Centuria Giveaway Winner!!

Hiya there!


Friday is finally here! Although for me it's getting closer to its ending!


As promised, today I got my friend Irene to be the innocent hand to pick the winner for my giveaway, and to compensate her, I invited her over to coffee & lemon muffins!




So without further ado, here goes the picking of the winner in photos!













Ta dah! The talented Lexiecakes from Headless Tess is the winner!! Congrats, Lexiecakes!!
I think I have your new address, but just in case, send it to me again!


Thank you everyone that entered for taking part of my very first giveaway!!

Crossbones Couture!!

Today's blog entry is dedicated to not only one of my favourite sellers, wonderful crafty lady, mother of two but a very good friend of mine, aside from fellow blogger in our joint blog: Two Girls And A Bar of Soap!

I met Brooke through, no surprise here, DIYScene! She's a mod there, and organizes swaps between the crafters there, and is also part of the DIYScene Etsy Street Team. She's been crafting for a looong time, and owns two Etsy shops: Crossbones Couture, for all your clothing needs, and Crossbones Collateral, for all kind of accesories (scarves, bags, cuffs), she also runs her own blog aside from our joint one!

After getting to know her, and getting to know about how good she is at her craft, from fellow crafters' feedback, I decided to indulge myself with two bags from her Collateral shop, two bags that actually reflect who I am: a cute Hello Kitty Halloween bag, and a Star Wars tote bag! Bags to satisfy the bag snob in me, as well as the geek and the lover of all things cute! Not only I got two amazing bags, but also a filled with goodies package, including PEZ candy and soap!

After getting my two bags and loving them, I was ready for more Crossbones Couture, so when I found out that Brooke was taking custom orders for a pea coat (mainly that she had made one for the gorgeous Destry from Pet Zombie Creations) so I decided to ask her to make me one! My one request was some paw print for the lining and details, and Brooke went on to have a fight or two with it, till she managed to make me an awesome, warm and fuzzy peacoat! This time the package not only arrived full of all sort of goodies, but with one of her most amazing and famous scarves! I unfortunately don't have any pics wearing my peacoat (I'll work on that on the next cold wave!) but I do have a picture of me wearing my very warm and not bulky Crossbones scarf!

I am so completely in love with my scarf, that I had to get one for one of my best friend's b-day, but you can read about it all in another blog entry here.

Brooke also jumped at my request for coffee sleeves, and you can read about it in my entry about Coffee Cozies. Here you can see Gaurav amused about how actually useful they are! (and it not just being one of his crazy girlfriend ideas...).

While preparing my February trip to India, I asked Brooke if she was working in any more of her drawstring long skirts, and through her "supposed" bedrest ( she was 7 months pregnant at this stage) she managed to sew a handful of amazing skirts, with the most amazing decorative stitches and fabric combinations! I refrained myself of buying them all, and went for a black one and a sand colour one. They arrrived more than plenty on time for me to stuff them into my suitcase and wear them all around Goa! (along with a jar of Fluff that I asked Brooke to get for me cause I wanted to try it!). I have to tell you, those skirts are so goddamned comfy! And absolutely perfect for beach wear!

My latest (and in no way last) purchase from Brooke is one of her newest models of handbags, the Rock & Roll bag! I got it just before leaving for India, and she was more than kind enough to wait to send it to me till I was back here from my holidays, so there'd be no issues with the package while I was away. I got the bag just yesterday, and let me tell you, it has a more than appropiate name, cause it seriously ROCKS! It has become one of my very favourites bags of all time, and has come with me today to celebrate St Patrick's Day and to see Watchmen!

If you don't own any Crossbones gear, let me tell you, you are seriously missing out!

Shopping Handmade: Nayade's Birthday!

Finally! Back to the regular schedule of blogging!

Today I gave my very good friend (actually, one of my best friends) Nayade, her birthday presents, all of them bought in Etsy!

I have decided to go for each and all presents, when possible, the handmade way... so Birthday presents for my friends is a first step, and one that I'm enjoying quite a bit!

When trying to decided what to get for my dear Nayade, I started by remembering how much she liked the Cotton and Cloud reversible gloves I got for our common friend Esther's birthday, so I decided that I should get her one pair! I looked on Kyoko's shop and found the cutest and most colourful reversible fingerless gloves ever! I liked them so much that I wanted to keep them for myself! Also, the packaging was so cute, and perfect for gift giving with a box!

Here you can see Nayade, soooo happily showing off her gloves, sporting the two different sides! And she says that all her co-workers are gonna be so envious of her! She's even wishing for some colder weather to show them off for longer!

I was wondering about getting her clothes, cause she loves the clothes I get off Etsy and all my regular sellers, but whereas I know my size and am pretty good at figuring inches measurements and know what will fit me... I had no idea how to do that for her...

Browsing around my favourites, I saw this lovely halter top in Crossbones Couture, the clothing shop from my good friend and co-blogger (Two Girls and A Bar of Soap) Brooke, and fell in love with it! The measurements listed seem a lil big for me, and it was listed as a M-L but didn't seem too big, and since Nayade is roughly one size up than me... I thought it would be perfect for her! When she opened the package and saw the top, she squealed! She didn't properly try it on, but she says she's sure it'll fit her fine!

After getting the top, I went to look at Brooke's other shop: Crossbones Collateral and thought that since I had got her those really nice gloves, I should get her a scarf, and what better scarf than a Brooke scarf! I got one she sent me when I bought my peacoat from her, and I'm absolutely in love with it! It's so soft and warm, but light and not bulky at the same time! I went for one with a combination of greens in the print, what will match one of the sides of the reversible gloves perfectly! And once again, it was a total score, cause Nayade is in love with it!

I couldn't be happier about how well liked these presents were, which shouldn't really surprise me, all handmade items are made with love, and picked with care and love by me, so they're bound to be equally appreciated!

Thank you Brooke and Kyoko for creating those lovely pieces that made my friend so very happy!

Shopping Handmade: Coffee Coozies!

Sunday evening, hot blackberry & blueberry tea and the soundtrack of the Fountain... the perfect setting to start writing a new type of blog entry I'm going to introduce, and alternate with my usual reviews: Shopping Handmade!

What are the "Shopping Handmade" blog entries gonna be about? Well, the idea came when I started buying, with some advance, I must admit, for some friends' b-days and presents for the bf family for my next visit. Suddenly, I realized it would be a great way to show how you can buy handmade for everyone and for every occasion, and to give a bit of exposure of those sellers I had bought from.

My first blog in this series will be dedicated to some members of the DIYScene forum and Etsy Street Team that responded very kindly to thread posted in said forum by yours truly, asking for some coffee cozies (or coozies as Brooke calls them). I had looked all over Etsy for those, since I love having my coffee or tea (usually Chai Tea) on the go, but I decided it was time to be enviromentally friendly, but I couldn't find any designs I really felt compelled to, or any prints/fabrics I loved, so I thought, why not ask the sellers I know and trust if they'd be willing to make some for me? And so I posted the thread, and three amazing ladies offered themselves to make me one!

The first one to arrive here was the one Brooke from Crossbones Couture made out of some absolutely amazing sushi print! It's closed with velcro, backed with black felt and with nice decorative stitching; and I must say I'm madly in love with it! You can find more coozies in her shop, cause I must proudly say that my request inspired her, and she made a few more! Don't forget to check her out!

The next one to arrive was Mara's from Indiscretion, warm and snuggly and made of some amazing blue (turquoise?) yarn and with a corset style closure with some elastic. Really cute, and perfect for the really cold days of winter, when you don't want to burn your hands, but still want your hands warm! This one I didn't purchase, she actually JUST sent it to me, and she doesn't have any coozies in any of her shops, but she has amazing scarves and clothing in both her Indiscretion & Haute Indiscretion etsy shops!

The last one to arrive (and it didn't arrive alone!) was the one made by the sweet Christa, the owner of MsChrista Clothing & Hair accesories. It's made of one of my all time favourites lime green sushi print! Backed with red felt, with corset style closure, with a pretty black ribbon! It even matches on of my Dolly bags and can double as a wrist cuff! She was so uber sweet to send me a few extra goodies: a lovely matching headband, and a rockin' wrist cuff with a cool skull print! She doesn't have any more coozies, yet, cause she was thinking of making more, but what she does have is the most amazing hair flowers!

And now, I'll just go back to check DIYscene, Twitter a bit about my blog, and finish my tea while I listen to some Irish music! Cheers!