Letter love

Wow I never blog more than once a week but I would love to from now one. I'm leaving for a small trip down to Bathurst on Friday morning (early). So I have to start packing as I'm working tomorrow and leaving at 6am Friday morning for a lovely 12 hour car ride. Jason and I are going down to see his family.

Anyway, if you know me I love to receive mail and write letters. I like to receive letters that I know people put the effort in. As I do that and always try and put little extras. It's such a wonderful surprise to receive a pretty package in the mail. So I thought I would make a little flickr mosaic of some letter love.

1. Love Letters I, 2. Day 72 - wading through a sea of letters, 3. Circulation: Letters & Lives, 4. letters flying.., 5. Da série: Cartas, 6. obrigada, paula!, 7. December Flying Letters, 8. a letter begins, 9. Fragile Mail, 10. Private Eye ID & Such, 11. Shackled & Addicted, 12. to be mailed

I'm such a sucker for mail. I have kept all my letter since I was 9. They are kept in a box and I like to go through them and read and see what little things I was on about =)

But now I have tons of things to catch up on. I must send out the packages to the winners. Thanks for giving me your details everyone. I hope to have them sent by tomorrow. Thanks again for all your support.

Winners Drawn!

Ok the time has come and I have drawn the winners to my little blog giveaway. I do want to say thank you to everyone who entered and left a comment. It's so lovely of you all and I would give away something for everyone if I could. And there are actually 5 winners as I realised I have 5 sets of 4 note cards. And there will be a bonus winner as well =) I got so excited about it!

So I'm using a random number generator to select the winners and they are....

The random numbers. They correspond to these comments....

Number 16

Number 24

Number 21

Number 12

Number 22

And here is the number for my little bonus 'just because....'

Number 4

So congratulations to all the winners! I will be contacting you all shortly and getting details. Thank you all so much for the support and encouragement. It means soo much. I will be visiting your blogs very soon.

On a side note I'm going to Bathurst for a few days to go meet some of Jason's family =) We're driving down. Takes about 12 hours or so!  So post will depend on how quick I can get details. Thanks again everyone!!

* Shop should still open about the 28th July. Yay!

Mini Blog Giveaway

Hello all I thought I would have another little giveaway =) I'm thinking of opening my Etsy shop on the 28th of July. Hopefully on that day or at least around that date.

But I thought to have a little giveaway in celebration! Here are the note cards that I'm giving away.

I made these awhile ago. With plans to put them in Etsy but I thought it would be cute to use them for the giveaway.

So basically there are four sets of 4 mini note cards and envelopes that I'm giving away. To participate you just need to leave a comment with an email or some form of contact. I will leave this up for about a week and then I will draw out the 4 winners. Feel free to let people know about this =) 

Thank you for your kind words about my note cards and the encouragement to open my Etsy. Not long now and I'm so excited about it.

By the way I've cancelled my sewing classes. Long story lol but I hope to start them later on in the year.

Thanks again everyone!!

* Lol I think I should say that each winner receives one set of 4 note cards and envelopes. But there will be 4 winners =) Oh and each set will come with a little extra.

Note cards for Etsy

I've been trying to make some mini note cards and getting ready for when I open my Etsy next month I should think it will be.

They're quite simple and cute but I think that's my main style when I create them. So enjoy!

I'm loving the paper I'm using. And of course butterflies play a major role and it's a recurring theme.
I'm showing one card per set. They don't all match because it all depends on the placement of the pattern when I cut the paper out.

I guess that's what I like about them. They can look different. I'm also loving tiny rhinestones if you haven't already noticed.

Another thing that's different is I'm going to do some mixing and matching. I'm not sure yet if it's better to have matching cards per set or to mix them up. Any ideas??

And I haven't gotten round to making the envelopes yet either. I will get them done in time. I want to make at least 20-25 sets of 4 note cards before I open.

I'm also tempted to get a pro flickr account. Hehe I've been doing a lot of planning to get this Etsy shop open. I have a lot of ideas and I'm bursting with inspiration. Not just for the shop but in craftiness in general. My sewing course starts in 2 weeks!! So I'm trying to find an easy pattern for a skirt and some fabric. Feel free to suggest =)

Journals and writing

I mentioned in my previous post that I would show a few of the items that are inspiring me. That is journals (especially leather bound with personalised embossing) and the content that goes into them.

So I had a search through flickr and found some pictures that I liked. It's a mixture of journal collections and pages from various different type of journal.

It made me want to get out to some nice little cafe armed with a journal, an assortment of different material such as pens, paper, stickers, glue, etc and just sit and reflect. Or this could be in a park, a field or even in my backyard with my own self made paradise (which I have some lovely pictures from a magazine I need to share).

1. Journals and notebooks, 2. Journals, Moleskines, Notebooks, 3. Pile of Journals, 4. My Journals, 5. Journal page 7/21, 6. Traveling Journal Kit - contents, 7. La Dame Art Journal......, 8. Art Journal - Challenge, 9. Travel Journal, 10. Traveling Journal 3rd page, 11. Art Journal, 12. 1 Jan. 2008, 1st journal page, 13. Journals and daily planners: 1991 through 2006, 14. Embellished Journal from Laura!, 15. journal shelf #1, 16. journal shelf #2

I made another little thing in photo shop.

All these items come from Jenni Bick. This site will personalise most of their journals with embossing. These are just a few of my picks. And I added the writing implements because I would love to have a little set like them.

A. Roma Lussa leather journal
B. Italian songbird soft leather journal
C. Feather Quill pen set with inkwell and pen rest
D. Glass dip pen set black
E. Vintage crackle leather journal

Anyway, I'm anticipating the opening of my Etsy. I hope it will be open by next month. I have a few ideas but I haven't really been making anything. I was thinking of having a little grand opening giveaway though =) More about that later.

Big work week finished

I have finished that huge work week. 8 days in a row. Ugh! I only had one day off and then had to work yesterday and meant to work tonight but I'm not feeling too well. I think it's from over tiredness.

Anyway, I have tried to create and catch up on letters and other things. I tried to create a letter set as I love to write letters and always wanted to try and make my own stationary.

It's really quite basic. I bought some great brown kraft paper and some parchment paper bought a damask stamp and just tried to figure out where to stamp the image. I have ideas on personalising it and making full sets with stickers. It's something I'm thinking of adding to my future Etsy shop. What do you think? As this is just a trial run so my stamping skills are the best right now. (To see images better click on the picture).

And since I was playing around with photo shop I thought I would make an 'aged' photo with a letter writing quote which I thought was appropriate. Yes my photo shop skills aren't great either as I know it doesn't really looked that 'old.'

This is a little thing I made in photo shop when I was going through a 'I want to design' day. I've loved this Audrey Hepburn quote for ages now and I like to use it all the time.

I watched this movie twice!! It had only come out in Australia on June 6 but I had to work from 10-9:15 pm so I watched it the next night. I loved it! I've been a Narnia fan for years! I have a goal to purchase all the books in different languages and to try and get different sets of it.

Here are just some of the versions I would like to own. Books and the stories on cd, original illustration covers by Pauline Baynes, and a leather-bound version as well. There are heaps of bits and pieces I would love to get.

I also bought this book last week at work. It's a Narnia pop-up book. The pop-ups are amazing!! I think it's worth it if your a fan.
Here is a sample of one of the pages. I took this image from Amazon. It's beautiful!

There are a few other things inspiring my right now but I will leave it for the next post. Narnia inspires me to think of beautiful leather bound books, journals, ink and quills, letter writing and the more. Not sure why maybe because of the feel of the movies and books.

Until next time take care xox

Resting until stocktake

The Myer stocktake sale starts next week. So my hours sky rocketed. I was rostered for 47.5 hours with six days straight, but I managed to get it down to 43.5 instead. I'm so glad I was able to because it was just a ridiculous amount.

I am loving the rain though as it hasn't rained properly since about February and we really need it. Our dams need it so much.

Anyway, I am so much more inspired at the moment. I have 50 million ideas running through my head. A few being: making stationary sets (I have ideas for kraft paper and parchment paper), baking some cupcakes, and going to an actual sewing course! Yay! I've emailed the instructor to figure out details. I hope I will be able to.

1. handmade ZAKKA - ISBN 457911017X, 2. ISBN 407246385X - For Sweet Baby, 3. cloth shoes with buttons, 4. Chenille booties, 5. ISBN 4529043479, 6. cotton time 08.5, 7. Another project from Marie Claire idees, 8. spring arrival, 9. Marie Claire Idees

Here is another flickr mosaic. It's mainly of little baby booties. I find them soo cute and I would love to make some to decorate. Plus I have this dream to be able to make baby clothes and donate them to various charities and other organisations. But this will come in time. The pictures are mainly from Japanese craft books and a few from other magazine images. They are inspiring me lately.

Anyway, I will leave it here and hope you all are well.


xox