...it might as well be me: Jewelry editions

How about another post on some of the amazing things I've won?  Sounds good?  Great!  Today I'm going to show off some of the pretty jewelry I've won!  Yay!

Let's start with this awesome necklace and earrings set that I won from Fantasticrafts!  I won a gift certificate from the Waterwaif and was lucky enough to snag these two on sale!  And I have a top that matches these perfectly!  How fun!!  There is such a fun variety of items in this shop!  I know I'll go back for more :)

Next I won a giveaway at my lazy apples for this oriental bracelet from Pikithins.

Hand modeling by yours truly

It is such a cool bracelet - not to mention the "green and gold" is great for a Baylor employee!  And I'm kind of in love with that big green bead!

This next one is one of my favorite wins!  It is the flock of birds earrings from Verderocks.  I won them on the Bits of Beauty blog, but had no idea, I had to enter my address on the giveaway form and didn't realize I'd won them till they showed up at my door!  They are not something I ever would have picked for myself, but I gotta say - I love them!  They make me feel wild!  They are SUPER long - taller than my "posing pitcher" as you can see.  And since I was having a good hair day that day, you can see them modeled on myself too :)  No need for a necklace with these babies!

I won a lot of earrings for a while!  The next set I won from Being Tazim.  They are these gorgeous wood inlay earrings from SSheilah.  They remind me of the frets in a guitar - don't you agree?  I thought they were going to be kind of heavy, but they are some of the lightest-weight earrings I own.  I always get compliments on them when I wear them!

This next pair of earrings I won from What I Did Today.  Aren't they darling?  With all this big earrings I've collected,  I'm glad to have some dainty ones!  And I'm so happy I came acros this blog!  It's one of my very favorites to read - totally down to earth and her kids are ADORABLE!

Another great blog I came upon through giveaways is Bead Happily Ever After!  I won these great mermaid's tear earrings from her (I wish I'd gotten a better picture,  they are so pretty!)  I check on this blog daily - it's a lot of fun!!

Next I won these awesome vintage glass earrings from Jacaranda designs!  I love the color of these ones!  I wear them all the time!

Last but not least are these adorable butterfly heart earrings from  2 Just B you!  I used to have a necklace like this when I was younger that had a teddy bear instead of butterflies, and I wore it was one of my absolute favorites (I bet I could find it if I tried...)  These earrings remind me so much of that necklace!  I love them!

That's all for today - go ahead and check out some of these wonderful shops and blogs!  I know you'll be able to find something great :)

If someone's gotta win, it might as well be me... Stationary edition

I'm going to let you in on my newest obsession.  Blog giveaways!  I've been lucky enough to win tons of great stuff on the internet in the last couple of months!  Hooray for me!  I kinda don't want to tell you about it because then I know you're all going to want to start doing the same thing, and that makes my chances of winning worse.  But I feel that since all these blogs/artisans were generous enough to give me their stuff for free, the least I can do is spread the word about them to my little audience of readers!  I haven't decided how often I'll post about my winnings, I guess it all depends on what I'm winning!  My ultimate goal is to have a free (or really cheap) Christmas, so I don't know if I'll post about everything I win right away, since some things will be saved for gifts.  Anyways, on with the winnings!

Today I'm going to feature some of the great handmade stationary I won!

First I won $20 worth of goods from Merry Blues Art which I spent on some various, adorable, banana paper cards.  Aren't they just the cutest?  This giveaway was hosted by The Ivy Twines.

The sweetest congratulations cards

I just love these mini thank you and happy birthday cards!

I won these great button flower cards from Copper Creek Designs!  Adorable!!

These lovely personalized cards came from Paper in Style.  I love the colors and the birds, and they came in a lovely storage bag!

Here's one I won from Pink Dandy Chatter - some sassy zebra thank you cards and address labels from Unique Scrap Design!

And last for today, some more cute bird stationary from Lily Jane.  This giveaway was hosted at Haute Whimsy!  I love the quote on these!

That's it for today! I guess I need to start writing more letters. Stay tuned till next time, and I know it's dorky and cliche, but you've gotta be in it to win it!

Wordless Wednesday: Tons of mail edition

My Sweet Little Dresses!

Back in May I entered a giveaway on The Long Thread (fun blog - check it out!), and I WON!  Lucky me!  I won a sweet little dress from leila and ben!  I'm finally ready to post about it since I FINALLY got it sent out to my niece.  Isn't it adorable?

Along with that, I got the sewing pattern for the dress so I could make an endless supply of my own!  I happen to know an adorable pair of sisters who I decided needed some matching sweet little dresses!  We were going to visit them a few months ago, and since the pattern is pretty basic and simple, and I already had the fabric I wanted to use on hand, I decided I could whip them both up the night before we left. Big Sister's dress was a breeze!

I got through it in a snap, no problem!  Also, I found a new useful tool in my box of grandma presents - my new "hem measurer"

I have no idea what this thing is actually called, or how you're actually supposed to use it, but I'm pretty sure it is for hems.  I used it for ironing under my raw edges like so:

Fold it up to the tab, iron it down - simple as that

All you real seamstresses are probably shaking your heads and unfollowing my blog right now.  Sorry guys!  I don't claim to have any actual training in this!

Also, I got to use some of my Grandma elastic on this one - I was shocked to find that it was in perfect stretchy condition!

Anyways, let's move on to Little Sister's dress.  I call it a disaster, only because it was late and I was crunched for time, in the light of day it probably wouldn't have upset me so much.  For clarification,  this disaster arose only by my own error - don't go blaming leila and ben, because their pattern is great!  This is just a "Jenny screwed something up" story.  

I had gotten through a significant amount of the sewing on Little Sister's dress and was trimming the seams as called for in the pattern and then, as I snipped the underarm corner, I cut through the seam.  I sat there for a good 5 minutes staring at it in disbelief.  Then I said a few bad words. Then I cried a few angry tears. Then I tried to fix it.  It got worse and worse the more I tried to fix it.  Then I looked at the other sleeve and saw that the seams were not lined up - AT ALL.  Ummm... how did that happen? The whole thing was totally jacked up. I said a few more bad words, and tried to fix it again, which didn't work, again.  I ended up throwing the whole thing in the trash. Poor Stephen didn't really know what to do that evening, because I was in such a bad mood.  Anyways, the next day only Big Sister got a dress the next day.

About a week later I finally got over my distress over the Little Sister dress, ripped out the jacked up sleeves, cut out new ones, and reattached them.  Came out super cute!! Then it hung on my closet door for about a month. But now it's all packed up and ready to send!  Something to look forward to Little Sister! (Of course, given my record of getting packages to the post office in a timely fashion, I might just hand deliver it next time we visit...)

Note how my one and only zinnia bloom is color coordinated - woohoo!

So, the moral of this story is, this is a great pattern, and I'm 100% sure anyone could do it.  But don't be a doofus like me - pay attention to what you're doing. (and thanks to leila and ben, and the long thread!)

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner! Nome's brag-a-long!

This post is EXTREMELY overdue.  Like seriously.  Ages ago (end of March)  I won this blog giveaway at Naomi's blog - Nome's brag-a-long!  This was the first blog giveaway I ever won and I was SUPER excited!  I won 'giveaway #1' and got the super cute keyring pouch and fun cross stitch kit (I'm sad to say my kit is now buried somewhere in the craft room - I guess it will be a fun surprise when it turns up again!)

I've been using my little zippered pouch to carry all my allergy medicines. It's the perfect size!  I love it! I'll have to find another use for it when allergy season is done.

It is so cute and so well made!  Love love love it!

Plus since more than 50 people entered the giveaway, Naomi included a little bonus prize - the cutest little owl keychain!

So sweet!

A big - long overdue - thank you to Naomi!  Go ahead and check out her blog!  She has made some really great bags!  I absolutely love her fabric choices.  Seriously - check it out!