Only A Few More Days ..

Hello my dear friends,

only a few more days and it is here ....'Where Bloggers Create 2014'!

 

 

I have been so busy that I hadn't even place Karen Valentine's button on my sidebar yet ...oh dear.

But now it's done and I can't wait to share my creating space with all of you. I am busy working away to hopefully have everything just perfect. So ... see you here on July 12th?!

 

I hope you are well my dear friends and life is treating you kind.

 

Have a peaceful and creative day.

 

And The Winner Is ...

Hello my dear friends,

I know it taken a quite a while but the time is finally here to find out who the winner of my 'Christmas To Come' giveaway.

 71 of you entered your name and guess (70 on blogger and 1 via Facebook). Some of you came very close with your guesses  but nobody actually guessed the right number of little flowers which meant ...

... that ALL names were entered in the giveaway!

Howe many flowers did I manage to crochet? ...

...it was 260!
(As you can see I haven't tackled finishing them off just yet.)

What is the gift?!
Well ... that is still a secret and the fun part of it, just like when you were a child. The winner will have a little present just in time to be placed under their Christmas tree and ready to be opened on Christmas day.

I thought I would make the draw a little more Christmassy, so I punch a large snowflake out for each one of you and each snowflake received a number which belonged to a certain name.

All the flakes were placed into  a lovely Christmas gift bag and I let me daughter Caylagh pull one snowflake from the bag.

And now  ...
... the winner is ...

 

 

Snowflake no.66 is Pat and her guess was 125 flowers.

 

Pat, please drop me a line with you mailing address so I will have it for when the time comes to mail you your gift later this year.

 

Thank you all of you who took part in my giveaway with a little twist. I thought it was fun and maybe I will do it again some time.

 

I will be sharing what the giveaway gift was with all you lovely bloggers but after Christmas day for the reason that I do not want my friends knowing what their surprise gift is going to be ~ I hope you understand.

 

I hope you are well my dear friends and life is treating you kind.

 

Have a peaceful and creative day.

 

Last Chance ...

Hello my dear friends,

my crochet hook is finally placed on the side to rest!

 I have crochet my last little flower and the yarn is now all gone and I have the number of how many little flower I was able to make! Tomorrow I will be drawing the winner of my 'Christmas To Come' giveaway so this your last chance to get your name and guess entered.

If you still want to take part, just click on my giveaway button on the right side bar and leave your guess.

 Make sure you stop by tomorrow to find out if you were the lucky person to win this giveaway and if you are, please contact me with your mailing address!

I wish you all good luck!

I hope you are well my dear friends and life is treating you kind.

Have a peaceful and creative day.

These Past Weeks ~ Celebrations

Hello my dear friends,

it feels like forever since I have sat down and written a proper post to share with all of you lovely bloggers and I am sorry that I haven't because I actually miss doing so and I have missed all of you.
 

So ... what have I been up too?

 Well, apart from being sick with a nasty flu and cold for a longer time and being very busy with all sorts, I had time to celebrate my birthday which was so lovely.

My older daughter had organized everything and my son-in-law and her cooked a lovely dinner. Again I was showered with so many wonderful gifts ... one of them was a book I wanted to read so bad which is ...

 

... 'The first phone call from heaven' by Mitch Albom.

 

Another gift was this ...

 

... tickets to see Lionel Richie this month with my daughter Ashleigh!

(I am so excited!)

My sweet friend Leesa surprised me with lovely flowers ...

... that she had delivered to me! Love you so much girl!

 

I was so fortunate to be gifted with many beautiful things even though I always tell everyone a card is just perfect but they are all so kind and sweet and just don't listen.

  

Not only was it my birthday but my daughter Caylagh turned 14 in June as well. She requested a 'different' kind of cake this year and it was actually a lot of fun to make because it was a no bake cake. Being truthful there actually was no batter involved at all because it was a watermelon cake that I made for her and it turned out really neat and tasted great too.

Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of what it looked like once it was cut but I am sure you can imagine the bright pink/redish color of the watermelon! Amazing!
 It is very healthy too apart from the fresh whipped cream that smothers the entire thing but then again it is a birthday cake and it's meant to be yummy and sweet.

But that wasn't my only cake creation I made.

My husband was home from work and we celebrated his birthday belated and this time I did bake a cake. My first one every made from scratch I hate to say but wow ... it was amazing! It was a recipe I found on Pinterest and it was a take on a recipe by Nigella Lawson.

I made her Irish Guinness cake with fresh cream cheese icing!

Doesn't it just look so scrumptious?!

If you want to make a cake that will have everyone asking for more, you should really try this cake. The next time I am going to bake it will be this coming Christmas and I can already taste it.

Here is the link to the recipe I used ...
http://greatbritishbaking.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/chocolate-guiness-cake.html

The only thing I changed was that instead of using sour cream I used plain jougurt.


 But we didn't just have birthdays to celebrate these past weeks ... there was also something else very special.

My younger daughter Caylagh graduated from grade 8 and will be starting high school this September! Oh my gosh does time fly!

Life has just been so busy and there is sign of it slowing down a little just yet. my to-do list is still quite long with things like completing my outdoor project from last year and more work I would love to get done inside the house too and of course hopefully lots of creating! One good thing for sure I am never going to be bored!

And last but not least ...

... I am going to draw the winner of my 'Christmas To Come' giveaway on July 7th! So there is still time to enter your name and also spread the word about it too!

To find out more just go to the top of my page and click on my giveaway button on the right sidebar.

So my lovelies, that's all for today and if you have a few spare moments, do visit me again here at Todolwen ~ it makes my day!

I hope you are well my dear friends and life is treating you kind.

Have a peaceful and creative day.
 

Crocheting 'Doilies' ...

Hello my dear friends,

I am buzzing with a sort of energy and the need to learn and create new things right now and feel so good about it too. I truly hope I am going to stay like this for some time because I just had enough of feeling grey like the sky on a rainy day.

 I went in search of new supplies to use for new creations and maybe a few new things to learn too and I was lucky. One of the things I found was to do with crocheting doilies and since I love to crochet, I took to the idea of making doing this right away ... but it is not your every day type of doily you see.

https://www.etsy.com/ca/shop/RaggedyAnns
 

I had found Helen Glaze's Etsy shop 'Raggedy Anns' with her amazing patterns on how to crochet her 'doilies' and had to buy some of them right away. Like I said these are not your every day doilies but  a new take on them. They are doily rugs or as I like to call them floor dollies. The link above with take you to her Etsy shop where you will find her patterns.

No sooner the patterns were bought and I was off to thrift stores around our town in search for my supplies to make one of these beauties. I found what I needed ~ bed sheets ~ at our local Salvation Army store. Happy and eager to start I went home.

 

 

 

And that is where the work started of getting my supplies ready to start making my floor doily. It took much longer than I thought it would before I could start the actual piece because the first step of making a floor doily is cutting up bed sheets in order to turn them into a long strip of fabric which in the end will become something so pretty.

 

Things went really well at first ... 

 

... but then I needed a little help from a chart that I drew for myself to prevent any counting mistakes.

 In the end I didn't just make one floor doily the first day but also second one the next day and these are my beautiful floor doilies!

These lovely pieces are going find their new home in my studio and that is where you will see them next.

I even have some 'yarn' left over and another full sheet to use, so I am already looking forward to making another one soon. My hands just need a little rest right now because it is actually hard work to crochet these pretties due to the thickness of the fabric strip but it is so rewarding once you are done.

I hope you enjoyed my newest making as much as I have! Why not give it a try yourself?!

I hope you are my dear friends and life is treating you kind.

Have a peaceful and creative day.

Happy Canada Day..

Hello my dear friends,

I just wanted to wish all my Canadian followers and friends and everyone else ...

 

 

... Happy Canada Day! 

 

Many hugs to all of you.
 

 

Slowly But Surely ..

Hello my dear friends,

I am slowly but surely going to get back into blogland and I can 't believe that I have fallen so far behind with posts that I wanted to share these past weeks so I better get my typing fingers on and get working on it.

My laptop isn't fixed properly yet, just temporarily made-do so I can use it while I have to wait for the new keyboard to arrive but at least I can work a little on creative things now and share some things with all of you that have been going on starting in the next few days so do visit me again here at Todolwen, I can't wait to tell you all about what I have been up to.

I hope you are well my dear friends and life is treating you kind.

have a peaceful and creative day.