International Book Giving Day Giveaway 2015 - CLOSED

It's that time of year again, yep, International Book Giving Day!

There are lots of exciting things going on around the world, so make sure you are following on social media so that you don't miss out on any of the goodies! Bookgivingday.com is the central hub for all this excitement! Or you can use #giveabook on social media.

International Book Giving Day

Just in case you have absolutely NO idea what I'm talking about, International Book Giving Day was set up with the aim of getting more books into the hands of children. Those of us involved believe that chocolate and flowers are all very fine and dandy but books, well books are just magically and last much longer than a box of chocolates. So instead of giving the kids chocolates for valentines day (which will make them fat and their teeth fall out - maybe) why not give a book instead?

Want to do more? Here are some ideas...

+ Sort through your book shelves and donate unwanted books, you could give them to a children's hospital, a shelter, charity shop...

+ Get sneaky and leave a book in a public place like a waiting room, somewhere that kids get stuck and would love something to look through

+ Give a book to a friend or relative

+ Share the IBGD love online and help us get the word out!

+ Run a giveaway - just like this one, on your blog

Which brings me to todays giveaway!

For your chance to win one of the books, just fill in the form below.
There will be 2 winners, one of each to win Kids Around The World Cook and Kids Around The World Celebrate.

T&C

By entering your name in the draw you are also agreeing to be added to the My Organized Chaos Weekly newsletter - if it's not your cup of tea you can unsubscribe at any time.
The competition is open worldwide
The draw will close Sunday, February 16th, 9am JST
The winners will be notified by email, if the winner does not respond in 5 days a new winner will be selected.
Winners will be chosen at random.

Win A Book…

Last chance to win a book, pop over to My Organized Chaos to put your name in the hat!

Win a Playful Learning Scholarship and a Free Course for Everyone

I have an exciting post for you today and a chance to win a scholarship for you and your kids to Playful Learning Ecademy. The contest is actually being run over at My Organized Chaos, so pop over and put your name in the hat. The courses are great and if you have kids at home who are claiming to be bored, then get them signed up! AND even if you don't win you get to do one of the courses for free anyway! Whoop-whoop!

click image to enter

Do you want a new iphone case?

The peeps at Caseapp contacted me and asked if I would like to try out their iphone case, you get to design it yourself so of course, the chance to do something craft & geeky I jumped at the chance. (You can get one too if you are lucky...)

It is seriously easy to use! Pop over to Caseapp and select the phone size that you have, upload a photo - you can move it around until you are happy with the position. Add some text if you like then save and order. Easy peasy!

My tip would be to make sure you have a nice high resolution photo at least 300dpi. Photos taken with your phone might be ok, it depends what resolution & size you have set. If you load your image and it is way to big then you are onto a good start. You can easily scale the image down, making images bigger on the other hand can make them lose their sharpness.

This is the one I made, I have a problem that I can't get the old case off my phone, so I haven't been able to put the new one on yet! The colours came out lovely and the quote is from my mentor Denise Duffield Thomas - to serve as a little reminder in those self doubt moments!

So, you ready to win your own? Just fill in the form below.
Entries open worldwide.
Cassapp will send you a voucher if you win.
Winner will be drawn by random generator on May 7th at 8am JST.

and the winners are....

First, a big thank you to Villa Carton for the give-away, I am sure the lucky winners will love their new costumes.

So without further ado...
For the girls outfit, drum roll please....

and another drum roll for the boys.....

CONGRATULATIONS!

I will be sending you an email very shortly, please get back to me asap so that I can get the prizes in the post before the weekend.

Villa Carton Review & Giveaway

A couple of weeks ago I discovered a great new (to me) site called, Villa Carton. If you love ideas to help your children grow their imagination, you will LOVE this site.

Dutch artists Manon and Ruud van den Broek set up Villa Carton with the intention to design toys that stimulate the imagination, have educational value and are fun to play with. So as you can see, they are right up my alley!

Manon kindly send us one of the great colouring costumes to try out and two others to give away!

Not only do they have great dress up outfits, there are also storage boxes (I am so in love with this kitchen set!), flip dolls and building blocks.

Ebi-kun has had a couple of days off sick this week so it was a great activity to keep him busy. I showed him the kits and said he could pick one, he got really excited and exclaimed that it was a brilliant idea! The costumes are printed on 100% cotton and come with 4 fabric markers. Ebi-kun chose the pirate outfit and got busy.

Ebi-kun said "I think these are really great because kids can pick their favourite colours and colour the outfit in their own design. You can still play in it, even if you don't finish colouring it in all in one day, then you can do some more colouring another day"

The outfits are multi-size aimed at kids from 3-8 years old, they fasten under the arms and at the neck with a ties so they are adjustable depending on the size of the child. There are lots of different styles to choose from, I will keep it a secret the two that I have to give away, that way it will be a nice surprise!

So, how would you like to win an outfit? They would make a perfect socking filler! All you have to do is go over to the Villa Carton website and take a look at their products then come back and tell me which specific item you think your child would like the most. Fill in the form below and I will pick two winners by random generator December 5th, 9am EST. Open worldwide.

If you would like to double you chance at winning, you can enter again over at My Organized Chaos.

bespoke magazine & GIVEAWAY CLOSED

This giveaway is CLOSED. Looking for sewing patterns? Check out my available patterns in my Etsy Shop Here or grab free printable activity packs for kids over at 193 Little Adventures!

***

A couple of weeks ago I stumbled across a link for a crafty magazine - and you know how I love my magazines! This one is called Bespoke, it is an Aussie indie magazine and available as a PDF or printed. 

The latest issue has a great range of topics from sewing tutorials to crafter interviews to stories to book reviews to recipes and I must say, it is good to see some male crafters in their too. It has a nice community feel to it. Although I read a lot of blogs I feel like I am missing out on so many other wonderful artistic people out there, almost all the artists featured in this addition are new-to-me and due to the mix of contributors there is a great mix of writing styles. The other plus is that the layout is clean and easy to read.

Bespoke: an item made to a buyer's specification (personalized or tailored)

Now, you can pop over and BUY a copy right now or you can win a copy, yes, Jessica has kindly offered to send a print copy to one of you.

What do you need to do to get your grubby mitts on a copy?

Leave a comment below answering the following question...

Have you ever had any bespoke item made for you? If so what? If not, what would you like to have made for you?

You MUST leave a contact email address with your comment, no email, no win!

I will draw a winner at random on May 30th, 9am JST.

Jessica is willing to ship worldwide so everyone can enter. 

I personally would love a pair of bespoke leather shoes... one day! Now, what is yours?

so.....

what is 

it's been that long since you quit something big like smoking. 

Nope, never smoked.

It's an illuminated manuscript (the calendar of 354) that's supposed to be the first book in the format we know.

Nope.

Usually the 354th day of the year is my birthday, but this year because of leap year you have an extra day to plan my celebration.

No, not that I have ever worked it out that way.

Is it the number of jelly beans in the jar?

Maybe, somewhere in the universe, but not here!

Sales at your store!

Nope, over at Etsy it is at 605

The number of hours until Ebikun enter in elementary school :)

This is the closest answer, but no. 

The number of menus of your new oven

It could be, I have no idea!

Number of posts.

Nope, this is post 1832

The date your husband proposed - 4pm on 5th of March

Erm, should I admit I can't remember the date he proposed?

The number of emails you received

no, way off!

OK, time to put you out of your misery.... it is the number of items so far that I have written Ebi-kun's name on ready for school! Yes, that is 354 items AND I haven't finished yet. The next post has all the details.

So a winner...

Congratulations Medea!

 

 

 

 

 

And the winner is....

Who was Lulu! Congratulations. I will drop you a line shortly.

Thank you to Lakeshore Learning and remember Lakeshore are also offering a special promotion, buy one software title and get the second with 50% off. Just enter the coupon code 7349 when you check out. Valid until the end of February.

Do you want a copy?

QUICK, pop over here to enter, I think this is a great book so if you can get your hands on a free copy all the better!

and the winner is....

Congratulations Wendy! I will drop you an email to let you know and because some of the answers were so funny I decided to pick a couple of my favourites so they will get a pattern of their choice too...

This is brilliant and make me want to go out and chop up a load of logs to wrap Christmas presents in!

Schelle said... 
When I turned 16, I received a log for my birthday. A very large, heavy log. It had been carefully hollowed out and screwed back together. I was also handed a screwdriver to unwrap it. Inside was a nice new hairbrush. I guess it was the wrapping rather than the present which was strangest / most unusual / funniest... but it otherwise fulfilled all those categories, and was definitely the most memorable birthday present I ever received.


This just makes me laugh - WHO would use a tampon box? I am all for recycling but really!


Jill aka ThatMoxieGirl Designs said...
Once my aunt gave me a box of tampons for Christmas. I was so embarrassed and sad because I didn't even have my periods yet. Turns out she was just re-using the box and there was make up inside. :p


I had to pick this because I didn't think anyone else other than my grandfather would give someone a toilet seat for a gift! Yep, my grandad did it too, he always gave my gran a 6 pack of nylons for Christmas and I am pretty sure there is a story where he took her to the cattle market for an anniversary date!

kbzelazny said...

A toilet seat. OK,it was a nice oak one, but still I got a toilet seat for my birthday! Thanks!

As for me... my gran gave me a pony when I was 18mths old, that was a pretty cool gift, my husband, before we got married sent me a pack of biore nose strips, you know, those things for pulling blackheads out for a VALENTINES gift, I was in the UK at the time or he might have been needing something for a black eye! what the? I am pretty sure I had some odd gifts when I was at uni but the alcohol I consumed at the time seems to have blacked them out!


Thank you to everyone who entered, it was most amusing reading every ones answers, and if you missed out on sharing your strange gifts you can always leave a comment on this post.

Giveaway Day - CLOSED

Today is the Sew Mama Sew giveaway day, twice a year, blogs from all over the blogosphere join together and give stuff away. And so I will be giving the winner a choice of 3 of my PDF sewing patterns of their choice. There will be lots of other bloggers joining in so remember to pop over to the Sew Mama Sew blog and check out the links.

AND

Everyone is a winner because I have made this free ninjabread men felt ornament pattern PDF download, which was inspired by the ninjabread cookie cutters we received last Christmas.

jojoebi ninjabreadmen

So, to enter the giveaway you need to answer the question and you must include your email address, no email address, no win.

One entry per person.

Open to everyone worldwide.

You don't have to follow my blog/subscribe but it would be lovely if you do, put it in a comment for an extra entry.

Winner will be drawn by random generator at 6pm December 18th (my birthday!) JST.

The question is...

What is the strangest/most unusual/funniest birthday present you have ever received (and the reason why if it isn't obvious).

There are also more giveaways over at Where Women Create.

Introducing.....

The Pixie Belles

Ebi-kun and I went through the list trying to decide which name we liked best, it was a close call between Pixie Belles and Pixie Pip although there were quite a few good contenders. Thank you for all your great suggestions and congratulations to ClairetipTop, I will be in touch.

Win a Pixie.... CLOSED

I have been working on the pixie pattern this week, it is almost ready to go to the testers but I have a problem... I can't decide on a name!

I am not looking for individual names but a general name for the pattern, Like I have Jake the Weiner Dog and Serenity the Mermaid.....

So, would you like to win yourself a pixie? 

Just fill in the form here and I will pick a winner on the 5th.
Update - looks like the rafflecopter gadget wasn't working properly

To Enter - Leave a comment with your suggested Pixie name AND an contact email address
You must be following my blog or subscribing to my blog to enter (links are on the right)
One entry per person

Winner will be chosen Oct 5th, 3pm JST
The winning name will be used as the pattern name unless I decide otherwise.
The winner can choose to have a Pixie made by me or a copy of the finished pattern.
The competition is open worldwide.

Featured on

ThePrizeFinder - UK Competitions

and the winner is....

who was...

CONGRATULATIONS, I will be in touch!

Thank you to everyone who entered and a big hello to all my new followers 

(a friend suggested the work stalker would be better!)

We have the yochien ensoku today, a picnic and fun day at the park, 

the weather doesn't look like it wants to play along though, just hope it doesn't rain...

Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day CLOSED

SORRY NOW CLOSED

If you have popped over from SMS, welcome!

The prize....

The winner can choose any pattern from my shop (if you are a beginner sewer then there are patterns for you too) plus I will include a surprise handmade gift.

click to go to the shop

The rules...

Leave a comment on this post saying which is your favourite pattern

(you don't have to commit to this, you can change your mind if you win!)

You MUST include a contact email address.

Strictly one comment per person, extra comments will be deleted.

I am happy to ship worldwide.

Winner will be chosen at random using random generator.org

The giveaway will close at 7am JST May 26th

Now pop back to SMS and see what else is up for grabs.

and the winners are.....

Remember to click on the image above to visit more great Celebrate the Boy posts

Well, first thank you to everyone who left comments. I haven't actually counted the entries for the most popular dinosaurs but I reckon T-Rex is the winner from reasons for being cute in Toy Story and for having cute little forearms! Triceratops, the long neck (whatever it's real name is these days), pteranodon and stegosaurus were also very popular. There were a few in there I had never heard of, I will have to get my little dino expert to bring me up to speed on them.

And so, bought to you by random.org

the first out of the hat is...

the second winner out of the cyber hat is...

*just to note that I have post numbers but blogger can only cope with 200 at a time so Lesley's post was on the second page for posts 201- 400

and the final winner is....

*same as above Stephanie was 25 on page 401-474

CONGRATULATIONS 

to all the winners, I will be in touch soon

for those who didn't win, the pattern is available in my Etsy shop.

NEW The Steggie Back Pack and Giveaway- CLOSED

NOW CLOSED

Just in time to join the Celebrate The Boy festival, here is the Steggie Back Pack.

It is a cute pattern and include the all important Steggie Spikes, two small side pockets, two loops so important things such as compasses and fossil finding tools can be attached and a roomy main compartment which is big enough to fit in a pair of PJ's, toothbrush, clean undies, a book and a couple of small toys.

It is just the right size to use as a day pack when you are off out exploring or as an overnight bag.

Also, hidden under the paws are phone number and name tags, hidden out of public view but handy if your little explorer gets lost.

The straps are adjustable and so it should comfortably fit 3 - 6 year olds, Ebi-kun is now 5 and it will last him quite a bit longer.

Ebi-kun has received a lot of attention when wearing his bag out and about,

and one of our friends fathers wants one for himself!

To make your own you will need intermediate sewing skills, the pattern is broken down into bite sized steps so that you can do a couple of steps at a time (I know what it is like sewing with a child under foot)

And so to celebrate the release of the new pattern and Celebrate the Boy, I will be giving away 3 of the Steggie Back Pack paper patterns, to enter leave a comment telling me which is your favourite dinosaur. You must leave a contact email address too either in the comment entry field or in the comment itself. I am happy to post worldwide.

A winner will be picked by random generator Monday 21st Feb. 9.00am JST.

good luck!

***UPDATE***

Due to a dental appointment I will have to close this a bit later than planned so I will draw a winner at 12.00pm JST.

I also want to thank my lovely testers Aunt LoLo and Gabriel, this is the biggest pattern I have done so far so they had their work cut out for them but they did a fantastic job