swapping in the beautiful sunshine

My girl Marissa over at Skooks Playground is, as well as being a real sweetheart, funny and super creatively talented.  Somehow though she decided to give me props with a Sunshine Award.

Then, Lara @ Sew Many Stitches Later came along and gave me a Beautiful Blogger award even though she has no idea what I even look like.  Talk about sweet.

Thanks ladies, I am totally blushing, you have made my month.

And I get to share the love too by passing it along to some other bloggers I’m diggin’.
so here are 17 (5 for Beautiful & 12 for Sunshine) in no particular order:

playing food
playing with food? If it’s felt of course!

dollie-cious
cute cute cute AND felt!

crafter by night
Another late night crafty thinking person.

dollarstore crafts
crafts made from stuff from the dollar store!

geek crafts
the name pretty much sums up the coolness

modern roots
husband & wife team, David & Miranda have created a crafty community

giver’s log
creativness on multiple levels

dolly asylum
crazy hilarity with a bit of craft twisted in

recycle this
you want to creatively reuse something, chances are you will find the answer here and more

And an award goes also to each of my fellow swappers, who are brilliant in addition to the fact that they agreed to join my swap.  Here they are below with their featured items inspired by our shared love of all things Meomi:

Tif sent this to Tracy:

Tracy sent this to Kate

Kate sent this to Becky

Becky sent this to Lia

Lia sent this to mE!

I sent this to Jennifer

Jennifer sent this to Tiffany

 

Amy sent this to Melissa

Melissa sent this to Amy

Such cool stuff, all very rad!  Check them out!

I want to thank everyone again and just say a big shout out to crafting.
If it weren’t for craft, this blog would not be possible.
We’ll it would, but there would probably be a lot more whining and ranting.
And it would have a different name.

Hooray for Craft!

Olympics Mania – Giveaway & Swap

2010 Olympics start today, are you excited?  I am, kinda.  Vancouver is a nice showcase city. Being married to a Canadian from Vancouver is also very nice.  But people we know from Canada have hightailed out of town for the madness. Vancouver at this time was the last place we ever expected to be, but some urgent passport issues had taken us across the border right on top of the opening celebrations.

One thing I had discovered here was that one of my favorite illustrators MEOMI had designed the mascots for the olympics.  Apparently they were unveiled back in 2007 but hey, I have been known to live under rocks…

I adore the characters and the uber cuteness.

I assume it is only a matter of time before the Octonauts or other Meomi creatures will be at a theater near you.  In the meantime, pick up (or borrow from library) a book and check out the websites:

http://hellomeomi.livejournal.com/

http://www.meomi.com/

http://www.octonauts.com/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/meomi

Giveaway schwag!
To get everyone in the Olympic spirit, I picked up a couple of goodies that may not be readily available in non-host cities and I wanted to share.

Please leave a comment and I’ll send this guy out to meet his new family along with some other little gifts.

As for the swap, let me know if you are interested in the same comment.  You do not need to join the swap to enter the giveaway but the more the merrier!

Pick any favorite Meomi character and create a handmade craft inspired by it (plushie, drawing, knit, etc.) to send to someone and get you’ll get a handmade item from someone as well.
I don’t have timelines, I was thinking a month or so to make something and send out.  Will finalize that once I get all the participants down. We’re setting up the mailing deadline as March 20th.  Signups for the swap are still being taken. Swap closed.  l sent everyone their partners Fri. 2/19.

Last day to win Quatchi is Monday, Feb.  22nd.

Open to everyone, everywhere.

Yay World!

and here’s a little boy, obviously unenthused by it all.

…… .  .   .    .     .      .

And the Quatchi goes to:

Sarah @ Neoteric Traditional.

Thanks everyone for playing! Happy Olympics!

postcards from the edge

oh, wouldn’t it be lovely to get correspondence from the guitarist/keyboardist of U2?   But for me, when you have a craft list that includes making handmade items for 2 new babies, a 2 year old’s birthday (not my kid, but that’s coming up too,) 3 more PIFs to complete, and upcoming halloween and the rest of the holidays, what do you do?   Why, you join a swap of course!   This was a cute one, I just couldn’t resist.   I thought if I didn’t get in on it, I might never get around to making a fabric postcard.  So here’s my contribution:

the red mountain, a postcard from the edge of craftsanity.  Or is that craft-insanity?  Who knows.

My wonderful partner  Ashley @ Peacocks & Dragonflies totally rocked with my postcard:

In addition to blogging and having an etsy shop, Ashley also has gone hardcore with the craft a day challenge for September. Check her out!

The insanity continues with the latest accessory. While I too jumped on the feather earring bandwagon and made myself a pair, I am all about making myself felt earrings now:

Whenever someone asks me where I got them, I proudly proclaim:

“I bought them from etsy!”

Which is usually responded to with:

“Coooooooooool!  Where’s Ed’s Sea?”

Coraline Mystery Box

It’s Monday, February 16th 1:56 PM Oregon time and I am at my laptop.  I’ve got the timer on the oven set to beep in 3 minutes just in case I am not paying attention.   I’m already in my email and have one drafted with what I imagine will be the required information, name, address, blog address.   I’ve got that nervous feeling that I get when I am bidding the last couple of seconds for something on eBay.  Refresh, refresh, nothing yet. I am waiting for this.
It’s the countdown to the post that will contain the email address to participate in the swap. There is a max of 50 people (apparently in the end only 44 signed up) and the other 80 commenters all said they would be waiting to sign up so I thought I should too.

1:59 PM – baby whining “One second, honey.  Mommy will be right there.”
2:00 PM – there’s the signup post, right on time.
2:00 PM – read, read, cut, copy
2:01 PM – send

Yes, I am weird but if you have read anything on this blog you have probably figured that out already.  Oh, and it get’s worse.  I had already started building my box before the timelines and partner assignments were even posted.

So, here’s my prize for being a keener: from Christine

And here is what I sent to King Carmen:

And here are all the boxes in the swap.  What amazing fun.  Great treasures!