Make your Halloween a Night of Hope

Halloween is a fun time for children in this country, lots of sweets, parties and a little mild spooky fun. My kids love dressing up, carving a pumpkin and as far as I am concerned, it is a harmless festival. In fact, psychologists have suggested that indulging in fantasy scares, like reading a spooky fairytale or ghost story, help children work through anxieties they are too young to articulate or rationalise. 

I am not, however, very keen on the Trick or Treat aspect of doorstepping your neighbours, and if you are not comfortable with that, or more generally with the emphasis on ghouls and ghosties around Halloween, finding a way of allowing your children to join in without an outright ban is always problematic. 

This year, put an alternative spin on the festival. World Vision UK are asking that on 31st October, we remember the children around the world who really do live in fear. They have come up with the utterly adorable idea of placing a heart pumpkin on your doorstep. On a dark, dark night, you can show the world you care with your pumpkin burning bright, a little lantern of love and hope for universal childhood.

You can read more about the Night of Hope on the Worldvision website. They have carving guides, pumpkin recipes and a very sad case study about a little girl in Uganda who was ultimately helped by World Vision to escape a forced marriage aged 15. 

Please do consider signing up, you might even win the prize of a cookery class with Lesley Waters, which you are entered into when you do. Bonus!

Image courtesy of World Vision UK

Excellent Thrifting

Browsing the local charity shops is always a joy, and as I am currently in a wardrobe funk (who isn't; one minute it's 30 degrees, the next, monsoon wedding again) I have been on the lookout for finds to perk me up. Lucked out this week as I got a Brand! New! Still Labelled! White Stuff! cardigan and a pretty skirt. Add in a couple of books for the girls and I still only spent £11. I thank you.

Hampshire Dwellers Take Note

I shall not, sadly, be attending this event but it should be a good one. As the first in what we hope will be a long series of fun craft events I hope there will be lots of support! Please do go if you live anywhere in the area, that means you Portsmouth, Fareham, Southampton, and Petersfield dwellers!!

Monday Mixtures

Hi everyone. I have been promising myself to get around to more regular posts - and in fact I have been meaning to stick my oar into Lizzie B's Magpie Monday more often so here duely is my contribution to that first, with some other updates to follow - read on!

Have been scouring the junk shops, antiques charity shops and second hand emporiums of my locale recently iwht a view to getting MORE TIDY. SO, storage solutions, that kind of thing. Herewith is my latest purchase, which is a lovely basket from a charity shop, only £6. I think it is actually intended as a picninc/wine basket - it has cute compartments. But sadly at my house it is living in shoe corner. Most of the childrens shoes are too small to sit on the shoe rack so this at least keeps them in the one place!

Apart from strewing baskets around the house like a woman on a mission, I have had a lovely weekend showign off my garden to the public as part of a local Open Gardens scheme. So nervewracking! But no-one harangued me about the weeds so that was good! The little ones were also ecstatic to have over 100 visitors to our house in one day, mainly because my budding entrepreneurs were selling home-made biscuits. The idea was the eldest's; to do fundraising for the RSPCA. When she found out there was over £20 in her pot, the little minx stated she would rather keep it! A hard lesson in keeping promises ensues. 

Chicken Jumpers

 Copyright 2008 Jo Eglen

My mother sent me the most fascinating article clipping through the post today (From SAGA magazine though, sigh) about the plight of bald rescue hens. In the article it showed a number of fabulous pictures of hens which have been provided with natty jumpers by benevolent charity knitters. There aren't so many pictures on the online article sadly, but there's no need as you can go direct to the website of the Little Hen Rescue Centre that needs them. It made me smile to see those poor baldy chooks in their bright sweaters. If you don't knit there's a pattern to make one in fleece.  I note that they are currently well stocked for the knitted variety but if you are looking for a good cause to add to your list of to-dos ... (not me, I can barely lift cup to lip at the moment without some new vital task presenting itself to me. Usually in the form of a nappy)

Happy browsing. x

Dresses for Malawi

Back in May I blogged about a project that I had been involved in, to make a dress for a child in Malawi. If you would like to recap feel free.

Imagine my delight today when lovely Louise from Sew Scrumptious posted up some photos of the first batch arriving in Malawi and my dress is being worn by a (quite big) girl. Here is the post, and you can find my dress in the last picture - but just take a minute to look at those sweet happy children. I feel so happy that I spent a little of my time making that dress and I never thought I would actually get to see the face of the child it went too. So thank you Louise, for all your time and effort that went into co-ordinating the effort - so far she has sent 150 dresses to Africa and recieved over 300 from crafty peeps. Way to go!!

Good Causes

Just a quick post about a friend of mine who is fundraising for Mind. She will be cycling to Paris in September 2011. Go Cathy!

You can sponsor her online and read all about how she's getting on on her blog here.

If you are free on June 18th (that's this Saturday) and you fancy a night out in London why not get tickets for her quiz and Cabaret - details are here.

It's a great cause and she is working so hard towards her fundraising targets, do help her out if you can.

Hoping to make an unknown child happy.........

So just before I cut the end off my finger and effectively slowed production down alot, I managed to complete one of my pet projects for this month, which being a charity one got done quickly because I love the feel-good glow! Louise at Sew Scrumptious is co-ordinating a pillowcase dress makeathon in aid of the charity endeavour Dress A Girl Around The World.

So as I have now completed and sent mine off, here's a peek. It's got quite wide shoulder ties, co-ordinating coral bias tape, and a multi-stripe seersucker body. I completely stole the idea of adding a fancy machine stitch to it from a dress that another maker sent to Louise - but those fancy pants settings so rarely get used, it is a pleasure to add a bit of extra je-ne-sais-quoi!

You can see others that we sewing bloggesses have made, ready to send to little girls who need a new pretty something to make them smile, if you click this link: Sew Scrumptious.

Sit and Knit A Bit

If you knit and have time to make just one teensy weensy 6x6 square please do to support the Centenary of International Womans Day. They are making a huge blanket to commemorate/raise awareness of women's issues around the world. For more information and a much better explanation of what it is all about please have a look at this website

If you have this

please help to  make this!

Macmillan And All That

Just had a lovely morning! First off I welcomed many of my lovely friends around for cake and fundraising, as part of the Macmillan Big Coffee Morning through which we have raised £45 for the charity. Go cake eaters!

Then I received a parcel through the post which was the strawberry print bandana bib I ordered from Painted Ghost on Folksy. Baby is very happy with her new accessory, which should save her clothes, although it is so pretty with it's lacy trim I feel sorry for it's terrible fate.

Anyway now that is all done I must get on. It's the 1st October (wow) and that means that I have got listings to do for October Folksters and should have done a Folksy Friday post etc etc!

Showcasing a worthy cause

Today's Sunday Showcase is a Folksy shop that not only sells cute items, but all proceeds are going to the Alzheimer Society. Spaldilocks will be off on a London to Paris Cycle ride soon, so support her now by digging out a few coins for items such as this adorable owl card.