Happy New and Great 2012!

Let us all sing and dance and SEW and make good cheer, let us all make it last throughout the year. Happy New Year!

Happy making a difference in this world...one dress at a time in 2012!

Donation Acknowledgements for the Week #4 - Anonymous Donor

The other item I picked up from the post office yesterday was a parcel full of fabrics. Unfortunately, there was nothing in the parcel that would help me identify where it came from and just from the number of fabrics I think it could generate about 10 pillowcase dresses.

Whoever you are, my heartfelt thanks to your donation to Dress A Girl Australia. I wish you included your name in the parcel or even initials but thank you so much. I am sure you are a reader of this blog so come and visit this site often as once your donated fabrics have been sewn into dresses, they will be posted here. Again, thank you.

Donation Acknowledgements for the Week #3 - Katherine's Collection

Luckily we were made to leave work early (1pm) yesterday and from there made a last-minute drive to our local post office to pick up a couple of parcels and one of them came from Katherine Nott. Inside the parcel were 14 pillowcase dresses and 18 pairs of shorts. Woohoo!! 
Below is a picture of some of the goodies -

A few weeks earlier, I did an acknowledgement of donated fabrics given and sent to her by small business shops and crafty mums at home. These are some of the dresses she has made so far out of those donated fabrics. The 18 pairs of shorts came from Katherine's Katz Creations.

Katherine, thank you so much for your unwavering support of dressing girls and boys around the world. Thank you for your perseverance in converting these fabrics into dresses. Your time and effort spent on helping Dress A Girl Australia become more successful in achieving its goal of dressing the less fortunate children around the world is very, very much appreciated. Thank you!

To see all the dresses, click on the image above or copy and paste the URL below in your browser :

            https://picasaweb.google.com/dressagirlaustralia/KatherineSCollection?authuser=0&feat=directlink

My 'Dress A Girl Australia' Journal

One of the presents I received on Christmas Day is this beautiful fabric journal which my sister made. I labelled it my 'Dress A Girl Australia' journal and soon will be filled with everything I do on Dress A Girl Australia. And I mean literally everything including dress measurements, pictures, pattern doodling and even postage calculations. 

Another one of those items you will find inside my bag which will make my bag more heavy to carry. If you want to know more about me and what is going on in my life, just look inside my bag. :-)

Dress A Girl Australia's Christmas Drive Update

This really amazes me. To see is to believe and I have always believed that I will be able to do it but everytime I see the piles of dresses and unopened parcels I cannot believe what am seeing. I get speechless! The response I had with Dress A Girl Australia's Christmas Drive of 500 dresses for girls around the world is overwhelming. Thank you.

As of last night's count I have on-hand 317 dresses. I have 2 AusPost parcels for pick up and several emails letting me know in advance that they have posted dresses or will be posting dresses after the holidays. It will take awhile to take pictures of all the dresses but they will be taken.

My heartfelt thanks to everyone who made this Christmas Drive for girls around the world a success! Thank you for believing and supporting this very worthwhile campaign. Every pillowcase, fabric, lace, button, thread, ribbon, elastic and most specially the time and effort you spent on making these dresses to give to the less fortunate girls around the world is very much appreciated. I thank you from the bottom of my heart!

Reflection Time

It is time to reflect on what Dress a Girl Australia has accomplished in year 2011 and what it has in store for the new year 2012! Dress A Girl Australia has lots of exciting things planned for 2012. Come and join me on this journey!

For general enquiries, please send email to dressagirlaustralia@gmail.com.

Dress Distribution - Dress A Girl Australia's First Dress Recipients of the Year 2012

The past three days I have been sorting the dresses by sizes and attaching Hope 4 Women Intl Dress A Girl labels and today am happy and proud to say that the first parcel for the year 2012 Distribution # 3 has been mailed to a good friend of mine who works at SEARCA College, Los Banos Laguna. This is actually a Christmas present for Edna Lisa. Instead of buying something from a shop I told her I will be giving her 12 pillowcase dresses. These dresses she then will be giving to the Children's Joy Foundation in Laguna, Philippines. She has been asking for the dresses for over a month now (I last saw her in Sept) and finally it was sent today. 

This orphanage I believe houses 12 orphans between the age of 4 and 5. It is unfortunate that inspite of the number of dresses I handcarried with me to distribute  almost 3 months ago I could not share it with these children so now they are priority and number 1 on my list.

These dresses will be a delayed Christmas present for each of the 12 orphans and am keeping my fingers crossed that the parcel will arrive in its intended destination. More details about this orphanage will be posted on this site once available.

For the 12 dresses that were included in the parcel to be given to the girls in the orphanage, click here. Dresses were from i-craft i-sew and from the Bridgetown High School students.

Donation Acknowledgements for the Week #2 - Family Affair

From my sister Joan. Fabrics are all cut-up and ready to be sewn into 9 dresses including for the pocket, armholes and straps. All it needs is a sewing machine and the time to make them into dresses to bring smiles to 9 lucky girls around the world. Thank you Joan!

Last but not the least, I happen to pass by a small fabric shop last week and saw these 2 bundles of fabrics and 2 new pillowcases. I know I do not have to buy anything but since it is Christmas the $10 dollar purchase was justified. My Christmas present to Dress A Girl Australia, these bundles will make between 8-10 pillowcase dresses not right now but when the time is right. Thanks heaps, Gigi!

For those readers out there who wants to donate fabrics they no longer need, please send email to dressagirlaustralia@gmail.com. Dress A Girl Australia will put those bundles into very good use for you.

Donation Acknowledgements for the Week #1 - Dresses from The Sewing Library

First acknowledgement for the week is for 173 dresses from The Sewing Library facebook group. Yes, you read it right. 173 dresses. The Sew for Charity drive was organized and coordinated by Renee Webb during the months of Sept/Oct 2011. The dresses you see in the picture represents only a quarter of the dresses received by Dress A Girl Australia. Each dress all 173 of them will be pictured as they are allocated or distributed to girls around the world.

My sincerest and heartfelt thanks to all the members of The Sewing Library facebook group for the 173 dresses for 173 girls around the world and my special thanks to Renee for organizing the drive. 173 dresses is just amazing. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart.

If you want to join in this very worthwhile campaign or want to hold sewing bees or sew-alongs for Dress A Girl Around the World - Dress A Girl Australia, please feel free to do so. If you need more information or assistance, send an email to dressagirlaustralia@gmail.com

** The Sewing Library is a facebook group created with the hope of a community coming together to share their sewing know-how including great tutorials, tips, hints and advices. For those ladies out there who wants to know more and perhaps would like to join the group, click here or copy and paste the URL below in your browser - http://www.facebook.com/groups/210023235698596/

Sewing TV Reality Shows

This week with Mon, Dec 26 and Tues, Dec 27 being public holidays, we only needed to go to work from Wed till Friday and possibly just a half-day on the last day.  Most of the people at work are on leave or were forced to go on leave but I opted to come to work as I didn’t want to end up with a negative 3 days in my vacation leave credits on a new year. As much as possible I want to save up my vacation days just in case I would decide to go to another country somewhere in Asia in 2012 and do another dress distribution myself. Besides you tend to finish more work when there are less people around.

There weren’t that many people on the train and I was seated next to a lady who was reading a magazine featuring the top and worst TV shows of the year 2011. Looking at what she was reading, something snap inside my brain. Am so used to scribbling or listing things to do (a list that keeps on getting longer and never shorter)  and could be for work or at home or lately for Dress A Girl Australia…for a change, why don’t I create a list of possible sewing reality shows based on the reality shows available on TV? Hahaha!! Check this out. Although I don’t really watch most of them, here is what I came up with (on possibly the most productive 30-minute train ride I ever had. :-) ). There might be more but these were the only ones I could think of . I have thrown in one TV ad too:

TV Ad –

i cant believe it is butter                                                i cant believe it is sewing

 

 

TV Reality Shows

so you think you can dance                                             so you think you can sew

the x factor                                                                   the sewing factor

the 'celebrity' apprentice                                                the 'sewing' apprentice

Survivor : celebrities                                                      Survivor : Sewers

the australian idol                                                          the sewing idol

I'm a celebrity...get me out of here!                               I'm a sewer...get me out of

                                                                                               here!

Big Brother                                                                     Big Sewer

The Simple Life                                                              The Sewing Life

Dog Whisperer                                                                Sewing Whisperer

Dancing with the Stars                                                    Sewing with the Stars

The Biggest Loser                                                           The Biggest Sewer

Farmer wants a wife                                                       Farmer wants a sewer

Deal or no Deal                                                               Sew or No Sew

The Price is Right                                                           The Sewing is Right

Celebrity Duets                                                               Celebrity Sewing

Have fun! Click here to check out the complete list I made.

No, am not insane. Am just trying to enjoy life to the fullest and be the happiest on the last 60 hours of the year 2011.

Merry Christmas Everyone!!

Dress A Girl Australia wishes everyone a very happy Christmas!

Happy, happy Christmas!

Last-minute Handmade Presents

It is an expensive hobby but sometimes it pays to be a fabric hoarder. This morning while trying to pack my christmas presents for our family christmas dinner tonight, I noticed I was missing two presents but could not figure out for which member of the family. I sat down and listed the names and ticked each name when I found a present and that was how I discovered that I was missing one for my 8-yr old niece and another for my 6-yr old nephew. No way was I going to drive to the mall and join hundreds of last minute shoppers.

Thanks to my being a fabric hoarder, I decided to make a couple of items to give and this is what I came up with - a pillowcase dress for my niece and a pair of shorts for my nephew.

I hope they will like my last-minute handmade presents. Their names would definitely be called out to receive a present from their aunt. 

Two Pairs of Shorts for Ujamaa Children Ally and Kevin

I always thought I have already written about the Ujamaa Children of Tanzania but I could not find it anywhere in the posting log and the items have already been sent over to the Crafty Ladies Movement facebook group who organized the drive weeks ago. These two boys Ally and Kevin from the Ujamaa Childrens Home of Tanzania will be the lucky recipients of  2 pairs of shorts made by me.

   

Ally is 5 years old and has a twin sister Halima and Kevin is 9.

They both live in the Ujamaa Childrens Home in Tanzania which was founded by Carley Andrews. To make the pair of shorts more interesting as Christmas presents, I had each pair wrapped in a fabric pouch with the pictures of both Ally and Kelvin printed on it. I also included a handmade Christmas fabric picture card and greeted each boy a merry christmas to make this gift-giving more memorable. 

If you want to know more about Ally, click here. To know more about Kevin, click here.   To know more about the Ujamaa Childrens Home, click here.

I hope these two boys would love the pair of shorts I made for them. If and when pictures would be available I will be posting them immediately on this site. Making these shorts was a good way to prepare myself to make more pairs for Dress A Girl Australia's 'shorts for the boys' campaign. Although I am starting to get enquiries on whether they can make shorts as well as dresses, the official launch of this 'shorts for the boys' campaign will be in March 2012. 

If you are keen in joining me on this campaign, please feel free to email dressagirlaustralia@gmail.com.

Angels for the Forgotten Charity Drive Update

The Christmas Stockings has now made its way to the Angels for the Forgotten charity organization. I could just imagine the glow of happiness on each child's face when they receive it.

Operation Christmas Shoebox Update

Three weeks ago I donated 2 Christmas Shoeboxes in Samaritan's Purse Australia and New Zealand's Operation Christmas Shoebox. A week after that I received an acknowledgement letter informing me that the shoeboxes have been received by their warehouse and that they will be emailing me again when they know in which country the shoeboxes will be opened. 

Today I received that email advising me that the shoeboxes I donated are on its way to Thailand aboard the vessel OOCL New Zealand V056 which is due to arrive in Bangkok on the 8th of January 2012. 

I feel very excited knowing that a boy and a girl between the ages of 5 to 9 years old will soon be receiving the special box I prepared and I hope these children will like what they see inside the box. 

Fundraising Update

No more orders. I am no longer taking orders for the personalised Christmas stockings. The final count of Christmas Stockings I have sold is 27. It was a double effort on my part to make them as  I didnt have that much time in between taking the order during the day and actually making them in the evening after work. But I had fun making them.

Out of the 27 stockings sold, I decided to donate the sale proceeds from 10 of the Christmas stockings to the victims of the flash flooding in the Philippines (CDO). The rest of the sale proceeds will go to the postage fund of Dress A Girl Australia.

Dress A Girl Australia....until the next drive!

Donation Acknowledgements for the Week #2

I am not sure where this lady gets her energy to be able to make dresses and take care of her boys at the same time but she has been busy. Katherine has about 60 dresses and 30 pairs of shorts about to be completed using materials from her personal fabric collection which she has donated to Dress A Girl Australia and other supporters' fabric donations. I am excited on the shorts she has started to make for Dress A Girl Australia. In the next distribution, we will not only be making little girls happy but also the little boys.

Here are the latest fabric donations she has received and making them into dresses for little girls around the world.

From Renae Hambrook

and from TheFabricBug

http://www.facebook.com/#!/TheFabricBUG

and from Katherine's personal collection

Here are the dresses and the shorts made by Katherine so far. Amazing work.

To Renae and the Fabric Bug, thank you so much for your fabric donations and a special thanks to Katherine for making these fabrics into dresses. All your efforts are very well appreciated. Thank you so much.

Donation Acknowledgements for the Week #1

5 very cute dresses and a metre of 'Paper Dolls' fabric from Pam of 'Threading my Way'.

Pam, thank you for your continued support of Dress A Girl Australia. It is very much appreciated. The metre of fabric is very cute with the paper dolls print. Pretty fabric to make into a dress with its print for girls around the world. I hope to make 2 dresses out of this bundle.

Dress A Girl Australia was actually featured by Pam in her 'Threading my Way' blog. Click here to check out her blog. Her articles are very interesting and something different. I cant think of anyone who wouldnt find her blog helpful and interesting.  Check out how she transformed a wedding dress to a smart day dress. Very resourceful.

Again, thank you from Dress A Girl Australia.

Dreaming On

Only a week away from Christmas and am still dreaming on that I will meet my Christmas target of collecting 500 dresses for distribution to girls around the world early next year. Imagine a world where every little girl owned at least one dress and what if that dress were made by you. What better time to share with the less fortunate girls around the world, share the spirit of Christmas with a pillowcase dress.

Dress A Girl Australia...keep on dreaming!

Heart, thoughts and Prayers to the people of Cagayan De Oro City Philippines

My heart, thoughts and prayers goes to the victims/casualties of the flash flooding in yesterday's Typhoon Sendong (International code Washi) in Cagayan de Oro City, Philippines . This place is very close and holds a very special place in my heart as this is where I was born and spent the first 16 years of my life. Very special that I chose this place as the first recipient of the dresses I have made and collected in the Dress A Girl Around the World campaign. A lot of victims were children who were asleep when it happened.

5 dresses in exchange for vacuuming

Some people think that I am a very organize person but really am not. I probably am when it comes to work or to other tasks I commit myself to but not when it comes to personal things. Am a very good procrastinator when it comes to doing chores at home. Sometimes I know I have to clean the house and start taking out the vacuum cleaner etc early in the morning only to end up for these cleaning tools in the same position same place I had them in at the end of the day. But sometimes I do end up with a new handmade card or a new image printed on a fabric sheet or finally magazines fully closed on top of the dining table which has been left opened on a particular page for almost a week.

I found another excuse for not cleaning so much so that images like the ones below are common to see in the house these days. You find  a pair of scissors, a needle and spool of thread on top of a bench, piles and piles of fabric materials, folded pillowcases, laces and accessories in one corner of an unused bed or pillowcases on top of a coffee table. (Mind you these are materials needed to make pillowcase dresses or waiting to be made.)

But it is because of these areas that are messy that I can find the time to make pillowcase dresses and this week I made 5 of them.

5 dresses, 5 big smiles for 5 girls around the world. And am happy with what I have accomplished for the day.

Another Donation Acknowledgements

Dress A Girl Australia has found another friend and campaigner in Katherine Nott. With her willingness to help make dresses for girls around the world, she was able to organize donations of fabrics from willing supporters as well. More fabrics means more dresses. More dresses means more smiles from more girls around the world.

On behalf of Dress A Girl Australia and all the girls who will be wearing the dresses made out of these fabric materials, I would like to say thank you very much to Amanda Sampson, Becs Bags and Chicken Ink Creative for the fabrics. Your donations are very much appreciated. It is people like you who inspires Dress A Girl Australia to strive more for the good of all the girls around the world. And to Katherine for making the dresses possible. My heartfelt thanks!

from Amanda Sampson

from Becs Bags

http://www.facebook.com/#!/BecsBags

and Chicken Ink Creative

http://www.facebook.com/#!/ChickenInkCreative

Thank you and more power to you all.

What does Dress A Girl Australia do?

Offer to help Dress A Girl Australia

I do have a list of things to write about but I inadvertently missed this one. This lady actually wrote to me a couple of weeks ago letting me know about her intention to help in Dress A Girl Around the world Dress A Girl Australia’s campaign to make dresses for girls around the world. Lynda Smyth has been sending dresses to orphanages in Zambia thru her contacts with the  Catholic Mission and this time she wants to help Dress A Girl Australia. She is thinking of helping or assisting along the lines of contacting and coordinating schools and see if the students could get involved with this campaign of which I thought is such a great idea.

One of my plans in 2012 (which is about 20 days away mind you) is to get in touch with schools and organize some sort of involvement from their students. Or schools that offer sewing as a subject or as an elective to propose to include making pillowcase dresses as a project and Lynda’s offer to help is such a good timing. Any kind of help to make Dress A Girl Australia’s campaign a success is very welcomed. Any effort, time you can spare and resources you can contribute to this campaign is very much appreciated.

Photograph of a dress using the smocking/shirring
technique by Lynda Smith


Lynda has also offered to help anyone who wants to learn how to do the smocking/shirring technique which she learned from watching tutorials in youtube.

If you are one of those crafters who wants to learn something new, this would be a very good opportunity for you to learn from someone who has actually done it.

Sew for those readers out there who wants to learn smocking/shirring, please feel free to get in touch with Lynda by filling up the form with your details below and will make sure that she gets it . Or click on the form located on the left navigation bar. Dont waste time.

Help spread the word of making pillowcase dresses

One of my favourite songs is ‘Imagine’ written and sang by the famous John Lennon. In this song, he imagined the world as one and where all the people were living life in peace. Dress a Girl Australia daydreams. Dress A Girl Australia is a daydream believer. We all daydream about a world where every little girl most specially the less fortunate little girls around the world owned at least one dress for each one of them deserves to own one and that dress are made by each one of us.

This daydream is starting to become a reality. Dress A Girl Australia is starting to have a little following. If it were a rock band, a little groupie is starting to get formed. Hahah! (Imagine me with a very big grin on my face writing this.)

It is starting to gain, slowly but surely, a lot of support in its campaign to make dresses for little girls around the world. Several of us are starting to imagine a world where every little girl owned at least one dress and are happy and proud and very much willing to making that dress. Woohoo!!

But we need more help as we need more dresses. If you are a daydream believer like Dress A Girl Australia, come and join us on this very worthwhile campaign. Together you and I can make a difference in this world ….one dress at a time. And in the very near future for all the little boys…one pair of shorts at a time.

 

 

Please help spread the word around. Help us put big smiles on those little girls’ faces by making pillowcase dresses. See them wear these dresses and standing proudly knowing that they own the dress they wear. Send us those unwanted fabrics so we can make more dresses and to make them more pretty, if you have any buttons, elastics, threads and ribbons just lying around or gathering dust inside a box perhaps in your garage, please send them to Dress A Girl Australia. One button you send can make a big difference to a little girl’s life. For more details on this campaign, please send an email to dressagirlaustralia@gmail.com

Please help spread the word around !! You will not regret it.

More Donation Acknowledgements

I'd like to acknowledge two more items donated by HeyBoom shop to sell for fundraising for postage. All two items are designed, handprinted and handmade by HeyBoom.

Canvas bag and made of pre-washed, distressed cotton canvas tarp.

And a screenprinted bar apron made of linen cloth.

Thank you from Dress A Girl Australia!

If you are interested in more handmade and handprinted items designed by HeyBoom, please check out her online shop at madeit by just one-click on the link below -

                                                                 HeyBoom

If you are interested in joining this campaign of imagining a world where every little girl owned at least one dress and what if that dress were made by you just like HeyBoom, please send an email to dressagirlaustralia@gmail.com.

Looking forward to hearing from anyone of you wishing to join me on this great campaign.

Dress A Girl Australia's On-line shop is now open

Finally, Dress A Girl Australia's on-line shop is now open! Although not everything I wanted to make the page look great has been done at least I have finally made it running before Christmas is over!

For those who are interested and wants to check out all the donated items that are for sale, please click on the image below -

or do a 'copy and paste' of the URL below on your internet browser -

http://www.dressagirlaustralia.com.au

(Note: For those who are enquiring about the blue clutch purse they saw from the album 'Items for Sale' in Dress A Girl Australia's facebook page, that item is now sold and no longer available.)

This online shop will be selling all items donated to Dress A Girl Australia for fundraising to help shoulder the cost to send dresses to various locations. With the increasing number of dresses I am distributing, the parcel becomes more heavy and the postage more expensive but I am determined to keep on going and proceeds from the sale of the items in this shop will at least help Dress A Girl Australia along the way.

Also, this shop will be selling some of the items I have handcrafted all these years and which I believe is about time to be sold off without feeling guilty about it especially that it is for a good cause. I usually just keep these items either in my cabinets or display cabinets or for some quilts they are hanging on the walls.

All proceeds from the sale of the items I have made and from the donated items will go to Dress A Girl Australia's postage fund. Please help Dress A Girl Australia continue on her dream of dressing little girls around the world for we all deserve to have at least one dress by purchasing an item you like on this shop. Please help spread the word around.

All the items are 100% handmade, excellent quality materials and the craftmanship of the donated items are almost perfect. I like beautiful things so I always look at the way they are made and these donated items more than passes my quality control. And that is why I love handmades! Each handmade item is unique in its own way. If you are not happy with your purchase, you can always send back the item you purchased in its original packaging and you will be given a refund less the amount you paid for the postage just like any item you purchase from shops. 

Donation Acknowledgements

It is time to acknowledge and appreciate donations to Dress A Girl Australia from special people who believe and support this campaign. Thank you to Joan Wolf of HeyBoom Shop for donating these packs of laces. Each pack contains about 7mtrs each of these beautiful 3 and 4 inch wide of laces which will be used to embellish pillowcase dresses for little girls around the world. And these laces are very expensive in the shops. Thank you.

From Penny Grey and Fabric Cutouts, these donations will go a long way with the number of dresses Dress A Girl Australia can make. 

Pillowcases from Penny Grey

Fabrics and linen sheets from Fabric Cutouts

Laces, spools of threads, elastics from Erlyn Ballesta Sanchez. I didnt realize how many it was until I actually took them out from a plastic bag and arranged the items to take a picture.

And a metre of lacy fabric which will make a great add-on to some of the plain pillowcases.

On my way to buy lunch two weeks ago, I happen to pass by a department store near my place of work who had a big 'Sale going on' banner posted on the front window and saw girls' tshirts of different sizes for a dollar each or 5 for $3.00. I thought they were a good buy and real value for money so I bought 10 of them which I would make into T-shirt dresses.

And 3 shops farther was a small thrift store and bought rolls of ribbons for a dollar each. A work colleague of mine actually saw me come out of the bargain shop and asked what I bought as the shop was a little bit rundown and a mixture of everything that if you want to buy something specific you had to find it.  Well, the rolls were still sealed in plastic but were kind of dusty but really a good buy. I always enjoy going inside thrift and dollar shops as you never know what to expect and can buy for a dollar or two. These kind of shops are always a big help especially when you want to spend on items as cheap as possible so you get to purchase more. 

And with all the purchases I did the past two weeks, Dress A Girl Australia's moneytin is about to go dry but will keep me busy in the coming months.

Again, my heartfelt thanks to the donors. These donated items will go a long way in Dress A Girl Australia's imagination of a world where every little girl owned at least one dress. Each item received is very much appreciated.