The next batch of fawns are coming along slowly but surely. I hope to have them up in my shop in a week or so. Here’s a sneak peak of one currently being stuffed . . .

Just wanted to also remind you that tomorrow is the last day that you will be able to redeem the special Mooo 20% discount for all One Red Robin readers! Don’t forget to hop on over there tonight for a last look around :-)

Also, the deadline for your dolly donations to the Haitian Orphanage supported by The Abundant Ground Foundation is fast approaching – they require the dollies in their office in New York by March 14 March 31. I am hoping to finish my little Ruby dolls by tomorrow night and ship them off early next week.

Thank you for the sweet comments on the girls’ craftiness last week :-) Holly shared a fantastic article on twitter: “Crafting Rich Experiences for our Children on a Frugal Budget” on Simple Mom. The article provides a clear definition of “rich” in the context of a child’s experience; how to go about creating such a rich experience for them; and some really good ideas if you are of the frugal persuasion :-) Definitely worth a read! (The comments on the article are very good too!)

I had an opportunity this past week to go and see a movie child-free. I rolled up to the movie theatre and picked “The Blind Side“, simply because I had heard Sandra Bullock was in it and she had done a fantastic job. And it was the only movie on at the time. I had no idea what it was actually about.

The opening scene showed an American football game and for the tiniest second I wondered if I should cut my losses and leave because I know nothing about American football. I watched a few football games when I lived in the USA back in high school, but I never understood it then and I am certainly none the wiser now!

I’m glad I gave the movie a few more minutes though . . . because I think it is the best movie I have seen in a long time. I won’t spoil the story for you except to say it is based on a true story and it really touched my heart – I found myself crying out of both sorrow and joy. I came away thinking a lot about motherhood; the limitations we knowingly and unknowingly place on the concept of love; and a renewed sense of hope in humanity (after having to personally deal with a hellish two months).

For those of you interested, here is the trailer:

Hope to be back with some finished fawns very soon!

I know this little pile of fabric doesn’t look like much at the moment:

But it will soon be magically transformed into some fawns :-)

It’s funny that in Sunday’s post I was struggling with inspiration and just getting on with it, and tonight I find myself raring to go.

The spark? I recalled that on the weekend the girls and I made up some plaster magnets. My eldest, who recently turned 6, received one of those cute make-it-yourself kits for her birthday. They had been asking me all week, “When are we gonna make these? When? When? . . . When?!” and we finally broke open the box on Sunday afternoon.

Lots of newspapers strung about, lots of accidentally painted hands (and faces . . . and floorboards, whoops!), lots of mess, and lots of fun. After a few hours, we had some new fridge magnets and two girls who were very happy with what they had made.

The following photos were taken by my 3-year-old (quite the little photographer I will admit!):

And so I was reminded how wonderful and exciting it is to get stuck into something new. I’ve been working on completing half-done projects lately and it was getting stale. Time to work on some softies from scratch again; let’s start from the very beginning (and as Julie Andrews would agree, a very good place to start :-)). So new fawns – from scratch – are on the way. And perhaps next week, a completely new softie design, or two :-)

I adore these girls . . .

. . .  the two little souls who keep me afloat at a time when it would be easier to be consumed by the waves.

What a week. I have found myself sitting at my sewing machine every night staring into the distance with no motivation whatsoever to work on any of the half-finished projects sitting my craft room. Let’s just call it the week of “Bleh.”

I’ve been looking for some inspiration and Flickr is always a good place to start. Here are my recent Flickr favourites from some of my favourite creative peeps:

1. You wanna mess with these colors?, 2. spring branches, 3. craft hope dolls, 4. Little lady, 5. Niño-azul-rayas_3, 6. WAWAYA bunka#7, 7. face embroidery, 8. FUNKY FUNGI in the Forest of Shrooms, 9. ram – second try, 10. Traveler, 11. Untitled, 12. Baltimore the Walrus Love=Creature, 13. Fu Doll Print – Framed, 14. Grumpy Girl Hero, 15. juliette, 16. Fangtasia

Some didn’t appear in the Mosaic so please follow the links to see them. I’m hoping to be a lot more productive – and motivated – this week :-)

So lots of people have been asking me about this whole Tiger Woods apology business. Did you see it? I don’t talk about celebrity scandals on this blog but please indulge me while I say a few words just about this one. My heart really goes out to his wife Elin and their kids – I cannot even imagine the pain she is having to deal with on a daily basis knowing that her husband chose (yes it is a deliberate choice, not some kind of accident) to cheat with so many women.

Is his apology sincere? Only time can prove sincerity and a real change of heart. However, an apology without immediate changes in behaviour and deliberate action to do what is right, are also empty words.  The only two things that I would commend him for: 1) he defended the integrity of his wife in public, and 2) he is getting professional help.

And lastly, I do hope the media will stop giving so much attention to all the mistresses. Seriously, who cares? Some of them say they deserve an apology. How about they personally apologise to Elin? And THEN to her kids? How about that? Consider the depth of narcissism, selfishness, and lack of respect that would make someone think it is okay to sleep with another woman’s husband – especially if there are kids involved. It is NEVER okay. Let those mistresses fade into utter and complete obscurity. Be done with them.

So now that I’ve got that off my chest, I promise this will be the first and last time I mention Tiger Woods on this blog :-)

Back to hopefully less random posts this week :-) Have a great one!

Still working through my half-finished-projects-from-last-year pile. After a few quiet nights of sewing and stuffing, February the Fawn is finally ready to be sent to her new home:

It’s been a tough few days so it feels great to have actually completed another project and to cross it off the list! Have to focus on the wins!

Thank you for the wonderful participation in the Mooo $50 Voucher giveaway (and gracious comments on my poetic skillz – or lack thereof!). It was fun to read through your top picks. I personally am a sucker for personalised stationery, the wooden puzzles and the wall stickers :-)

So enough with the suspense! Here is the winner (picked randomly):

31. Comment by Samelia — February 14, 2010 @ 1:23 pm
Great website with so much to see and buy.
I particularly loved the chalkboard stickers and I can imagine my little girl would love them too.

Congratulations Samelia!! I will be in contact with you soon with the voucher details!

If you missed out on the voucher, not to worry! Why? Because Mooo are generously offering all One Red Robin readers a 20% discount!!!

This discount will be valid until February 28th so if you were thinking of buying some goodies from Mooo, hop on over there now and use this promotion code during checkout to ensure the discount applies: redrobin20

Thanks again to Ben and the team at Mooo for their generosity!

Let me ask, if I may
Have you heard of Mooo?
You say
And what is Mooo, perhaps a clue?

And yes I say, you must see
What you can find
Lovely gifts of different kinds
And puzzles for all growing minds

Stickers, labels, even bags
T-shirts, invites, and little tags
None ever quite the same
Each will bear a special name

And look! Here there lies
A $50 voucher surprise
For one lucky comment made
On this post, don’t hesitate!

Just go to Mooo and look around
Find one thing liked most of all
Then comment here on what you’ve found.
Picked at random.

That is all.

———–
Hope you enjoyed that little poem of sorts and hope it made sense! Please leave your comments on what you liked best on the Mooo website on this post by midnight Tuesday 16th February (Aussie EST) and I will announce the randomly picked winner on Wednesday. Thanks to Ben and the team at Mooo for this generous giveaway via my blog!

After much procrastination, I spent some time on Spoonflower this week and set up my little fabric shop :-)

I’ve received a lot of enquiries about my fabric designs and whether I would have more on sale. Admittedly I am quite hopeless when it comes to ordering things online, then waiting for it to arrive, then cutting it all up, then packaging it, then sending it out again :-)

Thankfully Spoonflower recently opened up the ability to sell your designs directly from their website. All you need to do is register/login, pick the design you want, pick the base cloth, choose the size of your order, and make a payment via Paypal. Spoonflower will ship it to you directly. Easy peasy lemon squeasy (as my kids would say!). And there are so many gorgeous designs to choose from within the Spoonflower community.

So here are the designs that are currently available from my Spoonflower shop:

Find them all here: Spoonflower: Fabric by Jhoanna Monte

I would love to see anything that you happen to make using my fabric!

Thank you for the well wishes received on my 3 year old’s first day of pre-school! She was such a star – no tears, just smiles and giddy excitement.

She went straight into her classroom and didn’t look back at me once. It broke my heart but in a good way :-)

P.S. Thank you to Leigh for choosing me to be the featured blogger this week on Blog Chicks (a fantastic blogging community for women)! You can read my ramblings here: Blog Chicks Featured Blogger – Jhoanna Monte (One Red Robin)

Just wanted to let you know about an opportunity to reach out to the children living in an orphanage in Haiti. As you are aware, back in early January Haiti experienced its worst earthquake in 200 years. It’s capital city has been reduced to rubble and the body count is estimated to be at least 170,000.

{source}

Sarah Hanson, of Dolly Donations, has partnered with the Abundant Ground Foundation, which houses 181 orphaned children in Haiti. Sarah has organised an appeal calling all crafters to make and donate a doll, which will be given to the children in this orphanage. It is a practical and tangible means of showing the children that we are thinking of them, praying for them, and want to help them in any way that we can.

Dolls are required to be at the Abundant Ground Foundation’s office in New York (before they are transferred to Haiti) by March 14. Sarah also provides a free pattern for a sweet little dolly that can be made by all crafters – no matter what your dolly-making experience :-)

Find all the details (and link to free pattern) here: The Abundant Ground Foundation – Haiti Orphanage – Active Dolly Drive

Hope you’ll be able to get involved!

Yes, it’s no surprise that I heart Owls :-)

It makes me giddy when members of my family ‘get it‘ too. A relative in the USA is an owl-lover (in addition to being just a naturally cool chick :-)) and sent me this necklace – a favourite of mine – last year:

I knew I had to send her one of my grumpy owls for her birthday. It’s two months late but Omega the Owl is finally taking flight and is on his way to her home:

I had a lot of fun picking out all the fabric bits – a mix of vintage and designer pieces :-)

In more owly news, I recently released my newest softie sewing pattern through Pattern Press – Bubbly the Owl. He’s currently available through the Haby Goddess, with more stockists to be added very soon (full list of current stockists of my sewing patterns can be found here).

By the way, thank you to those of you who have emailed me to let me know you visited the giant fawn at Sportsgirl – and some have emailed me pics as well. I’ve enjoyed reading your messages and giggled at your photos (in a good way of course!). Your support is really appreciated!!

I’m taking my 3-year-old to her first day at Pre-school today and she is so excited – especially because she gets to have her own backpack and lunch box :-) I’m sure it will be an emotional moment when I drop her off.

Have a wonderful week all!

I finished this Woodland Girl, Diana, this week. She is a very overdue Christmas gift for a woman who has been a mentor to me for some years now and has been a trusted confidant and source of strength during my recent troubles.

Her late husband was a well-respected and much-loved leader in the Aboriginal community. I had some fabric bearing a design by an Aboriginal Artist tucked away and I knew this would be perfect for the doll.

Thank you for all the comments received for the giveaway! Wow, you guys really love some free fabric!! :-)

I really loved reading through the comments – thank you so much for your willingness to share about inspirational people in your life, events, bloggers and crafters, quotes, and personal achievements. I came away feeling incredibly hopeful, grateful and yes – inspired to make every day count! I hope you’ll take some time to read through the comments too.

Here are the winners as randomly chosen by this trusty robot :-)

Fabric Pack 1:
35. Comment by Anya — February 1, 2010 @ 3:06 pm
These great purple and green fabric fat squares at the fabric store inspired me…I haven’t broken out the sewing machine in months, and now I have a pillow for my little sister. Shabam! Glee is fabulous, for the record.

Fabric Pack 2:
89. Comment by hollysarah. — February 3, 2010 @ 2:48 pm
Those fat quarters look so cute! I love the prints.
I’ve been inspired by Blythe dolls lately… I’ve been browsing Etsy shops for clothing, and I love this one so much! http://www.etsy.com/shop/dollymolly
thanks for a giveaway! <3

Amy and Holly Sarah, I will be contacting you shortly to ask for your postal addresses.

Thanks to a wonderful new sponsor for the month of February, I will be holding another giveaway next week so please keep an eye out for that one!

I’ve been doing a major clean-up at home. Thankfully my move has been postponed for a few months but it feels good to be going through boxes throwing stuff out/giving stuff away :-)

I’ve got some fat quarters of fabric recently brought back from Japan. I have no need for them so I thought a giveaway would be appropriate! They are novelty cotton prints, measuring 50cm x 35cm each. I have two packs consisting of 3 fat quarters each to giveaway:

Pack 1:

Pack 2:

To be in the running to win either of these, please leave a comment on this post about something (anything – a link, an event, a person, etc) that has inspired you this week. Please leave your comment by midnight (Australian EST) on Thursday, 4th February and I will draw two winners (one for each pack) on Friday.

Wishing you all a fantastic February!