Ready for a giveaway?

Johnny

O.k -I guess I'm as ready as I'll ever be...

I have decided to give away a scrappy collage notepad that I made for the shop.
I used a bunch of little scraps from my collection, and stitched them on every which way to create a little collaged notepad...I have sold a few of these notepads in the shop. They are all one of kind.

The giveaway prize

I like to keep my giveaways fairly easy, so I think I'll just ask for you to leave me a little comment here at the end of the post telling me how you found my blog. Always curious.
The rules ; ) You have until midnight August 6th to leave your answer/comment here in this post. Also, please make sure you leave a way for me to contact you with your link. Otherwise, we'll go with the 2nd runner up...Either Coco or Johnny will choose a winner from the hat.

Oh and I did snap a few pics this morning-it finally stopped raining long enough-
Up top there is Johnny, he didn't want to come out of his cage today, so I took these shots through the bars. Here's another :



The foliage hat:

I finished it in just 2 days!

This hat was so much easier to make than I had anticipated. I will definitely be making more! It's hard to see the lace detail in the picture.The pattern mentioned no blocking, and I don't like to (out of pure laziness to really try) so I think the pattern will be more obvious as it gets worn.
The yarn is, I believe, Manos del Uruguay, but cannot seem to find the color online. The other ball I have- I tore the tag off of and threw away apparently when I wound it. I love the color.

And because I always like to have 2-3 projects going at once, here's another I've just started :

The Side Slip Cloche from Boutique Knits by Laura Irwin.

As soon as I get off of the couch..

~I will take photos for my blog.
~I promise I won't forget about my 1 year blogiversary giveaway.

I am just a little under the weather these past few days with some sort of stomach bug and can't seem to get off of the couch. No one else seems to have it-knock on wood -so I'm thinking it's something I ate.
I'm also completely overwhelmed with our move/unpacking/all of the things involved in that...school tests, doctor and specialist searches, business things, job things, adapting to this whole new life change...I just keep putting things off...The humidity is making me very tired too. Excuses, excuses...

I did somehow manage to (semi) organize a room (guest room now turned toy room because of basement, see a few posts ago) full of toys today, then realized I didn't really feel well enough for such an endeavor. And went back to the couch.

This past weekend I managed to:

~Finish knitting this hat, with Manos del Uruguay(?) yarn. It went much faster and much easier than I anticipated so I might just try and make a few more for Christmas presents....I don't remember ever knitting a hat from the top down. At first the double pointed needles were a little tricky to manipulate but I did it.

~My daughter requested a parakeet for her birthday which we got her, and she named Johnny, after Depp-not sure why. He's really sweet. I'm surprised he let us hold him already from day 1. We're trying to teach him to whistle 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star'

If I can get off of the couch tomorrow..
~ I will try and get some pictures taken of the hat, and 'Johnny' posted and see if I can get the giveaway going....
See you then :)

1 year blogiversary

Oh boy- during the move the 1 year blogiversary came and went a few weeks ago(June 24)....I should do something about that....Maybe a little giveaway?
Stay tuned, When I get the chance I'll get something ready :)
You can click over there on the right to read my very first (boring) post ;)
Have a happy crafty day!
Andrea

Blog feature

Hi there-
My headband has been featured again today on another blog:
cherriemarie.blogspot.com.
She also has an etsy shop : idea designs

That was a nice surprise that made my day. Things have been very low key business wise because I'm so busy unpacking and getting things organized in our new home. We've been here a month already and I still haven't gotten much done -at least that I thought I'd have done by now. Much harder than I had anticipated, this move.
I have been scouting out and trying to search for some quilting shops in our new area. I haven't been too successful so far. Still looking- Anyone know of any nice 'Mom and Pop' type quilting shops in South~West Ohio??

Animals in the yard

I 've been adding to my list of 'blogs I like to read' list over there on the right hand side. I love scrolling through and discovering new blogs so I will be continuously adding to my list as I remember to...go and have a look, I'm sure you'll like them too.

I might be slow, but -I've noticed the linkwithin 'widget' lately on some of these same blogs and thought it might look good on mine. What do you think? I like it so far. And, it was super easy to do. (Perfect for me). Now you can see little pictures of prior posts at the bottom of the posts.

We've been in our new home for a few weeks, but I've yet to take any (nice) interesting photos so maybe this'll help.

I need to find-among other things- my zoom lens-so I can take pictures of my yard. We have a bird feeder out in the back and, so far, we've seen several types of birds, 2 squirrels a few rabbits and chipmunks have been in it! Almost all at once. I love squirrels- you can probably tell from my fabric stash- but I've decided I really like chipmunks too...Remember the ''Whistle while you work'' scene from Snow White?- that's what it seemed like yesterday :)

The other night we actually had a bat in our living room! How does one successfully remove a bat from ones home? We had them a few times growing up in Europe but they were sleeping upside down on the wall and my Dad-who also lived in the Transylvania area for awhile as a child- was not afraid to remove them by hand(!)

In California we had some birds and one time a few coyotes in our (sub)urban patio. Maybe a possum or 2.



Do you have lots of animals on your yard?

2 for 1 day

2nd post for the day-

I have an interview featured on alison kelley designs blog! It's so fun to be featured :)
Be sure to click the link to see her great blog.
Oh, and here's the link for her etsy shop. She has beautiful jewelry. Be sure to stop by there too !

Adapting and some name changes

People keep telling me I'll get used to certain things and in my stubbornness I just keep replying I will never get used to 'that'.

Such as:
~The humidity. People warned me. I thought they were exaggerating. I wrote/prepared this post a few days ago and since then I must admit it's died down a bit. Thankfully. I was starting to feel like I couldn't breathe.
~Mosquito bites.Growing up I got lots of mosquito bites. In France I drank yeast, yep from the packet dissolved in water, quite a taste, and also put drops of concentrated mint on my tongue (not at the same time). In hopes of warding off mosquitoes. I think it worked?? Which doctor gave those orders? Please don't try that at home.
I have so many bites on my leg right now it's swollen out of shape, and one that looks like a burn.

Since I can't really do any crafting right now I thought I'd share some name changes I noticed while crossing the country...in case you ever needed to know...they all concern food so far. Ahem...

Carl's Jr. is Hardee's...click the link and scroll down to the map see if you're in a Hardee's, Carl's , or both, region :)

Dreyer's is Edy's...honoring 2 founders

Bob's Big Boy (if you can still find one) is Frisch's Big Boy here, who knew?

Of course now I can't think of the others I wanted to mention. I will post them as I see them. I thought it was interesting.

Do you know of other name changes around the country?

They're on their way :)

If you're a regular reader of my blog, you'll know that a few posts back, I showed my entire house in boxes...Twice as much as should have been crammed into our little town home.

We still don't have our things although they have been sending us updates as they move toward this end of the world.

Update, stop the presses: The movers are on their way-finally. I am ready and waiting here as I blog. Some things I can't wait to take out of the boxes and unpack-like ~ my bed, clothes and my sewing supplies, tho' at this point I'm not sure where it's all going to go :O
Some things I think I might keep packed for awhile. Unexpected issues have made us have to reconsider where we're going to be putting all of our things. We had great plans to put most of the kids toys, sewing room, holiday decor, 90% of the house~ into the basement's finished side. It won't be happening for awhile. Oh, the importance of a working sump pump. We never had one before and weren't even sure what one was-til now :(

We're going to be painting the family room this week too. I should try and remember to take before and after pictures. I am a great procrastinator when it comes to choosing paint colors. Maybe procrastinator isn't the word I'm looking for, I just want to make sure it's the right color, perfectionist? My husband wanted me to choose colors for rooms from more than 2,000 miles away. He didn't understand the importance (to me) of lighting and color. I studied interior decorating in France and wasn't going to choose paint that way.

Silver Sage from Restoration Hardware is one of my all-time fail proof faves and I think we're going with that (again) in the family room. I've loved the color since before they even offered paint for it. I used to take paint chips to the store trying to find one that matched. Now they have their own. Yippee.

Have a happy creative day. I'll be here unpacking :)

Adjusting

Adjusting slowly.

I have access to a laptop, tho' not my own. Unfortunately I have no wonderful pictures to post and just realized it's not Spring anymore so the banner needs some work too. As soon as I get my computer and things. Remember all of those boxes I packed and shipped? Well they didn't leave until well after we did. In fact, I'm not even sure when, but they should be coming some day soon (crosses fingers). Sleeping on floors and blow up mattresses for weeks = not fun. I won't even say how long we didn't have hot water.

I am trying to adjust to the new location. The space I was going to use for my studio needs a lot more work to get it usable than I had hoped so for now I think I'll just use the den. Unfortunately it's about half of what I need but a lot more than what I had. The whole place needs more work than I had hoped. Some just cosmetic, some necessary.

Right now I'm spending my days cleaning, shopping for all of the things you need for a home and trying to scope out some decent fabric/yarn stores which is on my agenda again today :)

I need some coffee first...