My Teddy Bear

This is a repost from another blog which I write about my creative handmade life with slight modifications from the original article and is about my teddy bear.

This is a teddy bear which I made about 4 years ago when I was doing a lot of fabric memory items to sell. I only wanted a simple teddy bear and one that is easy to make so I designed one and came up with this. I actually prefer a teddy bear over a doll. This teddy bear is only 15cms wide and about 20cms tall.

The first fatty teddy bear has an appliqued heart and the smaller bear has my nephew's picture which I printed on fabric instead of the heart. Now I remember I made this about two weeks before Valentine's Day. At that time I also went crazy with button-making which I still am by the way thus the Valentines button on the bear. The button is a picture of a teddy bear holding a heart with the message "On this Valentines day will you be mine?". 

Now I am thinking of reviving my teddy bear making and make a limited edition of this bear and instead of the heart and Liam's picture I put the Dress A Girl Around the world logo on it. I am looking for other ways to raise funds for Dress  A Girl Australia in addition to sponsorships as I know I will be sending more parcels in the many, many months to come and I think this will be a great idea (well that is what I think!) ....and if I have the time to make them. But sometimes I find myself not into sewing in some days(my mood doesnt want me to do sewing) so when this happens maybe I start making teddy bears instead. I think I will try making one this week and see how it looks like and whether it would be a viable project so I better start looking for the template I created. 

Also am starting to think of giving something to cuddle or something to hold or wear in addition to a dress and this teddy bear is so easy to make and very light. 

I received a pack of six dresses more than a week ago which I have not had a chance yet to acknowledge. The six dresses came with special gifts attached to it. You should see what those gifts  are. They are so pretty and cute I keep on looking at them with a big smile on my face. :-) If I can't take my eyes and hands off it can you imagine the girl who would be receiving that dress? These dresses are next in line to be acknowledged so you should all see what came with the dresses very soon.

If you think the teddy bear is a wonderful idea, please feel free to comment on this article. Thank you.

What's keeping Dress A Girl Australia busy?

Last night I did 3 parcel allocations totalling about 102 dresses and 40 pairs of shorts. Hopefully they all will leave Sydney for their respective destinations before the end of April. 

My next wish is to be able to send 100 dresses and 100 pairs of shorts to a village in Masaka Uganda by May.  Dress A Girl Australia is on a brainstorming mode thinking of ways on how or what the best way is to send the parcel, how to raise funds for postage if needed. One thing is clear and sure and that is to send these 100 dresses and 100 pairs of shorts for the children in need in another part of Uganda.

If you are interested or would like to donate dresses and/or pairs of shorts for the next Dress A Girl Australia's collection leaving in May if circumstances permit, please send an email to dressagirlaustralia@gmail.com.

Dress A Girl Australia Billboard One Day Soon

Would'nt you love to see this billboard of Dress A Girl Australia at your local train stations?
'Imagine a world where every little girl owned at least one dress..What if that dress were made by you!'

Dress A Girl Australia, a dreamer, a daydream believer says 'One day soon by Dress A Girl Australia'

As Walt Disney once said 'if you can dream it, you can do it. Always remember this whole thing was started by a mouse.'

Meet the ladies of Kapunda, South Australia

I would like to share a photo of the ladies of Kapunda, South Australia on their first ever sewing bee for Dress A Girl Around the world especially for those readers out there who does not have a facebook account or do not want to add 'facebooking' in their daily activities.

This event happened last Saturday, 31st of March and was organized by Deborah Parish. I had this photo posted in my facebook page with the caption of -

'I have to post this as I feel so proud and happy. Meet the ladies of Kapunda South Australia on their first sewing bee. So full of energy, happy and proud with what they have accomplished. Well done, Deborah'

Here is more good news! More sewing bees have been organized. Deborah has them scheduled on the 12th of May and 30th of June 2012. Location will be provided once I have confirmed the details.

So ladies in Kapunda or anywhere near the area, if you have nothing planned on these dates, tick your calendars now for another fun day of sewing to make dresses for the less fortunate girls around the world.

For those who want to organize their own sewing bees and need more information, please send an email to dressagirlaustralia@gmail.com.

heyboomshop to help make 20 britches

Per my plans, there is going to be a major pillowcase dresses-britches back-to-back distribution in May.  I was looking at the number of shorts I've got (most of them courtesy of Katherine Nott's sewing skills) I was thinking I am short of about 50 britches between the sizes of 4 to 8. Then the phone rang.

At the other end of the line was lucky me one of my two major sponsors/supporter 'heyboomshop'. Then we spoke about Dress A Girl Australia, my forthcoming distribution and most important if she could help make britches for the boys for May distribution. Like a true supporter that she is, she offered to spare some of her time between now and end of April to make 20 britches.

To 'heyboomshop' lots and lots of thank you for offering to sew 20 britches.

If you want to know more about what 'heyboomshop' is up to these days, here is the link to her blog although I dont think she really has been doing updates to it lately.
                                    http://heyboomshop.blogspot.com.au/

To see her latest handmade creations, just click on the link below -

Dress A Girl Australia forming partnerships with other charity groups

Some people may not agree with me but I believe for Dress A Girl Australia to be successful in its campaign to dress the less fortunate girls around the world and soon the boys, to be able to reach as many children and locations as possible it needs to establish partnerships with other charity groups who are more or less in the same category of  charity work as Dress A Girl Australia. 

Last year I made a partnership with the Ladies of Zonta International, CDO Chapter, Philippines. This group has several day care centres under their sponsorship and in partnership with them, Dress A Girl Australia was able to provide dresses to the children of one of their Daycare centre, the Aura Daycare Center located about half-an-hour away from the center of the city. Cagayan de Oro City is located in the southern part of the Philippine islands about an hour and a half away by plane from Manila. This year, I will be providing them again with about 50 more dresses to distribute in their projects in other locations.

For two months now I have been proactively working on establishing another partnership with a charitable organization based in Australia with projects in a number of countries in Asia including India, South Africa and Zimbabwe. This group has to be nameless at this time so as not to jeopardize my plans but I will be finally meeting up with one of their coordinators this Friday before I go to work to discuss about possible dress distribution in one of their project location as a start and hopefully in the other countries in the later months.

Individual and group volunteers which passes my personal screening will continue to be accommodated with dresses to distribute if they want to and pillowcase dress kits will continue to be provided to volunteer groups that deal with children and youth empowerment program. 

With all of this, I'd say more power to Dress A Girl Around the World - Dress A Girl Sydney and Australia. I hope I could get and continue to get as many supporters and as many donors of pillowcase dresses and fabric materials as possible to be able to sustain dressing girls and providing britches for the boys from the less fortunate locations around the world for many years to come.

**** Zonta International founded in 1919 is a global organization of executives and professionals working together to advance the status of women worldwide through service and advocacy.

A present for Dress A Girl Australia?

I just had a very good 3-hr sleep this afternoon(which I think I really deserved one) and better when someone tweeted that soon Dress A Girl Australia will be receiving this 'lil-bro' sewing machine. A very good start to my planned vocational training/livelihood program I hope to launch in a couple of selected locations in Asia in 2012. Wooohoooo!! Wonderful people in such a wonderful world!

Once I have finalized all the distributions as planned in the first quarter of 2012, I think it will then be a good time to start thinking of the details of the rest of Dress A Girl Australia's plans for 2012, which is priority and what strategy to consider to make each project a success.

Sewing Event in Sydney?

I have been looking around for halls or spaces for rent in Sydney and even outside the Sydney area for at least half a day so I can hold a sewing event but the hourly rates are quite expensive more so if you hold the event on a weekend or on a public holiday. Holding sewing events on a weekday is out of the question as I work full-time. To make the renting worthwhile I reckon   an event should have at least a minimum number of 50 attendees to be able to make at least between 100-150 dresses. The other alternative would be to hold sewing marathons or sew-alongs and anyone can join in from home.

Hmmmm....maybe I should come up with a survey first and see if I can get a good feedback on the number of people who would like to join in a sewing event here in Sydney and take it from there. I was thinking of a sewing event sometime in June or at least before 2012 ends and I believe this would require a lot of planning and organizing. 

If there is anyone out there who live in the Sydney area who would be interested to join or help in making dresses for girls around the world for at least 4 hours one Saturday, please send an email to dressagirlaustralia@gmail.com. I would love to see you join and have fun making dresses.

Shorts for the Boys

Dress a Girl Australia is officially launching 'Shorts for the Boys' to distribute along with dresses for little girls and boys around the world. Although any shorts that I can make or can collect from supporters of the Dress A Girl around the world campaign between now and the end of December 2011 will be included for Christmas distribution, the official target date for Dress a Girl Australia's first distribution for the boys will be in 2012 - Easter distribution. A great way to celebrate Dress A Girl Australia's first year anniversary since becoming a  member of the Dress A Girl Around the World campaign of Hope 4 Women International on the 18th of Feb 2011. Dress A Girl Australia was officially launched on the 15th of March 2011.

Campaigning for 'Shorts for the Boys' was prompted by the experience I had when distributing dresses for the first time for Dress A Girl Australia. Watching the little boys just watching their small friends receiving dresses to wear and not a word of complain from any one of them on not receiving anything for themselves. I thought they also deserve to receive something. But for now, focus and priority will be on dresses to meet the goal I have set of 500 dresses for Christmas distribution. We are only 63 days away from Christmas Day.  

Am not really an expert on making dresses as I only started to learn how to make a dress when I started Dress A Girl Australia. Crafting is just a hobby I do whenever I find the time to spare but my desire to sew a dress so every little girl could own at least one dress from this part of the globe and inspire anyone who wanted to do the same made the Dress A Girl Around the world Dress A Girl Sydney and Australia campaign a success so I hope to do the same for 'shorts for the boys'. To everyone who believed and supported me in the dresses for the girls I do hope you will be able to provide the same belief and support for the 'shorts for the boys' campaign.

For more information on Dress A Girl Around the world and Shorts for the Boys, please email me at dressagirlaustralia@gmail.com.

Back to my Dress A Girl Australia Project (D-A-G-A)

After a couple of an unusual 'high activity' weeks mainly at work and culminating with having to attend a system training the whole week of this week, am back again on the 'Dress A Girl Australia' project and hoping to spend most of whatever spare time I can find this time on making dresses. I want to create my own 'dress a girl dress' design so I know that the dress I am making is for the project. I have now come up with the pattern and have cut my fabrics. All it needs is a time for me to sit down on my sewing machine and start pressing my foot on the pedal.

Enquiries about this project have started to come in and I hope to finish sending off my emails by the end of this month so I could start making follow-ups in early June. I thought putting email addresses at the top of the new mail screen was an easy task but now I realize it is easy but takes time especially if you want to make sure you have the right addresses otherwise you will end up with lots of emails bouncing back in your inbox due to incorrect email addresses.

Quiet Week for Dress A Girl

A long weekend is coming up but it will be quiet in the Dress A Girl Australia front. I have decided for this long weekend, the time will be spent on making more handmade treasures, more buttons, more mini quilts for the coming Mother's Day....and am running out of time. Only the best in handmade crafts to honor the greatest person in everyone's life! Once these are all done, I will be back for Dress A Girl Australia.

...to the world you might just be one person....but to one person you might just be the world !

 Do not forget Grandma as she is a mother too ! She mothered our mother !

What's Up on the Admin front

This week was a busy week for Dress A Girl Australia. Weeknights were spent  browsing business directories specializing in craft business and getting their email addresses or their 'contact us' addresses. I created a list (initial list) of 500 shops and/or businesses whom I intend to send emails to or postal letters to promote Dress A Girl Arond the World Dress A Girl Australia. Sending emails would probably be the quickest way to spread the word to these 500 shops or so and the least expensive as there will be no need for me to buy postage stamps. Next week I will be drafting the contents of the letter and hopefully before the month of April ends, my fingers will be busy clicking the mouse on the 'send mail' option in my Microsoft Outlook email system with the Dress A Girl flyer as an attachment. I hope my internet provider (bigpond) wouldnt think am crazy sending all these emails. :-)

Countdown to Collecting Dresses

Still have lots of things to iron out regarding this campaign but it would not be that exciting of a campaign this big if a goal is not set. So today I have set the following objectives :


1) Collect at least 60 dresses by the 30th of June, 2011.
2) Collect an additional 40 dresses to reach 100 by the 18th of Sept 2011.


To remind myself and everyone of these objectives, I have added 2 counters on this site showing how many days, hours and minutes left to meet the first 60 and the 40 to add up to a 100 dresses.

My Plans for Dress A Girl Australia

Officially launched Dress A Girl Australia. No one would probably believe that I will be able to do it but in my own little way, slowly but surely Dress a girl campaign will be successful.I've started to do some planning, organizing and i know it will not be an easy job to do especially that I still am working during daytime. I now have organized what my most immediate plans are, what my short term goals are and my long term plans. While doing all of this I realized it will take a while before i will be able to see the fruits of my labor. Tomorrow I will be looking at the financial side of this campaign, what i will need to make this campaign a success.