Tea Towel Bag Swap

Here's a bag I made for a Fiona @ Dragonfly Crafts in an online swap. We had to use a tea towel so I chose a white one and stamped it with Fiona's favourites, paris and butterflies and then chose a purple fabric to compliment it, another of Fiona's favourites.

The pattern is by Monica Poole of Moonshine Designs called the Bella Bag, I love the shape of this bag, very cute.

(Photo taken by Fiona)

I haven't opened my swap yet from De @ Re-de-zines, so I'll show you what I receive another time.

....and even more altered goodies!

In an earlier post I mentioned I had joined The Altered Paper's Tag a Month Swap, my tag made for me by Mercedes @ All Things Pretty arrived and it's gorgeous.

The Theme was bathing beauties and I love Mercedes take on the theme, if you look closely there is a crab pinching the girls bottom! 

Her package also included other ephemera, some that I don't think I could ever cut into they're so pretty! 

Thank you Mercedes!

Mercedes creates many beautiful things and I spent ages on her blog looking at all the eye candy.

For those of you who are asking what I do with my tags and ATC's, some are just hanging around the place, some of my ATC collection are in folder sleeves, the kind that sportscards fit into and some are in boxes. They're a good size little project to work on and be creative.

If you're interested in monthly tag swaps just pop over to Tee's blog @ The Altered Paper and if you join in you could win a monthly prize like this one that I received for August. 6"x6" paper pad full of the prettiest papers and some of Tee's handmade goodies.

Thanks Tee!

More ATC Swapping

My partner in the The Altered Paper's Face Only ATC Swap was Olivia @ Olivia's Creative Quest. Here's the lovely card she created for me...

Olivia also included some extra pieces for crafting with and a gorgeous handmade thank-you card....

.... with the cutest little stamp on the back

Thank you Olivia for being a lovely swap partner.

And I have to mention another angel in my life and that's Kerri, she's so generous, look at the gorgeous bundle she sent for my birthday last month.

Kerri and I were introduced by blogging, what a wonderful tool this is for creating friendships.

Thank-you Kez!! Love ya lots!

Word and Number Verifiation

Is Blogger's word and number verification getting you down? Well now's the time to join Chookyblue and I and turn it off on your blogs. You might be surprised how many more comments you might get. Just the other day I had 5 attempts to leave a comment on someones blog and after the 5th I gave up, so it makes me wonder how many others have wanted to leave a comment but given up. Could this be the reason why blogland seems to be very quiet lately. So please think about turning it off, most spam gets picked up and put in the spam folder and if someone leaves a not very nice comment you can delete it.

If you're not happy you can always switch back.

Angels

This post is about angels, there's the angels we create.....

This is the ATC I've created for Amy @ The Crafty Book Nerd in the Alphabet ATC swap, I love that she's also holding an apple.

There's angels whose style and creativity we admire and whose blogs we follow like Lisa @ Olive Grove Primitives.

Lisa owns a bricks and mortar shop called Inn Country on the northside of Brisbane, far far away from me so the best place to look inside her shop is through facebook here or the Inn Country blog. I went window shopping and a few emails later this sweet little cage is in my house. Fabulous customer service and I also received the rose and the most divine wax melt!

 I'm going to make a little birdy to sit inside on a little swing!

...and then there's those angels we call our friends.

Fee is one of my angels, she's generous, warm, inspiring, thoughtful, caring, the list is endless.  I sometimes complain about issues in my life but they're so small in comparison to the challenges Fee and her family have faced over the last few years. Today Fee and  I managed to catch up at lunchtime and she gave me this birthday present, it's been a few weeks since we'd seen each other.

There's a lovely owl compendium, bunny pincushion kit and a lavendar sachet, oh and a little tube of hand cream that I left at work on my desk. Thank-you Fee, love you lots!

Those of you that know Fee, please say a prayer for her Mum tonight as she's recovering from major surgery.

Discover Yourself

This is not the post about the Alphabet ATC I made but about the Face Only ATC I made for Olivia @ Olivia's Creative Quest. I had forgotten to take a photo before I posted and Olivia has taken a lovely one in a beautiful setting so I can show you

I do enjoy working on these small scale projects. Each ATC is only 2 1/2" x 3 1/2 ".  

It's probably hard to tell from the photo but I made the flowers on her headband in 3D and added glossy accents to the beads, earrings, ribbon and those blue eyes to make them shine.

Tomorrow I WILL show you the Alphabet ATC I made for Amy.

Altering Things

These past few weeks I've enjoyed a wee bit of papercrafting, I love to do these little projects everynow and again and there's been some fun swaps to be involved in.

Tee from The Altered Paper holds lots of great swaps, the most recent swap was for an altered tag and the theme was Sun Bathing Beauties, so here's my creation made for Mercedes @ All Things Pretty...

I've even sent a message in a wee bottle!
Mercedes creates the most gorgeous things, I'd love to visit her studio and you can too if you check out her blog.

Tomorrow I'll show you the ATC I made for Amy for the Alphabet ATC Swap, it's very cute!

More pressies

I've enjoyed a lovely week away from work although feeling sick wasn't pleasant and the GP is still unsure what is troubling me, blood tests reveal nothing so next step is an ultrasound. I did receive lovely birthday pressies which reminded me of how lucky I am to have such beautiful friends.

Firstly there's my BFF from high school days, Valerie's never far from my thoughts, we'll always be closes even though Bass Strait separates us. Valerie sent me this lovely package and handmade card and tag

inside was a layer cake, the fabrics are gorgeous

Thank-you Valerie xxx

The second pressie is from my Mum, she's off travelling around in her campervan in Queensland, escaping Tassie for the winter. Mum knitted me some scrappy socks, made from left over wool from earlier socks she has knitted me...I love my knitted socks!

and she knitted the most gorgeous delicate scarf

 think she said it is mohair/alpaca, thanks Mum xxx

The third pressie is from my talented friend Helen, she made these buttons just for me

I'm very lucky because Helen is always busy stitching for her business Hugs 'n Kisses so I feel very honoured to have a Helen original. If you're a Facebook friend of Hugs 'n Kisses Helen made up a few of these as kits for purchasel.

Helen also gave me one of her "Life is Beautiful" panels, these are so cute

and a gorgeous pattern, don't you love the packaging!

Helen is also a keen zentangler and made me a lovely card

 Thank-you Helen!

Now I can't leave my boys out, they bought me a GHD hairdryer, well really I bought it, my old cheapo hairdryer died ages ago and I decided I needed to replace it with a quality one.

I also received a pair of earrings from my son, purchased from his own hard earned cash from washing glasses. I'm wearing them and haven't got a pic to show you just yet, they're very pretty and very me.

So thank-you to everyone who sent birthday messages, you're all so lovely!

Anyway it's back to work for me tomorrow, wonder how many things have been thrown in my in tray?

Red Rasberry Quilts Giveaway

Pattern giveaway at Red Rasberry Quilts, don't miss it, click HERE