Antler Girl in Plushie Palooza today!

Oooh! Antler Girl is on Kid Independent today as part of their Plushie Palooza!

Go over there and leave a comment to vote for her. Go on. Only if you like. Pretty please. But no pressure.

Do't forget to enter the giant awesome plushie giveaway too! You could win antler girl and 29 other plushies! Ace!

plushie palooza @ Kid Independent

I'm very excited to be a part of Plushie Palooza at KidIndependent, a blog of lovely handmade indie loveliness for kids and mums. Plushie Palooza is a month full of handmade plushies so cute you’ll want to squeeze them till their stuffing pops out; a toy festival and swag bonanza celebrating the handmade toy.

Every day an ace plush will be featured on the blog, until 30 November, 2010. You can vote on your favourites by adding a comment to the corresponding post. There will be a few spot prizes along the way, so be sure to drop by daily. At the end of the festival, the plushie with the most votes will win the Golden Plushie award!

My antler girl will be featured on November 16th, feel free to drop by and vote for me! Hooray!

And OHMYGOODNESS you can win ALL thirty of the featured plushies! (enter the prize draw here ) what an awesome giant bag of awsomeness! What would you do with 30 plushies? And just before Christmas! (if you can bear to give them away. No pun intended)

Good luck!

(text excerpts and banner image via KIDIndependent)

that is one famous cat

My cat Six was featured on Freckled Nest for 'Fuzzy Friday'. If you haven't already seen this ace blog by the lovely Leigh-Anne, go check it out.

I showed Six her post, and she looked suitably unimpressed and went into the corner to lick herself. Ah, fame.

Speed Creating

Day 10: Mirror rorriM

Day 13: Bath Fountain


Day 15: Football Smoothie Maker



Day 2: Pop up Train Tray Surprise
(Some of my favourite projects so far)

I came across Dominic Wilcox by chance, he's undertaken a Speed Creating Challenge; he will make a new object, installation or creative intervention every day while going about his daily life.
At home, in the studio, on the train or wherever my day takes me, I will attempt to make something that interests me creatively and then quickly document it via photographs, drawings or video. Each day I will receive a small budget of £10 for materials.

And he explains a bit more;

I believe that this self-imposed project with it’s constraints on time and money will force me to take an instinctive and experimental approach. The fear of failure and the usual time spent thinking through the potential pitfalls of a project will not be an option and I will need to react swiftly to my thoughts, observations and experimental outcomes discovered along the way. I am not focused solely on the final objects or images but on the creative journey I take. Complete failures are expected and embraced.

I particularly like his last sentence there. Complete failures are expected and embraced.
I think it's easy to freak out about failures, but by forcing yourself to be creative no-matter-what and embracing mistakes, you can create all kinds of things you wouldn't have otherwise attempted.

You can see Dominic's other projects and ongoing works at his blog, and also photos of his work in an exhibition as part of the Anti-Design Festival's Mistakes and Manifestos events.

a peanut piggy pair

To celebrate her first bloggy birthday, Stitchy Britt is giving away these adorable peanut-shaped squishy pigs. All handmade, including that little scarf and crocheted basket. Adorable. Pop over there and oink her- post a comment or visit her facebook page, and help celebrate her blog birthday! Yay!

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Be quick, entries close Saturday night! (Her blog is swell too- less peanut-shaped, but just swell.)

on the subject of cubby houses

Build CC has an article on Couch Cushion Architecture. I wonder what grade our cubby house would have earned. I sure like the architectural tone in the reviews.

Via Dude Craft

Kitty Bud Fabric

Kitty Bud Fabric by Melinda Josie. Isn't it precious! Just like the rosebud fabric I had when I was little, but like a bazillion times cuter. Found via my love for you is a stampede of horses blog. (Cute name, huh?)

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She does amazing paintings too. You can see her portfolio here and she has some for sale here.

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Like A Bear Knitting
2009
Watercolour, Ink & Gouache
12" x 14" (framed)

Milo and Bruno
2009
Watercolour & Gouache
8" x 10"

Sleepy Pon
2007
Watercolour, Ink & Gouache
11" x 13" (framed)

Meanwhile I am feeling like Sleepy Pon there and trying to gather motivation to go to my studio. This cold just won't.go.away. I am blowing my nose and coughing and sniffling like a mad thing; I'd rather lie in bed and watch re-runs and drink tea. *sigh*.

Howard

A film by Julia Potts via The Ever Dazzling

Julia also has lovely prints of her illustrations in her shop. Very lovely.

Oops I forgot!

My Friday Follower! Sorry ‘bout that!


This week I introduce the lovely Kathy from Chunky Chooky- if you haven't already met. Kathy was one of my first followers and her encouragment and comments really kept me going in those weeks where I wondered over the sanity of blogging in between working, studying, life-in-general. She makes VERY CUTE plushies and rattles in lovely bold prints, the kind of stuff that makes me sigh and think of little fingers holding them... ANYWAY, do go have a read, she is down-to-earth, lovely, kind and funny. Here's her etsy shop too.
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Considering my unpredictable schedule I figured that setting up a regular blogging theme like this doesn’t really work for me, but I still want to show you some of my favourite blogs and say thank you to my followers, so instead I give you the blog love of the moment tab on the side there. I’ll keep featuring followers and my favourite blogs, but gives me some more leeway in scheduling! I love finding new bloggy favourites through other people's blogs, I hope this will give you a chance to find some more too.

I want

This Book. You can buy it here, or a signed copy here.

Or buy me one. If you like.

Papercuts, I love. Mister rob does them very well. Check out his lovely etsy shop.

If you like paper too, check out this blog.

create without waste

Craft Leftovers site and blog is all about using what you have in your stash to create, about creating but not creating waste and is full of ideas and projects and pretty pictures. They've got a zine/mag that looks so sweet and I bet is oh-so-handy.

March Craft Leftovers Monthly: Volume 2: Issue 3
This month Craft Leftovers Monthly is taking a nice long look into the world of plush! Recycled stuffing, knitting, crochet, stitching, and a little corned beef and cabbage for good measure! Craft Leftovers Monthly is printed on 100% recycled paper. It is 36 pages of crafty goodness.

Ps. you can win one of these cute Craft Leftovers mags by visiting the needle.org and leaving a comment! On second thoughts, don't go and enter the giveaway. I wants it.

news with nipples

My favourite blog of the moment, news with nipples is an interesting, biting and often hilarious blog that looks at how women are portrayed in current media (particularly newspapers and online news) by a journalist who's not afraid to swear a bit. A fair bit.

It makes me sit up and notice the blatant bias and quite un-feministic (is that a word? as in un-equal) view in articles that I would have otherwise passed by as a matter of course. I don't take as a given everything she says, but her opinions sure are a bit of fresh air, and sure do make me consider mine.

I do recommend. Try not to snort tea out of your nose when laughing though. That hurts.

Hope for Haiti

My golly goodness, isn't what is going on in Haiti just heart-wrenchingly well, heart wrenching? (I wanted to use stronger expletives there. but this is (mostly) a G-rated blog).. It is disturbing and devastating and we all have to do something, really. really really.

There's a bunch of ways crafty people are helping out ('cause we're a darn helpful lot), and not-so-crafty, and you can too.

Donate your craftiness to a fundraiser

- Donate something to Craft Hope, it will be sold on etsy to raise money (and you can put a very cute Craft Hope Haiti button on your blog, you caring person you!)

- Indiefixx is taking donations for silent auctions with donated goods to raise money for the Red Cross International Relief Fund to provide essential items including food, water and blankets.

- Join the Help Haiti Blogger Challenge on this blog

Go shopping! Go on, it's for a cause!

-Buy something from the Craft Hope etsy store, all proceeds go to Doctors Without Borders.

-If you're in the US of A, check out this blog to see if there is a Vegan Bake Sale for Haiti near you! Cupcakes!

-Bid on an item each day at Indiefixx

Donate your dough

- Hear the call of the 'knit signal' (like batman, right?) and join in over at Yarn Harlot or Knitters Without Borders

- Donate online to Red Cross; Doctors without Borders; The Apparent Project; UNICEF; Habitat for Humanity; The International Rescue Committee; Stand with Haiti; Architecture for Humanity (CNN has another helpful list over here)

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I've started by buying this and these. My friend and I also have plans to raise money at a festival coming up. Will tell you more then. I hope we all do a little bit. It can add up to a lot.

Oh deer

Love love love this deer, made by Nicole at astulabee. You can see her pretty shop.

giveaway

If you go to the Australian Etsy Blog you can win this ace laser cut geek necklace. In black or white.

True.

fact is

I like to Learn Something Every Day

gratitude

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Firstly thanks so much for your words and thoughts, they help more than you know.

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On blog rounds I have also been inspired by 31 experiment who is doing a series of posts on gratitude, and ShineaLittleLight's post about thankfulness, which got me onto this super little blog thxthxthx which features a thank you note a day. Like the ones above.

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I also read this week that a study found that after writing down things they were grateful for, after a few weeks people were 25% happier. TWENTY-FIVE PERCENT people!

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So I have a little red notebook, and I will start a thank you list, a bit like 1000 awesome things, every day write a few more in until I get to one thousand. Every day has things in it that I am thankful for, even if they've happen a thousand times before. Every day is full of things I am thankful for, if I look for them, and I will write them down.

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Number one is going to be you.

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yes. yes it is.

I like this shirt. Buy it here.

clothes from the blue of the sky

these gorgeous prints are from Freya Art & Design, via Down & Out Chic.

From her post:

Remember, there's beauty all around, sometimes it takes longer to find, but it's there. I have to remind myself, in the hardest of times that it's often my attitude that blocks the goodness being offered to me.

Precisely, Uh-huh. Love the prints, love the words.

fuzzy faces

There are a lot of moustaches floating around blogs these days. And today I came across their daddy's, some big, extravagant lovely beards, part of project BeardCastle.


via i heart strangers