and the winner is…Christine from phila craft.  She even made up a little poem for the occasion:

Elsie Marley never whines.
Her stuffed moostachios are truly fine–
Crazy Elsie Marley.

And the 1000th comment and winner of the secret prize is Julie from letter9.  You have won the first book in the make it yourself series. yee haw!

It was nice hearing from all of you.  I’ll have to do this again sometime. Leya is hosting color week this week and I’m going to join in the fun–take a little break after 100 blathering posts.

have a good week!

p.s. winners, please email me your mailing address and I’ll send off the loot.

I’ve been looking for some kiddy size chairs recently because we have one chair and two kiddies.  I was getting a little frustrated because I couldn’t find anything, much less anything vaguely stylish. Then on Saturday at Vinnie’s there they were.  It was Saturday–the place was packed, there were little kids everywhere and it was well past noon.  How is it possible that no one scooped them up?  They did look a little shabby and there was a $15 dollar sticker on each, so I guess that is a deterrent.  Fifteen bucks is a lot for a little chair and I carried one around the entire store convincing myself it wasn’t.  Turns out it was for the set and since I decided I was spending $15 anyway, I took the lot.  This is much more than you need to know about any shopping experience, much less mine. But hey chairs! with a cool vinyl print–can you even get that nowadays?

Other things:

I was lucky enough to be short listed in the 2nd Annual Softies Awards. You can vote here (if you are related to me, you have to vote for me).

The drawing for my sewing book will happen on Monday (um midday? naptime? somewhere around there central time), so if you’d like to put your name in the hat please leave a word here (if you are related to me, you may enter, but really you should call instead).

Here it is the 100th post.  It’s a nice tradition in this crafty blog world to have some sort of contest or giveaway on occasions like these.  And even though I’m crap at responding to comments, they really do push me to do more and better things.  This sewing book is a great example . A year ago I would have thought up this idea, but probably never got around to making it, and then proceed to mope around because I never do the things I say I will.  No more!  And it’s all because of you.  So the sewing book pictured above is yours (sans supplies) if you win.  Just leave a comment on this post–a joke, a recipe, a book recommendation, the name of your dog, whatever–and Monday I will pick a winner (by random).  If you’ve never left a comment before, go ahead and do so. Click on the comments and write your email in the space provided (no one can see it but me) and if you don’t have a website just leave that space blank.   There are more pictures of the book on my flickr site if you’d like to see.  

Because I’m almost up to 1000 comments (it’s at 984 right now) there will be a secret prize for the 1000th commenter! Good luck! And I’ll see you on Monday.

Recently, I’ve been lucky enough to be featured on some fantastic websites and blogs.  This might look like I’m tooting my own horn (and I might be, a little) but I want to thank them all for choosing to showcase my work and my home.  A few days ago, a magazine called Artful Blogging came in the mail and I had never heard of the magazine much less subscribed to it, but when I open it up there was a picture of my plush diggers!  Next to some amazing artist work no less–Heidi Kenney and Ann Wood, two women I greatly admire.  This picture is in an article about the website whipup.  A great website and one I’m happy to be associated with. The Plush You! exhibit at Schmancy (a store in Seattle) was what started my toy making desire in the first place, so I was super excited to see some of my toys on their blog.  And not only did Cookie magazine highlight my home in their blog, nesting (thanks joanna) but today my kids’ room is pictured on the Apartment therapy blog Ohdeeoh! Then last night after putting the kids to bed I looked on Etsy and there were my felt rocks on the front page. I have thoroughly exhausted my fifteen minutes of fame and will probably be totally uncool tomorrow, oh well.  Thank you to everyone, you made my week.

This is my 99th post, so tomorrow will be my 100th. duh. And I’ll be hosting a little giveaway!  So check back tomorrow.

Meet Olaf. He is the answer to the question: “Can this outfit be turned into a soft toy?”  The pants were mine a long time ago and the shirt I picked up at a thrift store for a different project.  I should have taken a picture actually wearing the outfit before I cut it all up, but there was a big, gaping hole in the shirt in a very conspicuous spot. I wasn’t sure if the pants would work, but my trusty little machine sewed through all those layers with just a little pushing on my part (and no swearing!).  All the pockets still work and I may whip up a little polka dotted toy for Olaf to put in a pocket, but he may be to serious for that.