Winning!

I have a habit of entering online contests. I used to do this a lot a few years ago, and even won $5000 cash from an online contest. Mostly I win movie passes, DVDs, tickets, that kind of stuff. I do really like free stuff, who doesn't? Obviously, I'm particularly drawn to contests with craft supply prizes. You may recall when I won a Yudu screenprinting machine a year ago? I was ridiculously excited about that! Well....

Here's my latest win - an Accuquilt Go! Baby.

It's a die cutting machine - it cuts accurate shapes out of fabric super fast. Since my experience sewing has shown that my biggest issue is that I cannot cut stuff out accurately, I'm quite excited about giving this machine a whirl. I got to pick 3 dies that were included in my prize - so I selected triangles, hearts, and 2 1/2" strips (perfect for bike cuffs!).  It's a very generous prize from Accuquilt! I won it from a lovely craft blog called Follow the White Bunny  (if you like embroidery, you'll love her blog) - thanks Nicole!

I'll be sure to post again when I've had a chance to play with it. In the meantime, keep your eyes peeled for crafty blogs with great prizes (I've seen several Accuquilt contests over the past year), it's always worth tossing your name in the hat! The best advice I can give for entering online contests is to set up a separate email account for your contest entries, because you will get lots of newsletters and spam - but every now and then you'll get a notification about a win too!

In other news - Peter and I made our annual batch of cold-process soap last night. That's what everyone does on a Saturday night, right? Make soap? Peter was skeptical of the whole idea of making soap at first, but I lured him in with the danger aspect of it (lye can burn) and once he used our homemade soap, he was a convert, and now we make it every year - some for us and some to give as gifts. He's actually more particular about it than I am and hates store bought soap! 

We always use this tutorial and recipe as our base, though we vary it a bit according to the oils we have on hand. We have a signature scent that's a mix of sweet orange, clove, and cinnamon - smells like the holidays to me now. :)

Crafty Halloween

Any Doctor Who fans in the house? I'm a huge Doctor Who fan - I think the recent seasons are well written, funny, fun, smart, and just entertaining. If you've watched the most recent season or two then you should find this Halloween costume by Reese Dixon very impressive. It's so well done! They would get a boatload of candy from me if they showed up at my door. Though I might need to see the sonic screwdriver.  It kind of reminds me of this costume I discovered last year - Doctor Who and the Tardis. Brilliant!  I love it when people get creative with their costumes!

Craft Fair Prep

Since getting the great news that Maked was accepted for the Holiday Got Craft fair, I've been using my bits and pieces of spare time to try and make stock.  A few soap pours here and there - including space invaders inspired soaps and jewel-themed soaps for the swag bags. 

I bought a lady's soap supply off her as she gave up her craft business - which means I got a huge quantity of soap base for a great price. Which means I have a HUGE quantity of soap base! I'm hoping to get a lot made for Got Craft, partly as a way to free up some space in my apartment, but also because they're great stocking stuffers and the Got Craft crowd seems to love them!

My personal favorite product we have at the moment are my reflective flower pins. These are made of the same reflective material as stripes on a runner's jacket so when light hits them directly they really shine! But in ordinary daylight I think they're still cute.  They do take a bit of time to make however, but it's good movie-watching crafting and I just joined Netflix so I've got lots of stuff to watch. :)

 
Less than 2 months to go, but I'm feeling pretty good about the stock I'll have on hand for the fair!