a totally tranquil giveaway...

I know it's getting perilously close to the holidays and I should have done this a week ago...but...you know how it is! Well, the disorganised among you (welcome to my world) probably do.
There's a giveaway here this week for two reasons:

1. Mostly, to thank you for your friendship, your humour, your care...your all-round awesomeness, and
2. secondly, to tell you that my friend Chris (the chandelier fairy) and I have opened an etsy shop called Totally Tranquil (well I think we have...hoping that I have pushed all the right buttons and filled in all the correct forms!)

So, the giveaway is stuff we've made and a bit of a taste of what might be coming...provided I get my act together sufficiently to list some things! Full of ideas we are...it's the execution that might be slightly problematic. 

Chris and I both love to make things; we sew, we paint and I do needlework. She's been leading a life of leisure this year and I've had one day off a week...supposedly to make stuff. But again, you know how it is...not as much achieved as I'd hoped.  When I said I'd like to do a giveaway to thank everyone for the year you and I have had together (Chris isn't a blogger btw), she generously gave me the red linen tote she'd just made (and already wrapped!) for someone else and said...here you go, this is suitably festive! The woman is a bag making queen :) And she made this very cool apron as well...very difficult to photograph aprons without a model I've discovered!

In a little nod to some of the things I've been doing lately, I've provided the gift tags (2 sets), a tapestry bookmark and yes....you guessed it, not one, but two knitted dishcloths. Come on...you know you want one!!

So just leave a comment. I don't mind if you're a follower or not (see last Friday's post and all your fabulous comments about the perils of following and unfollowing...I loved reading them all) and if you wanted to let others know about it that would be great and I'd throw your name in the hat again.

The random generator will get cranked up on Thursday evening Australian daytime savings time so I can put these in the post on Friday with the faint hope that it might reach you by Christmas. I know that overseas readers haven't got a snowball's chance in you-know-where of getting anything by then, but it's only one set of the tags that you might need to put away until next year if you win!

Here's the link to the shop...I've only had the chance to list a few things so far...a small matter of the painters arriving today and the living room and kitchen needing to be packed up! 

And the banner was made by my very clever son Ben...in lieu of rent...that kid's got it good!

a bag to go with the frou-frou juju?

Thank you so much for some of the very funny comments about the DIY fake frou-frou juju post from yesterday. 

They cracked me up. Edith has even refused my (I thought) very kind offer to make her one to wear to Ascot! I really don't understand :) And alas I have had to deny Jackie's request for me to rustle her up a Faberge egg out of old necklaces and some gold leaf (but only because silver leaf is my gilding metal of choice...otherwise, not a prob!) And Deborah swore that she saw her mum wearing one just like it in the 60's. Janette warned me about the dangers of being tarred and feathered if the pink fluffy thing should fall on my head while sleeping with night cream slathered on my ageing face (she didn't actually say ageing I hasten to add; I believe she is far too nice for that!) Felicity wrote me a gorgeous little poem. But best of all, Tina's Miss Lottie said she thought it was cool...high praise indeed! One day I'm going to collect all your clever comments and publish a book of bloggy peep wit! It will be too heavy to lift for sure.

Anyway, I thought that it might be fun to go etsy surfing for some feather bags to go with my feather 'hat'...so here are some of the results of a feather bag search...







hmmmm...I just happen to have some peacock feathers...and nothing planned for this weekend! Breathe Edith, breathe...



I think there must be a lot of naked birds out there...




Oh laugh..I laughed till I stopped! And on a completely different note, I finished my first Jodi Picoult book on the weekend while pretending to be watching Australia play England in the rugby with the MGM...

I had been avoiding them (Jodi's books, not the rugby players) because they are so popular (some of them anyway...the rugby players I mean), but I have to say I was quite impressed (I'm back to talking about Jodi now) so I may even read another one...when I get through the fourteen books that are already lined up and waiting! Fourteen books on the sidelines (note another feeble rugby reference) would have been nothing before blogging began! Have a fun Tuesday. Here on this side of the world where yesterday was the shortest day of the year, the days are now getting longer. Good! I could use more than 24 hours at the moment.

a dangerous new habit ~ etsy

I'm afraid to report that I have a new habit...aided and abetted by the first-born who sent me an email saying "I think I'm in love with this". So of course I had to go and look, as she knew I would...there was my first mistake.

...but I could only agree with her.  "Would you like it for your birthday?" I most generously said...it was a public holiday, I was relaxed, I wasn't thinking straight. No prizes for guessing the answer to that one. Actually it wasn't all that generous...this is very affordable art. And it is indeed droolworthy and something you could most definitely give your heart to.

But, and there's always a but isn't there...I was looking at the site... and before I knew it, there was 'mistake' No. 2 (danger Will Robinson!). I came across so many other bits of gorgeousness by the very talented JJ at the love shop that I just had to buy this one as well for the gallery wall I'm planning for the lower level of my new black and white bedroom...

Now I may have come late to this etsy thing, and to the love shop in particular, but hey I'm jumping on the bandwagon too, oh yes I am! It's fun (and good!) supporting Australian talent, even in my own small way! And this JJ...I like her philosophy...focus on love, give love, express love...she sounds really nice! Perhaps I should go and order this as well then...??

an itsy bit of etsy

I am an etsy novice so imagine my delight when having ordered something on-line it arrived around 10 days later from the other side of the world...where exactly in the States is Raleigh NC anyway? (it's ok, don't panic, I've googled it!). Just enough time to have almost forgotten about it (the necklace that is, not Raleigh), but nowhere near long enough to be worried that it wasn't going to get here...perfect combination.
I opened the postpack and saw...

I undid the bow and there was a lovely thank you from Tracy herself

...and then revealed in all its loveliness was the gorgeous necklace I spied on opening my very first etsy-finds email

I was mightily impressed,and so it seems were some of the lovely young things in my office...this is NOT my neck!

...so, thank you Tracy for such a painless first etsy experience. You should all head on over to photoglassworks and have a look at all the lovely things that Tracy has on offer...but leave some more for me please!