Chiyogami Challenge

When I was out this weekend I picked up this little package of paper.  Have I mentioned I'm a sucker for anything tiny?

And the marketing is good too - you don't want to be stranded without some chiyogami! LOL


Coming from the Japanese Paper Place I knew there would be beautiful paper inside (plus I undid the package and had a peek in the store... shhh) - and there was!

So I have now challenged myself to come up with 24 different projects to use these tiny pieces of paper.  No deadlines, just 24 beautiful projects to accomplish when I feel like paper crafting!

Buttercup Bag

I'm sure some of you are familiar with Rae's Buttercup Bag pattern - it uses fat quarters, is quick, easy and free!  It's been on my informal to do list for a while and this spring I found the perfect fabric for it!  Actually when I bought the fabric I considered making another Birdie Sling but since I have 2 already I thought I'd go for something a little different.

I love it!  Big bags are nice for carrying a water bottle, camera, umbrella, etc. etc. but sometimes a girl needs something a little smaller.  Especially when wearing a summer dress (which it is finally warm enough for - hooray!).

And since turquoise is my favourite colour it will go with a lot of my clothes (um, and shoes & jewelry, what can I say, I know what I like!)

I made a few changes to the original pattern:

• Interfaced the whole thing to give it more shape-holding capabilities.
• Adding piping between the two outer pieces.
• Made the inside pocket more rectangular & less square.
• Made the strap wider (which I was able to do since I was working with yardage and not a fat quarter).

The pattern is great and I'm sure I'll be making more of these!

We have a winner!

First of all, thankyou so much for all your lovely comments!  I read each & every one & really enjoyed hearing how near & far everyone is from.  Because I'm a bit of a geek I'll probably count all the responses and make some sort of chart or something.  Bet you're excited about that one!

Anyways let's get on to the main show here - declaring a winner!  I plugged the numbers into the True Random Number Generator (sorry commenter #236, I got your comment minutes after doing this!) and the end result is that redzshadow from Charlottesville, VA is the winner!

I'll be in touch by e-mail for your shipping details.  Thanks again to everyone who entered, reading your comments really made my day(s).

News Flash!

Drumroll please... I'm excited to announce my Etsy store is now open!  More items to be added later this week but I thought I would let you know.  Plus if I waited till I had time to list all my items it would never happen.  If you'd like to visit, here's a link.

If you're here for Giveaway Day please go to This Post.

Thanks!

Giveaway Day!

I love Giveaway Days!  They're really a win-win situation.  You get a chance to win really cool stuff (last count I heard had over 300 bloggers giving things away!) and really cool blogs get new readers.  What's not to like?  Anyways, I know you're busy checking out all the neat stuff out there so I'll get down to business.

My giveaway is a rainbow zippy pouch like this:

And a set of 4 recycled cards, like this:

To enter please leave a comment telling me where you're from.  I will pick a winner with the wonderful random number generator on the evening of the 25th and ship the prize by the 30th.  International entries welcome, I will ship anywhere!

P.S.  If you don't win but would like a rainbow zippy pouch or some recycled cards come back in a few days for my Etsy shop opening!

I (heart) Mail

What could be more wonderful then getting something in the mail? 

Receiving an envelope with beautiful vintage stamps on it! (Can you see I was too excited to open it nicely and ripped it at the top?)

They're super cute in the package.

And so much fun once they're out!

My problem now is deciding who to send these wonderful stamps to.  Someone who would appreciate them of course. Although I'm having a little trouble letting go (isn't that girl watering the tree lovely?) so I'm seriously tempted to ask them to send them back to me instead of throwing them out.  Consider this your warning - if these stamps end up in your mailbox don't get too attached!

Want your own awesome stamps?  Jaime at Send More Mail is the lovely lady who assembles these packages - each with enough stamps to send a letter in Canada.  (Sorry everyone who lives elsewhere!)

I'm Excited About...

• This masking tape revamp on How About Orange.

• Giveaway Day on Sew, Mama, Sew.

• These forest stamps from Canada Post.