This week you might like to....

VOTE for My Bearded Pigeon in the Etsy Design Awards.

I met Cath, Ms My Bearded Pigeon, online a few years ago right after we had both just started blogging. Each Thursday we, along with a couple of hundred other craft bloggers, would share our creative spaces and what we'd been up to.

I liked Cath straight away. I loved her creativity, her parenting and living style, the fact that she'd also moved from the city to the country and I really admire the fact that she always stands up for what she believes to be right, always supports other people’s projects and is always enthusiastic, encouraging and kind.

A few years ago Cath came up with a gorgeous organic cushion design which she handmade in her lounge room at home and then started selling on Etsy. When the world fell in love with her cushions and she found she couldn’t make them all herself, she employed other mothers in her community to help her with the cutting and the sewing. Other mothers who could sit up at their kitchen tables stitching and still be there when their kids woke up or got home from school. I think that’s pretty awesome.

I also think it’s pretty awesome that Cath herself juggling motherhood, running a household, going to work, being a constant and supportive friend, fighting copyright issues and copycats, has grown her business, come up with loads of new designs while always sticking to her ethics.

Voting for Cath puts her in the running to win a mentoring session with Clare Bowditch and also a trip to New York.

Voting is quick and easy, it’s free, it gives you the chance to win a $250 Etsy gift card and it would mean the world to Cath.

Vote for My Bearded Pigeon here.

Sponsor Pottymouth Mama to wear a dress each day in October and raise some much needed funds for ovarian cancer research. Every cent she raises goes to the Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation (OCRF).

Currently there is no early detection test for ovarian cancer and the OCRF relies completely on the support of the community and business. 

Here are some stats I found on Lexi's blog;

• Every ten hours, one woman dies from ovarian cancer in Australia
• Ovarian cancer is the leading cause of death of all gynaecological cancers
• Unlike other cancers, there is NO early detection test
• Over 50% of the community incorrectly believe a pap smear diagnoses ovarian cancer
• Ovarian cancer has a lower survival rate than both breast and cervical cancer
• When detected and treated early 80-100% of women will survive beyond five years compared with only 20-30% when diagnosed at a late stage

This is Lexi's third year of participating in frocktober and it would be great to help her make it the biggest yet.

Please sponsor Lexi by clicking this link.

READ this little interview I did over on Kellie's blog.

MAKE a soft toy for Softies For Mirabel

I love this one. Each year for the past eight years, Pip and the Meet Me At Mikes crew have encouraged crafters all over the world to make and donate a soft toy for The Mirabel Foundation, an organisation that cares for children affected by parental substance abuse. 

As an obsessive compulsive crafter myself, the thought of something I have created with my own two hands making a small difference to a child's life, warms my heart.

Softies can be stitched, crocheted, knitted, woven or felted. Above is the softie I made back in 2010, you can check out all the others in the flickr group.

I still haven't decided what form my softie will take this year but I think it's probably about time I took a break from my sock-a-thon, don't you?

Keep up to date with the softies project over at Meet Me At Mikes.


I think that's it from me for now.
So tell me, are you going to vote or sponsor or read or make?
Were you a creative spacer or have you made a softie before?
Do you have anything going on that you think I should know about?

I hope you have a wonderful week.
I hope your sun shines and that you find the time to do something that you love.

Big love

xx