's having a giveaway for a mug pouch just like those in the pic above.....giveaway ends on September 10th, so don't delay and go enter today! Either click on the photo to go directly to her giveaway, or where I mentioned her blog to go to her homepage. Good luck.

Hugs
Naomi

New BOM starting today

To help celebrate Spring here in Australia, Fiona or Fee as she is known to most, has a wonderful FREE BOM on the first of the month.....this months download is available right now. If you're interested in completing the BOM, she even has a giveaway for one lucky person (will it be you? will it be me? Who knows, but you have to be in it to win it..lol) I'm going to try and make this up as I think it will be a nice gift and something that I have a month to complete a block before the next one comes out....in between ALL my other want to's! Hope you'll come join us.

Hugs
Naomi

Thought I'd try out a Blog Hop just for fun!

I visited Robins blog earlier today, and saw she's having a mini giveaway, to be drawn this Friday (3rd Sept) and I thought it looked like fun, so I had to get in on the act....and tah-dah, I'm in...lol If you go to this post, you can enter my giveaway whilst you're here. Thanks for visiting me, I hope you either leave a comment on this post to let me know you dropped by, or you go enter my giveaway.

Also, please consider becoming part of the blog hop.



Hugs
Naomi

My August Challenge Item

I signed up for Amanda's Christmas in July challenge, and here's my entry for August. I'm pretty happy with it, and it was relatively quick and easy, once I'd decided on what decorations I was putting on the tree! I kinda like working under pressure, as I only started to make my entry for August this afternoon, but managed to finish it with 1 day, 21 hours to go...lol

The decorations are just rose beads and tubular beads, with a hematite star adorning the top.

If you'd like to read a bit more about Amanda's challenge, please click here.

Don't forget to enter my giveaway.....by clicking here first though!

Hugs
Naomi

Celebrating my DGD's 3rd Birthday

Firstly, Happy Birthday Chubba, Nanny & Auntie Raels love you lots. As I missed my 200th post giveaway opportunity.....I thought I'd find a date this month that represented something to me.....and what better date, than the above little darlings' birthday. (Sorry to disappoint anyone, but the above pictured cutie, is not the prize!)

I know a while back I said I'd have a 'just coz I can' giveaway, and have gone back on my word.....but the just coz I can part, is the actual prize....I'm going to make it a mystery prize.....or even prizes, if I have enough people comment, perhaps I'll throw another 'item' in for every 30 comments.

To enter, all you have to do is leave a comment saying you'd like to be entered....no hoops to jump through, no crocodile infested waters to swim across, just leave a comment, and please, make sure I have a way to contact you in case you win.......I will close the comments off on September 10th and announce the winner on September 11th.

It won't earn you an extra entry, but feel free to promote my giveaway on your blog....remember the more entries, the more prizes I'll be giving away....lol It's entirely up to you if you want to or not though, so don't feel pressured...that's not what this giveaway is about.

Good luck and I look forward to reading all your comments.
Hugs
Naomi

P.S. A big thank you to my friend in Qld, Diana, for sending me the cute pic of TaShie. Didn't she do a great job? You should see the others that she's done....they're soooo cute.

Just made this

I was looking around blogs....well what a surprise that must be to you all hey? lol....and stumbled across a pincushion tutorial here....near the end of the tutorial, I saw coaster mentioned, and thought "I can do that" and VOILA one pizza coaster! I call it that because the segments of the circle, remind me of how a pizza gets cut. What do you think? Should I try and make a matching set? If so, do you think I should follow a colour scheme - 2 or 3 colours.....OR, should I do 6 different colours? Tell me, tell me, tell me...please!

Hugs
Naomi

Day out to the Whispering Wall

Maz (my self adopted sister) came to stay at our place for the weekend, and yesterday I took her for a drive out to see the Whispering Wall as she'd never been there. Raelene couldn't come as she is still feeling pretty lousy with the flu.....I'm still trying, or rather my immune system, is still fighting it...fingers crossed I don't catch it.

The Whispering Wall is in fact the retaining wall of the Barossa Reservoir. Built between 1899 and 1903, the dam was a revolutionary engineering feat for its day and attracted attention from all over the world, even making its way into the pages of the journal Scientific American.

But what draws visitors to the Whispering Wall is its unique acoustic effects: words whispered at one side can be clearly heard at the other, more than 100 metres away. Children in particular love visiting the wall and testing its abilities.

Besides trying out the Whispering Wall, visitors can also learn about the history of the construction of the dam, take in the scenery of the water reserve and enjoy the colours and sounds of the peaceful bush setting. The information in italics is taken from this website

As we headed into Gawler, I noticed a sign at one of the roundabouts, advertising a LIONS club market.....and a slight detour down the next side street, voila, we were at said market (see above pic). It's a nice little market...more plants & Trash 'n' treasure than hand made goodies, but I did manage to score a big bag of poly stuffing that I can use in softies, and a basket I originally bought with the mind of using it on the stall, but Maz liked it so much, I gave it to her. I also bought Maz a sage plant from one of the stall holders.

Maz eating some hot donuts....I've read every page in the diet manual, and apparently if you buy hot donuts and only take photos of others eating them, then yours have no calories.....well I thought it was worth a try...lol I paid for it though....had a plus of 1.4kg on the scales this morning when I got on them, but my weight loss/gain yo-yo saga is a completely different story, and one I won't bore you with. (P.S. Maz will probably kill me for putting this photo on the blog, but I how could I resist...especially when there's no photographic evidence that I ate any? lol)

After our stop at the market, and once we'd eaten our yummy hot donuts, we finally made our way through Gawler, and off to the Whispering Wall.




The above three signs show information about the Whispering Wall and reservoir...unfortunately vandals and/or weather have obscured most of the information, but if you followed to above links, you will have been able to read about this ever so interesting landmark here in South Australia.

Anyone who knows Maz will know that she's just a little bit well known for her love of a bubbly called "Whispers".....how bizarre that of the three information signs, she just 'happened' to pose in front of the one with the word WHISPER on it...lol

This was taken from just near the carpark, to show the actual reservoir that the dam holds back.

This pic shows the view from the carpark end of the dam to the right.

This is a location marker that I was standing near, whilst I waited for Marion or Maz, to walk back around.

You may need to click on the above pic to enlarge it, but in case you don't have time, I told Maz to "wave for the camera" which she did...and you can just make her out waving at me.....bear in mind, that I told her this into the wall and it sounded to her like I was just near her....amazing!

If you look closely, you can just make Maz out as she walks around to the other side of the wall to give the acoustics a test. Hint....she's looking over the railing down the dam wall.

This was as Maz was walking back around to me. Notice I was kind and made her do the walk around the top of the dam??? lol

This was taken as we headed back to the car, to go back to Gawler, where we had a very filling lunch at Cafe Nova.

Had a quick trip to Spotlight on the way home, but alas they didn't have what I was after.....should've gone sooner to get the Minky fabric to make my DGD a pillow buddy that I saw on Elizabeth of twelvecraftstillchristmas blog.....I'll find the link for you so you can see what I wanted to make her.

Ah-ha, you can find part 1 of the tutorial here and part 2 of the tutorial here. Isn't it sooooo cute? So, as disappointed as I was to not have made it there in time to get the fabric to make her one of these, I did however get her some cute to hoot owl flanellete fabric to make her some pj's, some pretty brown pink and purple flowery cord fabric to make her a skirt and some folky owl chrissy fabric to make something for me! I'll edit this post a bit later today to add pics of the fabrics I got.

Hugs
Naomi

HURRY HURRY HURRY...GO! GO! GO!

Jackie, and the fantastic people over at Accuquilt have got together to offer one lucky person the chance to win their own GO! I know I'd love to win it, and I'm sure at least one of you would too. So GO! on over to Jackies' blog to enter. The giveaway ends on August 26th so GO! GO! GO!

GOod luck

Hugs
Naomi

Jaybird quilts is having a sponsored giveaway from/by the FQS

OMG how cool would it be to win the above FQ bundle? I know I would be having a "pure"ly joyous time playing with them all. The giveaway is sponsored by the FAT QUARTER SHOP, but hosted by Jaybird Quilts. You have up to 5 chances of winning....this is my last task to get my 5th entry.....good luck, you have a couple more days to enter, as it closes on Thursday 19th August to enter...hurry though, I'd hate you to miss out, that would just be a PURE shame. Just click on the FQ bundle above to be whisked off to Jaybird quilts to enter.

Hugs
Naomi

Ott Light special offer for Aussie crafters

I'm doing a friend a favour and putting these lights for sale on my blog.....these retail for $130+ and as a special offer, Sandy has agreed to offer them for $65.00 AUD + Postage....or if you're in Adelaide, a pick up/drop off is a possibility. The ones I have here for sale are all grey, however, if you're quick, she may still have a pink and a blue one. If you're interested, please email me to arrange payment/postage.

***Please note, there's only one light left.....hurry so you don't miss out***

Hugs
Naomi

Melissa is hosting a Q.A.T.B swap

Morning peoples, just thought I'd share with you about a swap my DQ (Dag Quad...long story!) pal in USA is hosting. I, yes wittle old me, was the inspiration for the name of the swap, so how could I not go sign up hey? I'm sure it'll be a fun swap....and you get to choose what theme your blocks are. Anyway, I won't prattle on about it here, Melissa explains it very well on her blog, so click here to GO! over and read about it and decide if you too would like to sign up. GO! on, you know you really want to...lol Sign ups are until 22nd August 2010.



As I once read it wasn't good blog-etiquette to have a post without pictures, I popped in the gratuitous cute kitty shot...lol Only to show that I do as I'm told.....some of the time...hee hee hee

Hugs
Naomi

Custom order #1 completed

Above are two Owlie shelf sitters I made for Anita P in NSW.....she saw some others I made when I posted them in Facebook, and wanted one for each of her kiddlies. These will be flying off to their new home during this coming week.

I have another order for two more, one from stock (yay, I don't have to make all of them!) and one custom one.....as many greens as I could use, so I've managed to use 5 different ones, and will post a pic of it in this post a bit later today.....gotta go finish sewing it now!

I also have 2 more orders to do......my daughter rang me yesterday and ordered 10 zippered wallets, two of which she'd like asap, and it just so happened I had two made up that she's having and the other 8 are required soon-ish...hee hee hee.

My other customer, Lizzie, plays golf with Raelene, and she needs a quilt block made up for a friends birthday, so guess who gets to make it???? Yeppers, me. I'll take pics and post it when it's done. Am just waiting for a response as to any changes I need to make to the design and then it'll be stitching station to the ready....lol

Hope y'all are having a great day/night, it's cold, wet and windy here today.....brrrrrrrrrr.

Hugs
Naomi

Lovely Little Handmades' Great Giveaway

Hi everyone,

Remember my July Challenge table runner, click here for the reminder if you don't remember it. Well the pattern I used for that, was by Happy Zombie and Monica (of Happy Zombie) has a designed just the cutest range of holiday happy fabric from Lecien, and Kerri from lovely little handmades is VERY generously giving away 1 FQ of each story in the range.....that's not one, not two, not three, but count them....yep, you got it right, TWELVE yumdiddlyscrumptious fat quarters. I'd so love to win them, especially after Monica sent me such a nice email about the runner.

Click on the pic above to head on over to Kerri's blog to enter......entries close tomorrow, so RUSH RUSH RUSH or you'll miss the chance. ***please don't get angry with me for the late heads up, but I only found the giveaway today myself***

Hugs & Good luck if you make it in time
Naomi

Woo Hoo Khris's F-R-I-E-N-D-S Swap is on again

Khris is hosting her F-R-I-E-N-D-S swap again. As stated in the picture above, you swap 7 gifts starting with each of the letters of the word "friends". I participated last year, and my swap partner was Terri Harlan of Sew Fantastic blog. I'm going to do participate in the swap again this year, as last years' was so much fun. If you want to participate, you need to sign up by 10th August, and have a current blog....to sign up, click on the above pic to go to Khris's post about it and sign up there. Deadline for the swap is October 26th....which just so happens to be Khris's birthday.....do ya think she's hoping for heaps of Birthday cards this year? lol It's ok, Khris and I know each other, and I'm sure she'd expect me to think something like that...hee hee hee

Hugs
Naomi

Toddler/Kids hats I just made

For the last couple of nights, I've been doing a bit of crochet....here's what I've been making....Depending on the age of the child (a much more polite way of putting "depends on how big the childs' head is hey? lol) I'm thinking these hats would fit from about a 6 - 18 month old. There's two girlie ones and two unisex or boy ones. Am about to go pop them up for sale on my Crafty Owl blog if you'd like to buy one or more of them. I can also do custom orders, and tonight I'll be trying out different sizes and colours.

What do you think of them?

Hugs
Naomi

Giveaways to share with you

Click on the photo above before July 31st to enter to win some great 1980's charm packs....wow I thought charm packs were a recent thing...lol Shows how much I need to get a life hey? Good luck if you decide to enter. Don't forget to open the link in a new window or tab, or come back to my blog so that you can also enter the following giveaway too.

I read about the above giveaway on a friends' blog and thought I'd share the love....well the giveaway anyway! Click on the above photo before Aug 1st to enter to win 6 FQ's (1.5yards) of fabric by designers from Israel. Carmel is hosting the giveaway in honour of 100 posts....so don't forget to congratulate her if you go enter. Good luck.

Hugs
Naomi