Tree Bird Blog Hop with a special giveaway

Welcome to our stop of the Tree Bird Blog Hop! First of all we would like to thank three very special Ladies: Madame Samm, the wonderful author of Sew we Stitch and the Queen of Blog Hops; Lana at It Seams To Be Sew..., our super efficient Cheerleader and Pat at Life in the Scrapatch. Thanks to Pat's generosity we had the chance to sew with the lovely "Beautiful Birds" collection by Tracy Lizotte for Elizabeth Studio. Not only did Pat send us the Potrait Panels we won with her giveaway, she also included an extra Tree Panel. We are paying forward her generosity with our own special giveaway. A hint: it has to do with birds!

Birdwatching is a bit of a tradition in our family. Most of the birdwatching takes place from the house, looking out the window at the fig tree where, during the winter, food for the birds is never missing. It's a full time job to keep the birds happy in the winter and they repay us by returning every year. This jolly crowd is great company!

We're often checking reference books to see the exact name of our "fine feathered friends" and studying details. So a nice book cover comes in very handy!

To celebrate our little friends we also made a cushion cover using two of the portraits and some wood grain fabric. We liked using the simple linen fabric to set off the detailed drawings of the birds. 

The quilting is also very simple, a couple of "matchsticks" to make the wood grain fabric stand out like a tree. We're definitely thinking of making a set of these cushion covers to give as a present to our bird feeders!

While writing this, we're singing "Feed the Birds" from Mary Poppins... We can't help ourselves... We even have a board on Pinterest where we collect pics of Birdhouses and little houses.

And now for the giveaway! For all you bird lovers, we are giving away a beautiful Bird House Decoration by MIHO Unexpected Things:

To have a chance of winning this pretty Bird House (in mdf, 16x18x14 cm, in a flat pack very easy to put together) all you have to do is leave a comment. For followers, old and new, another chance of winning: leave a second comment telling us how you follow our blog.

The giveaway is open to everyone and we will post the prize anywhere in the world (if the post office lets us!), closing on March 31st. Mr Random will then choose a winner who will be contacted by mail.

Fly on over to visit today's blogs: with so many creative projects, you'll be surprised by how many lovely ways have been found to use this fabric collection:

Tuesday, March 17

Tomorrow's Treasures Today

Childlike Facination

Pig Tales and Quilts

Quiltsmiles

Ella and Nesta's Little Room

Thimblemouse and Spouse

Gracie Oliver Arts

Joining in the March edition of A Lovely Year of Finishes at Fiber of All Sorts and Sew Bittersweet Designs with our Beautiful Birds book cover (Goal Setting Party entry number 130, via Flickr):

Valentine's Day Home Decorations: MIHO and mine!

O.K. I couldn't resist all the hearts making their appearance in Blogland, so I had to add a few myself. First of all a brilliant idea by MIHO Unexpected Things. It's not actually just for Valentine's Day, it's a very clever home decoration you can hang up where you like with masking tape or a nail to make a feature on a wall.

They're called Ex-voto and they're inspired by votive offerings, transformed into an appliquè decoration.

On the back it explains how to hang them up using the ribbon on the package. It's a clever and thrifty packaging idea. The Ex-voto come in different colours (if you're fed up of red hearts) and you can buy them at Porrini Moda (if you live in North Italy!) or on-line at Zuloh (super fun on-line shop!).

And here's my little Valentine's day Home decoration: a reverse appliquè with cross stitch writing (Italic courtesy of Ella!) and some pretty trim in a beautiful deep frame by Jardin d'Ulysse.

Just a few photos:

Linking to:

Sewing in Fashion and Design: embroidery hoop clocks, zip bracelets, buttons and more

Some time ago I wrote a post about how everything "sewing" (and craft in general) was inspiring fashion and design. In Italy this trend seems to be growing and here are a few products that I thought you might be curious to see.

Starting from these fun embroidery hoop inspired clocks by MIHO Unexpected:

Happy Hour

Take Your Time

Tea at Five

Il Centimetro has developed their tape measure bracelet concept into other products: watches, keyrings, wallets and bags, all made in Italy:

Photos from Il Centimetro

Seletti has also come up with a clever product called Philo that is a coloured electric cable wound up on what looks like a thread reel:

 

Photo from Seletti

Photo from Seletti

There are also some super fun products for children that are very popular at the moment: Zip bracelets by Shokkybandz

Photo from Loook

and Sbottonati, a collection of 120 buttons you can sew or stick on to decorate (Preziosi Collection):

This is the only photo I managed to take before the buttons disappeared into Ella's school bag!

Say it with Flowers Blog Hop and MIHO Unexpected Things Giveaway

Welcome to my stop of the Say it with Flowers Blog Hop. First of all I would like to thank Madame Samm at Sew We Quilt for organising this fantastic blog hop and giving me the chance to join. A big thank you also to Carol Swift from Just Let Me Quilt, our cheerleader, for all her help and incredible patience!

For this special event, MIHO UNEXPECTED THINGS is sponsoring my giveaway and, of course it has to do with flowers! Read on to find out more about the giveaway.

For my project I couldn't resist using some beautiful fabric from Moda I had been saving for a special occasion, Papillon by 3 Sisters:

It's a while I've had this project in mind but never got round to making it. Thanks to this blog hop I finally got to work and this is what I came up with - my jewellery holder.

I've hung it up in the walk-in closet and it looks good and is also useful, don't you think? With six pockets, all made with different fabrics from the same Moda collection, it's a special way of tidying up and showing off my favourite jewellery!

Here are some details. I love using linen, it doesn't steal the scene from other fabrics, especially these delicate coloured flowers.

My second flower project is this decoration I made for the front door using Tapestry by Joanna Figueroa, Fig Tree & Co. for Moda. My friend Cinzia Angelina is patiently trying to teach me to crochet. I am very (very) slowly improving!

I am super pleased to have the opportunity of giving away one of MIHO UNEXPECTED THINGS products to a lucky winner. MIHO has in fact offered one of their beautiful (and useful!) boxes especially for the Say it with Flowers Blog Hop.

and this is the box chosen for the giveaway:

Don't you just love it? There are flowers, of course! Please leave a comment to have a chance of winning this stunning box. I will post the prize internationally, anywhere the post office lets me! The lucky winner will receive this flat pack with really simple (and fast) instructions for putting the box together. 

Thank you for visiting and don't forget to leave a comment to have a chance of winning the fantastic MIHO UNEXPECTED THINGS giveaway!

GIVEAWAY CLOSED

Let the flower inspiration flow:

visit all of today's blogs and their host's wonderful projects:

May 30^th

A Quilt Lady

The House On The Side Of The Hill

Ella & Nesta’s Little Room (you're here!)

CLF by Nailaa

Atelier De Handwerktuin

Life, Quilts, and A Cat Too

Marjorie’s Busy Corner

Celtic Thistle

Elizabeth Coughlin Designs

Dreaming In Patchwork

Around The Homestead

MIHO UNEXPECTED THINGS: sponsor giveaway coming up soon!

If you've been reading my posts, you'll already know I'm a huge fan of MIHO UNEXPECTED THINGS, so the fact that they are sponsoring a giveaway I will soon be hosting on this blog makes me super happy!

Yes, the giveaway is going to feature one of their fantastic products. Which one, is a surprise! MIHO produces home collections that range from trophies to birdhouses, 

from stools

 to table linen

 from armchairs

 to rugs

A lot of items come in flat packs that take only seconds to put together (I'm not joking, Ella started putting them together when she was six years old, the instructions are really clear and there are always extra rings!).

An enormous thank you to MIHO UNEXPECTED THINGS for sponsoring the giveaway that's coming very soon. I hope you'll enjoy it too!