Bloggy Deliciousness - A Beautiful Ripple Effect

Just a quick post today, as we are off to playgroup soon.

Have you ever found a blog, and loved it so much that you read as many posts as you could, that first time? And added it to your favourites list within minutes of finding it? This happened to me today, when I found A Beautiful Ripple Effect, by Carolyn Rubinstein.

Inspiring, funny, sweet, and a great place to focus on what is important. I feel that it is a place for me to let go of my 'mummy-ness' for a few minutes, and enjoy being a fabric and organising entrepreneur! (LOL - as Brad calls me!).

I am very honoured to have been mentioned in Carolyn's Tuesday Treasures post on organising for spring.

I have become an avid reader, and Twitter follower, and just had to share this beautiful place of inspiration with you.

Save Our Sanity!

Yes, it has definitely been manic in our house. After cutting those 4 top teeth, and having a cold, Ryan has now been diagnosed with bronchiolitis, and is on antibiotics. Hopefully we have caught it earlier enough that we can head off pneumonia.







BUT I have been working on a new line for Sasha Sews. Whilst not exactly sewn, they do have some very pretty paper prints, which is satisfying my fabric print addiction! The new line is called 'Sanity Savers'. The first in the range is a dead-easy checklist that has certainly saved me from total craziness this week.




7 easy little chores that, when you tick them off, will help you to feel like you are at least keeping your head above water! There is also a column for writing appointments on each day of the week, and an area for notes /shopping list etc. Best of all, the whole thing is compact, and laminated - so you can write on it with a dry erase whiteboard marker, then wipe it off to start again tomorrow!

Coming soon - Sanity Saver's 100 quick & easy activities for entertaining toddlers, including recipes, instructions and 'equipment' lists!

Focus... and some fun

New Year turns our minds to focussing on the important things - the things that we want to do more of, the things that we enjoy the most.

So over at Sasha Sews, I have been putting into place some focus, on the things I love to sew, the fabrics that I love to play with, and items that I hope will help other people to achieve their organisational goals! I have been dabbling in lots of different styles of bags, but the thing I like to do most are simple, functional tote bags, that really let the beautiful fabrics take the centre stage.

I have introduced a new medium shoulder tote bag, that looks like this....

A classic tote shape, with beautiful eco-friendly unbleached linen panels, offset by some beautiful designer fabrics (these fabrics are by Amy Butler).

There are other fabric prints in the shop, and plenty more still to come. I will also be making a larger, beach size tote, and a small, handbag size tote.... when I get the time to play around with sizes!

AND as a celebration of my New Year's organisational resolutions - I am including a free matching pouch, made from the feature fabric, with every tote bag purchased in January.

www.SashaSews.etsy.com

October Competition.... name my new design!

To see the October competition, you will have to duck over to my other blog, www.FusionFabric.blogspot.com

I need a name for my new original design handbag! Winner will be announced on Monday, so be quick!

AND the prize..... is your choice of either 50% off the price of this purse, OR the pdf pattern to create it yourself!

Can't wait to hear your creative thoughts.....

Sasha? Sasha who??

What a week! I received my first wholesale order for handbags and totes, from a beautiful shabby-chic style gift shop here in town... and have been madly sewing ever since! I will (hopefully) deliver the whole order tomorrow afternoon.... provided Ryan has a good long nap tomorrow morning!

My laptop has also been out of service for the past 2 days - in an effort to get organised, so my accountant isn't horrified by a shoe-box full of scruffy receipts, I went out and bought an MYOB accounting package. Which my laptop refused to load - wouldn't even recognise that there was a disk in the drive. So my friendly computer tech had my laptop overnight, and has loaded it all on for me.

Now if only I could remember my high school accounting classes!

The Sticky Beak Series - Part 1 - My Sewing Room

I love posts where people open up a part of their homes to their readers. It always makes me feel connected - like, it's ok that my kitchen benches are sticky from spilled juice, because other people have little kids too!

So I have decided to do a "Sticky Beak" series, where you all get to see into the wonderful world of this Small Town Mamma, and her family. And because I spend so much time sewing, thinking about sewing, yearning for delicious fabrics, playing with crafty things etc..... I have decided to start with the Sewing Room / Office.

This is the first house we have lived in that I can really say I have a room to keep all my craft and sewing together in. I still do most of my cutting out on the dining table, because as you can see, there is no large workspace here. And yes, those are packing boxes holding up the shelf, and the end of my sewing table. They are full of books. If I feel the urge to read one, I have to dismantle the shelf!

I love this room. If we owned the house, I would have the walls covered in hooks, to display cross-stitch and quilts. As it is, I have been very naughty and put some hooks in under the wall shelf, to hold up the organiser. The pockets make a great place to keep all my mailing things together - customs labels, envelopes, thank-you cards, airmail stickers etc. It is actually an over-door shoe holder thing that I got at Howards Storage World.

And because this is the room where I create all the lovely things for sale over at Sasha Sews, here is a pic of the new little purse that I have designed. I call it the "Naomi Purse". Ironically, I got the design finished and bag sewed on a day she was at her Family Daycare house! But I did think fondly of her, when it was finished!!

Feel free to indulge my nosiness and show us a room of your house! If you do, leave me a link in the comments so that I can come and visit your place -- I will bring home-baked muffins, I promise!

Are you a Bag Lady yet??

If not, come and join the Club!

Yes, I have started a Bag Ladies Club, over at the official Sasha Sews Facebook page. All you have to do is visit the page (the widget link is over there in the right column of this page), and click on "become a fan".

When you do you become a member of a very exclusive group. Every month, I will feature a different bag, purse, tote, make-up pouch, and maybe even some aprons for both the littles and bigs. My lovely Bag Ladies will receive an exclusive deal on that item, for the whole month!

The feature bag for August is this hand-embroidered shopping tote bag (medium size, so it won't get too heavy to carry). Because anything so useful should also be lovely to look at! And the Bag Ladies Club deal is..... Buy one, get one free! That's 2 shopping totes for only $12.50 (plus shipping).

So if you want to have the prettiest eco-friendly shopping bags (and save a fortune not having to pay for the shop ones every week), come and be a Bag Lady with us!

Click HERE to sign your life away... I mean join up! Honest!

Market fun!

For all of you who live too far away to come to Yungaburra, here is a quick photo of my stall. I am going to streamline for next month, and just focus on some beautiful bags that I have in the pipeline, together with the children's aprons and bibs.

It was a bad weather day, overcast, then sunny, then raining, then windy! But still good fun. And yes, that lovely lady in the photo with me is my dedicated Mum -- I know she looks like a sister, and she has a far more active social life than I do!!

Christmas In July Sale

I hope all my US readers enjoyed 4th of July!

Here is something else to celebrate in July -- CHRISTMAS! Yep, that's right. Christmas in July!

Etsy is having a site-wide sale, for Christmas In July. Thousands of stores, and thousands of items discounted. Each store decides its own discounts, and the items are not just Christmas themed.

For example (hint hint), I have taken 15% off the price of all items in my store, AND I am offering free shipping on orders over $40. That means that all my purses, totes, coffee cozies and sweet kids' aprons are under $21.00!

The best way to browse all of the discounted items, is to go to the Etsy home page, and do a search for "CIJ" or "ChristmasInJuly" (no spaces), also add the terms for anything you specifically want to look at - eg "CIJ purple purse".

This is a great way to get your gift shopping done early, stock up on little gifts for the rest of the year, or just to treat yourself to something delicious, and that you know has been made with love.

Oh, and I will be posting about the prize for the July give-away tomorrow.... it is utterly delicious, so make sure you come back tomorrow, to enter!

Do you Tweet?

I have heard a lot about Twitter, but never thought I would have the time to check it out. But I have. And I really like it. It is kind of fun to see what my cyber-friends are up to, through the day.

So if you Twitter, come searching for me - my user name is SashaSews. I would love to link up with you all -- the time difference makes things a bit strange, but I do like the short and sweet catch-up aspect.

AND ... Twitterers (I think I may have just discovered a new word!) just might hear about EXCLUSIVE stuff happening over at Sasha Sews! Ha ha ha. More of that shameless self-promotion again!

I received a lovely comment from a purchaser of one of my bags, the other day ... "I got the purse, and its adorable and beautifully made." Thanks for the feedback, Olivia - I am glad you liked it.

WIP Wednesday - scarves & bags

So, I recently revealed to the world that I am painstakingly learning to crochet. I quite enjoy it. However, I suspect that it would be extremely painful for someone who is good at crocheting to watch me do it. The kind of thing that would make you wince, and your fingers itch to take the hook and turn out a beautifully uniform work that doesn't even know the meaning of 'tension issues'. Because let me tell you, I am tense. Well I must be, if the quality of my crocheting is anything to go by!

But here is the ongoing product. Current length is around 27 inches. Note that I haven't photographed the portion that is narrow, then wide, then narrow again. I am still having to count each line to make sure I have done the right number of 'stitches'. (Is that what they are called?)

Something that I am far more proficient at (thankfully), is sewing. And here is a photo of my latest purse creation. I have had this idea in my head for a week or so - it has taken several days to get it together, thanks to the Awful Gastro Week that we had last week. I have just posted it up for sale at Sasha Sews. You know, if you happen to have fallen in love with it and decided that your next outfit ensemble won't be complete unless it is swinging from your hand. Sorry. Enough shameless self-promotion (which you are all no doubt sick of by now)!

I think that the next one I make will be a larger purse size, rather than the little bag-ette.

Now head on over t0 The Place of H to see some far more talented crochet-ers than me!

Company Girl Coffee - Feeling ill, but happy

I would offer you a tea, but every time I have one it sends me off to the bathroom. Maybe I will have a hot chocolate instead, with the choc chip cookies we baked.

It has been a week of highs and lows. We had a long weekend here (Queen's Birthday public holiday) on Monday, and a wonderful night away at the beach, with a good friend and her little one. She also happens to be Ryan's godmother. I still haven't posted my favourite pics! On my to-do list.

I also made another sale at SashaSews! I promise not to bore you with every single sale, but it really gives me a buzz, to think of my hand-made purses and bags walking around in exotic places like Texas and New York (that is where this one is headed!). I have also been sewing kids clothes this week, for my market stall (only 2 weeks to go!).

So everything was going well, and then Miss Naomi came home from her play day with a nasty gastro bug. Diarrhoea for hours, and a very broken night's sleep. And now she has given it to me. I added a fever in as well - I could not get warm last night. On the couch with fluffy pj's, thick woollen jumper, quilt, bathrobe and lamb's wool slippers on. Still felt cold.

The doctor advised me to get Naomi's fluids back up with iceblocks, because she isn't drinking. Great. The last time she was sick and had iceblocks, it took me a month to break her of the habit of wanting them all the time! But at least she has perked up a bit today, and is now sleeping. Which is what I am going to do now too.

Hope you all have a great weekend.

Company Girl Coffee

Mmm... it's been quite a while since I linked up for coffee on a Friday. What a wonderful feeling, to be back sipping a warm drink with friends again.

It has been a week of changes. I have just moved to this blog (from Cherished Moments). For some reason, the name was just getting too soppy sweet and schmaltzy for me, when my life is anything but. I am a fairly practical person, and I want my blog to reflect me... whoever that is, this week! I am going to concentrate on posting about my cooking, sewing, kid-raising and life in this lovely small town that we have moved to. I adore country living, and find myself just feeling.... happy.

I am also starting to hosting a great monthly giveaway (see the side-bar to enter). You can come back and enter every week, to win a box of total pamper goodies that will be posted right to your door, anywhere in the world. Draw will be made and winner announced on 1 July.

Other than that, I have been busy with the usual things - toddler to entertain, baby to feed, both kids to snuggle and hug - and rouse on occasionally. What is it about a 2 year old? How can such a sweet looking thing just push my buttons sooooo bad???

I am very excited about getting Sasha Sews up and running. I have posted some advertising buttons on big-time blogs, so hopefully you will see them around the blogosphere (and click on them too!!). Also, look out for a review of one of my bags, and a great giveaway, coming up at the end of the month, by Kristen at We Are That Family.

My favourite Small Thing for this week has definitely been doing something with a book -- gee, what a tough chore to FORCE myself to read my book, while feeding Ryan.

Rachel Anne wants to hear our ideas for long holiday entertainments (I won't say 'summer', because it is now officially winter in Australia!). So here are a couple of links to my posts this week on Playdough fun and some great activity resource websites. I hope they help in keeping your little darlings smiling over the school break!

Better go - Ryan is crying and Naomi is telling me "Mummy, Wyan cwying..." .... Just in case I hadn't heard him!

My "Argyll Vest"

In my family, the words "Argyll Vest" have a very specific meaning. Yes, in a literal sense, they mean the beautiful green and white vest, in a traditional Scottish diamond pattern, that my mum knitted for my dad ... over a period of years.

However, "Argyll Vest" is also a euphemism, for a project that seemed like a good idea at the time, but turned out to be difficult, irritating, fiddly, time-consuming and down-right painful.

A project that is put down, picked up, dropped again, and returned to many times over a period of years. It is eventually only finished due to a deep abiding love for the intended recipient, and a dogged determination not to let the darned thing get the better of you.

Do you see these sweet little 'puffs', made in pretty green gingham and cupcake print?

Don't be fooled by their innocent appearance. They are the most fiddly, irritating, time-consuming craft project I have ever contemplated, let alone actually started. The concept is called "puffy quilting". You make all the puffs, then hand stitch them together. I have seen them used to make very soft linings for baby capsules, prams etc. When I saw the kit at Spotlight, with the words "quick and easy" printed in big letters, I couldn't resist the chance to make something for Ryan, and at the same time test it out for the possibility of adding some lovely baby items to my market stall, or SashaSews.

I spent about 3 hours on this yesterday. Do you see how many there are? Yep ... a grand total of 7 puffs. And they still have to be hand-stitched closed (the hole where you stuff the filling in), and eventually stitched together. I estimate that to make a small lining for a baby bouncer, I will need at least 70 of them.

The good news is that I think I know what Ryan will be getting for his 21st birthday!

I'm sooo excited!!

I am so excited that I am typing this post with one hand, while holding Ryan, rather than waiting until I have the luxury of having both hands free.

You may have noticed the ad in my sidebar for a sweet little Etsy shop called "Sasha Sews". Yep, I'm now a big-time entrepreneur (hahaha) and purveyor of fine bags and sewing. Anyway, to kick it all off, Connie at Smockity Frocks is hosting a give-away of one of my bags! Yep, you too could be the proud owner of this sweet Bag-ette, (in any colour you like), or a Bright Daisies carry bag.


So head on over to see Connie to participate -- or buy your own to be sure of getting one, of course!!!