LeelaBijou

Maria from LeelaBijou recently hosted a giveaway on her blog http://lilbitof.blogspot.com/2009_02_01_archive.html . It was maybe the 2nd or 3rd time I had entered a giveaway and I truly was a bit gobsmacked when she let me know I had won!!

When the mailman recently brought me a package from the Canary Islands I was very excited as I knew it was the necklace!! Maria had super gorgeously included a beautiful mountainous photo from Gran Canaria, a really sweet photo that read ' Congratulations dear Kerrin' and a lovely note AND a discount voucher! Phew!!! She's got her marketing skills done well!! You see, I have been coveting some of her work .. so how could I not go visit her shop and use the voucher?!!!

Funnily enough (she must be a mindreader) she included a mars bar too .... it was yummy!

So I will share with you in the photo below the perfectly lovely necklace I won and then just a few images of some of the other unique and wonderful creations that Maria has in her Etsy shop LeelaBijou do please go visit her shop!

This is MY necklace :D (but that's not me in the photo .. i'm not that white, oh ok, i'm not that slender either ... oh ok, probably my boobs don't sit that firmly these days too ... geesh! )

Exquisite green crystal ring

Romantic collection - Tender Topaz - Spring collection

Romantic Collection - Purple Tulips - Spring Collection

Yoni glasses

Today the post van drove up and delivered a box I had been waiting for .. with supplies I had purchased recently in Holland :) I had actually forgotten that I had purchased some 'Yoni' glasses whilst sipping a coffee in a café in Holland ....

~YONI~ glasses .. for coffee .. oh, of course they could be for tea too!

Yoni of course has another meaning .. click here to see what else it means (other than a super cool way to drink that hot cuppa without burning your fingers on the glass because it is double glassed so it keeps your beverage hot while keeping your fingers cool) ...

some may find it strange to drink from something shaped like a 'you know what' and well I suppose it is .. still, they are pretty jolly cool if you ask me!

Oh to be flexible again!

Earlier tonight the kids were practising their kindy 'gymnastics' ... look at what my almost 4 year old can do ..... and i must add that her head is not touching the floor!

My Secret Easter Bunny ... it's here!!

This year the European Street Team (which I am so proud to be a member of) on Etsy decided it would be a fun idea to make a 'Secret Easter Bunny' surprise (continuing on from last years very successful Secret Santa). ArtMind aka Mitsy is our wonderful team member who coordinated everything, sent out questionnaires and matched each of the particpants with another team member.

We have until 25th March 2009 to make our secret easter bunny surprises and I was terribly excited the other day when the postman delivered a very special package to me!! It came all the way from Italy ... can you guess yet?

I have to admit that i'm not the best at waiting until easter to open my surprise and as soon as I saw who it was from I just HAD to open it!

can you guess YET????

My secret easter bunny is none other than enchantedpond aka matchstickgirl aka the super lovely Frances.J.Melhop ... !!! I feel like the luckiest girl on the planet as I am totally in love with her work!!

She wrapped my surprise in the coolest bright orange paper and drew the cutest Easter Bunny on it .. clever girl eh what!






Mmmmmh, now what could be inside here????????








I am now the super proud owner of 'a real fairy' photo ... and I am just dying to get it framed so that I can hang it on my wall and gaze at it daily!! If I sound like i'm gushing over this, believe me I am ... I was literally bouncing off the walls when I realised who the Postman had brought me a package from ... my kids did look at me rather strangely :)




I was going to borrow my neighbour to take a photo of this most amazing 'a real fairy' photo but decided to try to do it myself :) Excuse the ever so slightly 'dorky' pose but I had to kind of crouch down to get myself and the fairy in the shot .... (hey, it's a large photo of the fairy and i'm standing on the bidet!!) ....

Frances, I cannot thank you enough for this incredible photo ... I adore fairies, I adore pink and most of all I adore your work ..

And thank you again Artmind for going to such a tremendous effort in making all of this happen!

Frances honey, you really do rock .. you totally made my day in giving me this special photo and I encourage every single one of my readers to check out Frances's shops enchantedpond & matchstickgirl ..... to see more of her amazing work!

Holland trip and mini EST meeting

Recently I had the supreme good fortune to travel to Holland for 10 days to stay with my best buddy Vanessa (fellow kiwi lass living with a dutchman there) ... it was much needed time out!! I want to share with you my meetings of some very special ladies from the EST (europeanstreetteam on Etsy) .. 10 days wasn't long enough in the end and I missed the chance of meeting more, but maybe we'll have a EST convention after all this year, who knows!

First of all Vanessa and I travelled to the city of Schiedam (near Rotterdam) to meet up with Liz of AgapeBridal. Liz is a super gorgeous Singaporean lady (and she is just as lovely and sweet as she appears on the thread!) married to a dutchman. Liz's husband stayed up the night before to make chocolate muffins, especially for our visit .. how sweet is that?! Dear Liz made us the yummiest shepherds pie for lunch too!

I had recently (before going) purchased a few gorgeous items from Liz's etsy shop (AgapeBridal) and I asked her to wait and give them to me on this day!! We had the honour of seeing Liz's wedding album (which is in the form of an amazing hardcover book) ... extremely beautiful photo's with touching words throughout. I'm not at all ashamed to share with you that both Vanessa and I cried over one part of the album, it was breathtaking.

This is a photo of Liz and I .. you know, I actually felt short over in Holland but I was feeling kind of tall that day when I met Liz ;)

A few days later we travelled to the city of Eindhoven to meet up with Mitsy from Artmind and and Myrte from Mirthquake and MirthQuakeClothing. Goodness me, I don't think Eindhoven has heard such laughter from a group of girls for a long time! Seriously, we met, me sat, we talked and talked and laughed and talked and giggled and talked and laughed some more!! It was the best time i'd had in such a long time ... our jaws were hurting from all the laughter! They'd (the cafe/restaurant) NEVER have believed us if we told them it was our first time meeting each other. Myrte gave us all gorgeous buttons from her shop and Mitsy had baked very special biscuits for us all .. totally yummy! Two more truly awesome, sweet, lovely and gorgeous girls from the EST team!!

These are photo's from that day .. I must just point out that in the first one I am wearing my jewellery purchases from dear nanouke. Stylish and funky stuff eh what!!

I came back feeling refreshed and was immediately swept up in masses of hugs and kisses from the kids .. nice to know I was missed!!

I've been tagged :D

I've been tagged!! Actually I've now been tagged twice but due to my super slackness (shame on me) i'm only just getting around to this. I was initially tagged by Swie (some time ago) and then recently by thespottedsparrow

So now to share with you some facts (and i'm not certain if it's 6 or 10) about me that you most likely aren't aware of :D

1) I have a lazy left eye ... therefore I can move it on it's own while my right eye remains looking forward ... great party trick!

2) I hitchhiked through the Czech Republic ... bit silly thing to do but had always wanted to try it ... so I did! I also camped alone through Italy ... I am somewhat independant :)

3) I am extremely clumsy .. if anyone is going to fall down, it will be me.

4) Louise is my middle name and I always used to wish that that was my first name.

5) I once had a veruca on my foot that was cut out 5 times and it kept on growing back until someone told me to put a banana skin on it for a few days .. and it disappeared :D True!!

6) I used to play kiss and catch in my primary school playground .. of course, the girls never quite made it to the tree so we were always 'caught'. Come on, we were only 6 years old!!

7) As a teenager I delivered newspapers, did a milkrun, worked in a dairy (tiny minimarket), worked in a bakery ... all in an effort to pay for a trip to Japan and to have pocketmoney. Why is it I can't save money now?? Oh, I know .. I shop too much on Etsy!!

8) I can remember when popsicles (flavoured ice blocks) cost .08cents NZD (so that's less than .04cents euro). I also remember my brother and I being sent to buy mum's weekly magazine from the shop and being allowed to 'spend the change' .. it was about 0.15 cents (NZD) so about .06 cents euro, in those days it was a fortune! A lolly mixture was a lot bigger in those days!!

9) I will be devoted to U2 until eternity. I saw them in concert in Auckland, NZ for the 'Love comes to town' tour ... but Bono was a bit deaf that night because no matter how much I shouted 'I love you Bono' he didn't hear me :(

10) I am very interested in 'the unknown' ... I've experienced some unexplainable 'things' and I love it .. and I would LOVE to be able to astral travel ... I keep trying!

I hope I haven't bored you too much ... I know i'm supposed to tag others but perhaps i'll do that another day :D

My favourite Etsy photographers

Before I found Etsy I wasn't much of an online shopper .. to be honest I had previously only brought books through Amazon while living in East Timor (ummm, there were NO bookshops there) ... and now to my absolute delight I have found these talented artists whom I can proudly say that I own one (or more) of each of their works .... well soon to, as I only just purchased one more this morning ..

enchantedpond

YannPendaries

matchstickgirl

JKphotography

gothicrow