A lovely surprise from Joy!

I took part in a giveaway the other day, over at Joy's blog, Daisy Row, and was delighted to find that I was the lucky winner!  

Here's what greeted me, when I opened the box - what a lot of lovely parcels!  I particularly liked the star wrapping paper that Joy had used.

 There was some material included, which is the background here.

Here's what was in the parcels - star tissue paper and ribbon, crocheted rounds/coasters (which may get used for a project, although I haven't quite decided yet), sewing thread, a notebook (perfect for notes at my sewing lessons), the cutest little penguin bag/purse, or possibly camera case as my camera fits in there, and some white chocolate (which didn't last long, not with two chocoholics in the house!)  A HUGE thank you to Joy for her generosity, which is much appreciated.  Aren't giveaways great...especially if you are lucky enough to win!

Lovely things

 I was very lucky yesterday as two lovely things arrived in the post.  First was a blog giveaway that I entered and was really lucky to win!  I think the book is a little beyond my current knitting skills (as the only thing I can knit is a scarf) but it may well inspire me to greater things. My sisters and my mum are very good knitters, so the book may well be passed round so that we can all benefit. Many thanks to the lovely Joy at Welcome to Daisy Row for this prize.

The second lovely thing to arrive was this gorgeous little felt sculpture of Scruffy, from Robyn in America who was my Peacefelt receiver (you sign up and are given the name of someone who will send a piece of felt work to you and the name of someone who you send a piece of felt work to.)  Robyn received my felt landscape and sent me this to say thank you (which isn't part of the PeaceFelt process, but was extremely kind of her).  She said she used my blog photos of Scruffy and here he is!

 The real Scruffy would never stay still with a bird on his head!  The figure has lovely eyes and white whiskers and a little metal collar tag.  There is also some of Robyn's dog's fur incorporated too.

So, what did the real Scruffy make of his namesake?  He sniffed at it very intently and a second after this photo was taken, he tried to bite it.  I hurriedly rescued it from his clutches.  So, thank you very much, Robyn, from big Scruffy, little Scruffy and me!

Blog Giveaway - Winners!

Drum roll...Here are the winners of my blog giveaway, picked from my fleecy hat by Chris.  (I wish I could inject some dramatic tension into the announcement, but I'll leave that to the likes of Strictly Come Dancing, X Factor etc.  Anyway, I don't like it when there is a HUGE pause before announcing the winners/losers!) 
Congratulations to Gillian, Annie and Victoria!  If you would email me (contact on my profile page), I'll get your gifts posted out to you as soon as I can.
However, I have also decided to award runner up prizes too for Thomasina Tittlemouse and Joy and Fiona to say thank you for entering, so please would you email your addresses if I don't already have them.  Congratulations to you as well.
I hope that you will all be pleased with your gifts once they arrive.
Thank you all for your support.

(I thought I would add to the celebratory nature of this post by posting a photo from a local Firework display!)

BLOG GIVEAWAY!

To celebrate my 400th blog post (which you may have noticed me mention a couple of times!) and say thank you to my loyal followers, I am having a Blog Giveaway.  There will be three sets of giveaway gifts of a macrame bracelet similar to the one above...

...and a handmade, handfelted heart, similar to those above.
All you have to do to be in with a chance of winning is to leave a comment below, saying you would like to be included in the giveaway.  You don't have to be a follower to take part, but it would be lovely to welcome you if you wanted to be.  You don't have to do anything else - easy, eh?
The closing date will be 2nd November 2012 and I'll either get Chris to pick names out of a hat, or if there are lots of entries, I may even try using the random number generator thingy that seems to be quite popular.
Good Luck!

Giveaways and swaps

I was very lucky to win a blog giveaway over at  http://mrsthomasinatittlemouse.blogspot.co.uk and here is what I won.  I love receiving parcels and this one was all squishy and lovely.  The owner of the blog has just visited Cologne and had bought lots of goodies that she was very kindly giving away. 

Here's what I won.  Some Christmas spiced tea, a felt star, a felt key-ring and a felt ball coaster, which I think is far too nice to be used as a coaster and needs to be displayed as a piece of art!  Thank you very, very much to Thomasina; you are so generous.
I have also signed up to a Christmas blog swap run by Tracy of Mad about Bags http://madaboutbagsuk.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/a-cracker-of-swap.html which sounds really good fun.  I am looking forward to finding Christmassy things and other little bits and pieces to fill the inside of a kitchen roll with.
News of my own blog giveaway to follow...