Fun mail and thoughts about today...

I am really behind in posting about the fun stuff received in the mail in the last 2 months (or so). First I was the winner of two items from the One World One Heart event. Both wonderful, colorful happy works of art.



First up a beautiful Laurel Burch fabric postcard from Fannie at Fannie Narte.



Second a stunning little hand made box by Carolee Clark at King of Mice Studios.



Pretty cool, huh? I'm a lucky, lucky girl! Both of these little works of art are SO much prettier in person and one really neat thing about the box - the top is magnetized.



Also - not long ago I was fortunate enough to win a couple of blog giveaways by Elizabeth - she lives on a Danish Island and writes a beautiful blog.



I won this beautiful handmade felt envelope



You can tell how much love and attention she put into her creations.



And how about this cute little egg cozy?



It's reversible too!

I'm looking at my calender and it tells me today is Administrative Professionals Day as well as Earth Day. My heart, however tells me it's the anniversary of my mother's death. Sadly she took her life 27 years ago after a long battle with mental illness. I think of her often and today I will hug her extra tightly in my thoughts.

I dedicated one of my Bead Journal pages to her last year. If you have not seen it and are interested - you can find it here.

OWOH Winners!

This has been a spectacular event! I managed to visit the blog of every participant, and boy what a treat! I now subscribe to over 220 new blogs between those maintained by participants and others that left their names here. I have had a blast traveling around the world via your blogs - really how could I not?

I did not count how many times I added my name to drawings, but I did my best to limit myself to items that really struck me or that I could actually use. There were some really neat things/art/objects offered up or created for the event, it was challenging at times not to get caught up in the frenzy and just throw my name in everywhere!

I ended up with 354 entries for my giveaway. I requested an active blog be in place by those that wanted to throw their name into the drawing. I did visit each and every blog from those comments. After culling the duplicates (there were only 2) and those that did not have active blogs, the final number of entrants was 320. Pretty amazing, I think.

I mulled over how I might choose my winners. I know lots of folks planned to use random number generators, but I just couldn't. I wanted it to be a little more hands on - I'm crazy like that (control issue perhaps?).

I have giveaways here frequently and I enjoy the name drawing process as much as the rest of it. Over 300 is a LOT of comments though. So here's how I managed it - for anyone that's interested...



All my comments go to my Yahoo email account. I set up a separate folder for the OWOH giveaway and another folder for 'rejects' and saved all the incoming comments in one of those folders in the order of date/time received. I then added the number of posts to an Excel spreadsheet (in this case 318) so I could cut each one out and add them to my little basket. Since messages are numbered 25 to a page in Yahoo, it makes the process a snap!



After midnight struck, I drew two numbers out of the basket. Here are the winners:

The flower goes to Farmchick of Fresh from the Farm

and

The lips go to Jana of One Hillaceous Dream

Congratulations ladies and a big thank you to everyone that visited!

I'd like to take just a moment again to thank Lisa Swifka for organizing and managing the event. It was no small task to visit each blog - I can't imagine how much time it took to manage the links and the blog.

BRAVO Lisa... take a bow, it was another great year!

One World One Heart...

***Comments are now closed*** Winners to be announced later today in a separate post.

Today begins the One World One Heart event. Quite a few bloggers (a couple hundred last year) from around the world will participate in the event, each offering up some sort of goodness to anyone that wants to play. A wide range of items are possible - paintings, collages, jewelry, photos, candles, soaps, food - you just never know. One thing for sure to be found - good people and GREAT fun!

Every one is welcome to participate here, no matter where you live in the world. My goal is to meet/connect with people and discover (or re-discover) interesting blogs around the world.

I have only one rule... you must have an active blog in order to throw your name into the hat for either of the items up for grabs. A little more about what I'm offering...



A beautiful ceramic clay flower button created by Lisa Peters. I added the beads, the pin/bail backing and the ultrasuade to finish it.

It measures about 2 inches by 2 inches and can be worn as a brooch or a pendant.

The other item - a pair of lips - pretty cute, aren't they? This also started out as a button and was created by Lisa Peters.



This brooch is about 2 1/2 inches wide and 2 inches tall - that includes the fringe which is heavily embellished with Swarovski crystals for an out of this world sparkle!

If you're interested in learning more about Lisa Peters, the artist that created the buttons, please check out her website, her Etsy store or her blog. Or if you're a subscriber to Beadwork magazine, there is an article about her in the February/March issue.

The drawing ends promptly at midnight (Eastern time) on February 11. I will disable comments at that time and notify the winners on February 12 via email - so make sure I can contact you through your blog. I will post the names of the winners on Thursday, February 12.

Okay... let me hear from you! And once you're finished leaving a comment here, go back up to the top of this post and click on the One World One Heart button and you will be taken to the blog with a list of all participants (to date) and their links - see what else is being offered up for the event and the many cool blogs just waiting to be found. You never know when or where you're going to meet your next friend.

One warning... you may end up spending LOTS of time touring sites and leaving comments, prepare your self for a feast for the eyes and the soul. And maybe, just maybe some new found friends.

Have fun and good luck!