Giveaway winner

is comment #2 - Esther.

Well done Esther and thank you for joining in.

I'm in the midst of trying to mark 200+ A Level exam papers at the moment, so as soon as I get a spare minute I'll e-mail you (or if you see this, please feel free to drop me a line).

Post 50 - A GIVEAWAY!!!

This is my 50th blog post and I am going to make it a giveaway.

Up for grabs are 3 Fat Quarters from the Makower Coast range: Flip Flops, Beach Huts and Ripple Sand - perfect for summer projects!

All you need to do to enter is tell me your favourite holiday destination. It might be somewhere you've been, it might be somewhere you want to you.

I'll leave it open for a week, so until 7pm (GMT) next Wednesday (24th June). Everyone welcome, I'm more than happy to post Internationally.

Thanks for stopping by.

urrgghhhh

I'm really not having a good time of it all right now, so I'm going to focus on the positives.

Carolyne left a message on one of my posts recently recommending Swap Bot to me, so I headed over there, joined and signed up for a fabric swap. We received our swap partners last week and on Saturday a lovely little parcel arrived. Inside was this:














AND this:












I love them all! The watermelon and cherries just remind me of summer and my swap partner said she choose the apples "for the teacher". How sweet was that?

Following on from that, it seems to have been a week for fabric. I ordered some fabric last week and it also came on Saturday:














Today, I had to attend a course in London and it just so happened that the meeting was held right next door to Liberty of London shop just off Regent Street. I couldn't resist a peek in there, and this just happened to fall into my hand....













I am well and truly stocking up on this stuff at the moment and I'm finding it harder to get (without paying over the odds or extortionate postage prices for it). Anyway, it was £8.50 a metre, which is probably the cheapest I've known it, but not only that, look....














it gets nicely wrapped....














and then put in a fabulous bag....

I might see if there are any more courses I 'need' to attend, lol.

If that wasn't enough, when I got home, these were waiting for me from the Sweet Words giveaway over at A Pocket Full of Buttons I won. They are truly gorgeous and I can't wait for the morning to show Cara (who fell asleep in the car on the way home!)



















Onwards and upwards I say. Remember I said that my 50th post would be a giveaway....well this is post 49!

Look what the postman bought!

So, I got home from a tough day at work (I had one of those unannounced lesson observations) to find the postman had delivered a parcel that contained the goodies from Laura's giveaway that I was lucky enough to win! She really is one very talented lady - all the pieces are beautiful and you can clearly see that each individual piece has been lovingly crafted. I am one very greatful giveaway winner!









Thank you so much Laura, I am in love with all of the pieces!


After being the lucky winner in two recent giveaways and with my 50th post fast approaching, I've decided to return the kindness and host a giveaway for my 50th post. It will be for fabric - a set of fat quarters, but I'm yet to decide on which ones. Check back here in a few days time for full details!


Rachel over at Contented is asking how you came up with your blog name. Mine is quiet straightforward really and if you are a Bon Jovi fan, you should recognise it straight away. When I was deciding on the name, I basically wanted something that summed me up. I did wonder about making it a 'craft' name, but I didn't want it just to be about my craft work - I also wanted to be able to include some ramblings, thoughts, moanings and so on. So, in the end I went with one of my most favourite songs of all times and something that sums up my own personal philosophy on life. I love how the title (and the song) is filled with optimism - it doesn't matter what is going on here or now. It doesn't matter how bad things get, there will come a time when things are better.

"Someday, I'll be Saturday Night"

(although when things get tough for me, I prefer to say "Someday, I WILL be Saturday Night")

Busy, busy, busy

I've had a lovely evening spent infront of the sewing machine :-)
I've been working on the seaside swap and am so excited! I'm not saying anymore though incase I let the cat out of the bag!

I picked Cara up from my parents after work and we had a lovely few hours together. Sometimes she is just the devil child, but other times she just makes me so proud. We received a letter home from pre-school a little while ago saying that this term, the children would be looking at countries around the world and if anyone had an items of interest or things they could use, they would really appreciate it. We got some postcards together for Cara - the girl who lives next door to my parents went to Las Vegas and bought some postcards back, my dad found some from when he and my mum went to Malta years ago. I asked Cara if she gave them her postcards and she said yes. "Anita sat with me and we looked at them" she told me. "What did she say pickle?" I asked her. "She said had I been to those places" "What did you tell her pickle?" "Yeah - I have been to them". So, Cara...International jet setter. Bless her. She doesn't even have her own passport yet, let alone been on an aeroplane!

Also...in more exciting bloggy giveaway lovliness, check out the e-mail that landed in my inbox yesterday:

"Hi Dianna,

Thanks for entering my special birthday giveaway over on my blog.... You won! :)
http://bugsandfishes.blogspot.com/2009/06/felt-flowers-galore-plus-winner.html

If you let me know your address I'll get your goodies posted out asap.

Best wishes,
Laura"

I can't believe it. I've been admiring Laura's work for a while now - she is so talented and so creative. Back at Christmas, she blogged a fantastic series about gift wrap ideas. I loved this one in particular and used it when I wrapped my nieces presents.

I can't believe that I'm going to be one lucky owner of some of her creations. I'm so excited!



Cara has also received all of her mail swap letters and she was so excited when she realised they were for her! It was lovely to hear from all the children on the other sides of the world (we had 4 in Australia and 1 in America) and we really enjoyed reading the letters and notes and using the stickers and pencil we were sent. Thank you so much if you were our partner! I'm certainly going to be watching Pigeon Pair's blog to see if there is another one soon - Cara enjoyed it so much.

Struggling with the juggling....but some good news too

I went back to work on Monday following half term and I'm already struggling to juggle work with everything else. It's the final term which means exhaustion is just about setting in and with my Head of Faculty leaving (and me taking her place) it means there is just so much to do.

Add to that the fact we received 'satisfactory' on our latest Ofsted, means the Senior Leadership Team have put an 'Action Plan' into place as of today, which includes whole Faculty unannounced book checks with a focus on formative assessment and unannounced lesson observations, which will require lesson plans written according to a new format and assessment based on Ofsted criteria. Oh, and did I mention that we also need to re-write all of our Schemes of Work? And teach of course. All in the next six weeks. Joy of joys.

Anyway....after that day, I came home and opened up my e-mail to find a wonderful message from Melissa of Sweet Words sitting in my in-box. A Pocket Full of Buttons recently hosted a giveaway for some her Sweet Clippies. Anyway, here is the message:

"Hello Dianna,

CONGATULATIONS!!! YOu are the winner of my Sweet Clippie Giveaway! If you could provide me with your mailing address, I will ship out your Sweet Clippies ASAP!!

Thank you & Have a Sweet Day!

Melissa Deline"

How fantastic is that?!?! It's certainly made my day :-)
Thank you to both Melissa for the giveaway and Stephanie at A Pocket Full of Buttons for hosting it.