Donation Acknowledgement FY13/10 #147 - 13 pairs of shorts, 20 T-shirts and little handmades from Maureen

Number 147 on the list is a parcel of 13 pairs of shorts, 20 t-shirts and little handmades from Mo O'Brien. The little handmades were donated by Mo for me to sell to raise some money for postage. I took them with me  last Saturday in my market day and raised $15.00 from 3 of the items. Also included in this parcel were 6 pairs of thongs which were acknowledged separately. Here are the items from Mo -

To Mo, through your kindness and generosity, the world is becoming a better place. The world is a happier place for children from disadvantaged locations around the world. Thank you for your unwavering support of Dress A Girl (Around the World) Australia. It is very much appreciated.

To keep the dream alive

Since I started the Dress A Girl Around the World campaign, the most difficult task (I must admit) I have to  undertake is raise money for postage. Dress A Girl Australia is a self-funded charity work. Contrary to what other people are thinking (for which I dont have the time to listen to them), there are no big sponsors to back me up except my creativity. I've had very generous personal donors who helped me along the way and very thankful and grateful to them but to keep on going...to keep the dream alive I have to be creative all the time and believe me it has been a bold, difficult and daring journey of creativity (especially when you work full-time M to F). Every now and then I have to come up with something to make and sell, something one cannot easily find to make it attractive for anyone to purchase. The possibilities are endless I know but only when you have the time to spare.

Well, this week I came up with something again. I've had this box full of materials with me for quite some time but never had the chance to create something out of it but with my other new big project coming up of providing a well for a village in Uganda I decided it is time to do something. Unlike the dresses which is on-going, the well is a one-time project but still needs money.  This is one of the 3 handmade projects I am thinking of selling to raise money for the well and postage fund. 

Here is a preview of my latest creation and I really hope it would click in the market especially to the younger generation. Proceeds from the sale of this item is to help young children in disadvantaged locations, give hope to a village through clean water and what better way to keep this dream alive...is for younger people to support by making a purchase of this handmade decoupaged pendant. Young people from fortunate locations helping their counterparts in disadvantaged locations, making a difference thus making this world a better place. I hope they would love this decoupaged pendant.

Am still in the process of thinking on how to package it and whether it should come with a chain or not but soon it will be available from my Dress A Girl shop. Since this is totally handmade, there wont be that many as I probably wont have the time to make a lot but will try to meet whenever there is a demand.

So one of the secret is out. :-) If anyone is interested, please feel free to send me an email at dressagirlaustralia@gmail.com.

Donation Acknowledgement FY13/09 #139 - 14 dresses and goodies from Maureen O'Brien

One of the last 2 parcels for the month of September is from Maureen O'Brien. Number 139 on the list for 14 dresses and cute goodies she donated to sell. Here are the 14 dresses -

and here are the very cute goodies she has donated for me to sell to raise funds for postage.

Thank you so much Mo for your kindness and generosity. Thank you for your unwavering support of Dress  A Girl Australia's campaign to make this world a better place. Thank you. It is so much appreciated.

Thank you to the Steven Walter Boutique Op Shop in Katoomba

There is this boutique opshop at 150 Bathurst street, Katoomba that has been a big help to one of our Dress A Girl Australia supporter Monika Osvald. It is the boutique op shop of the Steven Walter Children's Cancer Foundation which is a not-for-profit organisation that is supporting childhood cancer research.

The opshop's Manager Helen and all the volunteers are doing a very good job not only promoting their own charity work but also our Dress a girl around the world campaign. They help collect fabrics and give it to Monika to make into dresses to donate to Dress A Girl Australia. A couple of months back, Monika decided to make dresses that she could sell to help raise funds and the Boutique opshop allowed her to display her dresses (3 at a time) and a week ago she had her first sale. WooHoo!!

She wrote and said it is not that much but a good start and hope it will pick up in the future and then asked me what to do with the money. So I told her she can use it for postage or buy more materials to make into dresses. She said she had heaps of materials to use so she preferred to use the money to buy t-shirts, socks, undies for the children in need and so with any sale she will have in the future. 

Thank you Monika for sharing your big heart and generosity to the children in need and please extend my heartfelt thanks to Helen and all the volunteers in the Boutique Opshop for their great support too.

For those who love vintage finds and/or repurposing, please visit the Boutique opshop at 150 Bathurst street, Katoomba.

Mini Pillows and Buttons for Sale

When I took more than a year off from work a few years ago I needed to find something to do to keep myself busy. I went travelling, created websites, cardmaking, did a lot of quilting, gardening and made a lot of pillows just to be busy. Earlier from reading magazines I found that I can actually create my own fabric or print images on fabrics using an inkjet printer that when I travelled to the US the first thing I did was look for the materials that was mentioned in the magazines I was reading. When I came back to Sydney I handcarried two reams of the special inkjet fabric sheets. I printed pictures and graphic images one sheet after another that I ended up with almost 25 small pillows created. LOL! I started selling them one at a time when I decided I wanted to go back to work but I didnt expect that I would immediately find a job. It was my first application/interview so I ended up not being able to sell all the pillows.

Today I decided I was going to bring all the remaining pillows at the Autumn Market of the Dreamers Market this coming Saturday to sell. I hope they would sell so I can raise more funds. Here are the pillows that I will be selling -

In addition to making pillows I also did a lot of button making and I have pinned some of the buttons on the pillows where appropriate. These items will also be available for sale at the Dress A Girl Australia e-shop soon.

More buttons are also available for sale for the Easter event. These are new items I created during the weekend when I could not use my sewing machine.

These will be posted in my e-shop very soon.

Donation Acknowledgement FY13/02 #23 - A unique parcel from Betty Barrett

Number 23 on my list is a parcel full of unique handmade items from Betty Barrett and with the help of her best friend Betty Paull making sure that the parcel arrives in Sydney. As some of you would probably know these two Bettys wants to dress the whole world (and she and friend Betty are both 85 years old!) but what was inside the parcel were not dresses but handmade items she made for me to sell to help raise funds for postage.

One of the handmade items was a doorstop(in fact 13 of them) and I filled one of them using the decorative pebbles I used for my terrariums. Here are the items I received which I will be selling in a market very soon and also I will be posting in my shop. Don't forget to check them out as they would have full details on how to fill up the doorstops.

And here is one of the doorstops already filled - I just love the result of it once it was filled with 2.5 kilos of decorative pebbles. 2.5 kilos of pebbles weigh the same as 2.5kilos of rice if you prefer to use rice or 2.5 kilos of clean sand.

If anyone is interested to purchase any of these items, please feel free to send me an email at dressagirlaustralia@gmail.com. It is going to a very worthy cause and the item is made with full of love.

Thank you so much for the items Betty B and thank you so much for making sure the items get to Sydney Betty P. You two are a great inspiration and I hope to other people as well. Thank you from the bottom of my heart....and never miss your walks. I just think about the 2 of you doing your daily walk and am out the door walking too! :-)

More embellishments made...more to help make a difference

Opening my fabric scrapbags yesterday literally triggered my mind to become creative once again. Something I have not done for quite a while now but it feels so good when you get the chance to think and do something you love and do best and enjoying every minute of it. And perfect timing as I need more ways to raise money for postage. You probably have seen the dress I made yesterday which had a hemline of appliqued hearts. And you probably have read about Dress A Girl Australia's terrariums with succulent plants coming from my garden.

Also yesterday, still in the mood to celebrate the month of love, I made this Angel of Heart from my fabric scraps.

I still am undecided on whether to use a wooden ball for the head but this is basically it and I will be making more of this to sell in my Dress A Girl online shop. I already have the lavender house and now I have the angel of heart. 

The angel of heart measures about 16cms x 20.5cms. I placed a thin wadding(the ones I normally used in my fabric postcards) and also I placed a small georgette bag inside with a 20ml of lavender. And the highlight of this handmade heart is the key which you find at the center of the heart. This is a rusted garden key measuring about 6cms and inside a pocket measuring about 4.5cms x 7.5cms sealed by a craft plastic. 

What does that tell you? That this is the key to my heart. :-) This handmade item will be available in Dress A Girl Australia's online shop in a few days (I need to schedule when I can update my website) so watch for it guys if you are interested in the lavender angel of heart.

Since I have showed you my new creation I might as well show you the rest of the items I made with my fabric scraps. Flowers....roses...fabric flower to embellish my bag.

Make sure you look at them now as the next ten postings coming up on this blog will be donation acknowledgements and you may find it difficult to see this posting again. WooHoo!  Love what am doing!

Terrariums of Succulents helping make a difference

The past couple of weeks I have been looking at my frontyard (which unfortunately I have now really neglected) and started thinking what can I get out of my front garden and sell so I can start packing parcels. I saw my succulents and said "perfect" ! And this is what I did.

The jars used to have candles in them. Never throw empty jars as they might be useful in the future. The coloured pots were handmade by my sister who runs WeePots but did not pass her stringent quality control so she gave it to me and now have filled it with cactus soil, growing succulents and small pebbles. The plants have started to grow but I will wait for another week and then start selling them. The only thing with these items is that they are quite heavy so the postage might become a deterrent for people who would like to buy one. By the way I call them Dress A Girl Australia's terrariums. :-) I bought 4 fishbowls from a dollar shop yesterday and I made 4 more this morning not in the picture(as I ran out of soil). 

Thinking out loud even my garden is helping change the world...helping me make a difference! 2013...the year of making a big difference!


** If anyone is interested to purchase just the succulents which would become light to pack, please send an email to dressagirlaustralia@gmail.com. I also have small yucca plants in my backyard which I replanted from their 'mother' yucca.

Christmas Stockings for Sale

Once a craftivist...always a craftivist. First the Christmas cards, now it is the stocking-shaped bag which you can hang on a mantelpiece or on a Christmas tree for Santa to put small gifts on Christmas eve. The most traditional christmas decor you will find in houses during the Christmas season. All made of 100% quilting cotton and fully lined.

And if you want to be different or Dress A Girl Australia dares you to be different this time. Try my Christmas stockings where you can insert the picture of the person you are giving the christmas stocking to. I have seen people wrapping their gifts with a picture of the recipient adhered to the wrapping paper or gift box, this time take advantage of my creativity in action. Why not wrapped or put your christmas presents inside this stocking-shaped bags and put the picture of the recipient inside the picture frame. A real treasure to keep.

So if you are wondering what's made me so quiet the past few days, the pictures above speaks for itself. All fabrics I used came from my fabric collection. It is Christmas time so why not share some of my favourite collection. Imagine how many less fortunate little girls around the world will be happy with the sale of these Christmas stockings.

All these stockings will be available for sale at Dreamers Markets on Saturday, 15th of December at the Riverside Theatre, Parramatta. All proceeds goes to Dress A Girl Australia's postage fund.

This Week's a bit of this and a bit of that

A quiet first three days of the week in Dress A Girl Australia's environment, a busy first three days of the week at work. Christmas is just around the corner and I hope everyone is starting to feel and hear the Ring, ting-a-ling ting-a-ling light little bright little bells for Christmas.

Make-it or Break-it Christmas Charity Drive is still going strong on its 6th week. If you want to help make a difference in the lives of the less fortunate children anywhere in the world, then join us on this campaign. Create a mess of handmade dresses and pairs of shorts in Dress A Girl Australia's living room this Christmas. A gift that will make a big and real difference to kids who need it the most. If you do not have a sewing machine, we also accept fabrics and accessories and we will make the dresses for you. For more information, please send an email to dressagirlaustralia@gmail.com.

Have just added Garden of Life family in India to my list for dress distribution in the next few weeks with children under the age group of 2 to 18 years and 108 under their full time care. First parcel will be posted on the last week of November (last Saturday of the month) as this is the only time (Saturdays) that I can post parcels.

All dresses and/or pairs of shorts made and donated on behalf of the winning bidders in the Charity Auction for Dress A Girl Australia will be included in the parcel to India.

Am starting to sew and collect dresses as well for the children of Bangladesh. Like India, children in this area cannot wear dresses with open necklines. My niece who is in Dhaka, Bangladesh working for the UN reminded me two nights ago that the dresses I should be sewing and/or collecting for the Bangladesh children needs to have sleeves and long if possible covers the legs. So if you feel like making these type of dresses, please help and send them to Dress A Girl Australia, P.O. Box 240 Casula Mall Casula NSW 2170. Thank you in advance. 

More selections of Christmas cards are available for sale. This time with vintage christmas images. For a pack of 10, it will cost you $14.50 plus $1.80 postage. Please see below images on the pack and if you have not made any Christmas shopping for Christmas cards yet, please check this out and make a purchase if you like them. All these cards have been handmade by me printed from my old inkjet printer.

 If you prefer the Dress A Girl Australia cards, these are also still available for purchase. Your purchase of these cards will help make a difference and put a smile to a disadvantaged child's face this Christmas. To purchase any of the Christmas cards, please click here. Thank you in advance.

Imagine a world where every little girl owned at least one dress. What if that dress were made by you. Or you helped make that dream come true. Dress A Girl Around the World Dress A Girl Australia. Helping make a difference in this world with one small dress at a time.

Special thank you to a good friend

I wanted to do this article for a while now to show my appreciation to a work colleague of mine (Joan Lui) but I keep on forgetting it. Not everyone may know why but lately I have been making a lot of lavender packs to sell so I can raise money and allow me to send more parcels than I currently am able to do. The lavender that I put inside some of the packs actually comes from Joan's garden. When she knew I was making them, she offered and gave me two big plastic bags so I do not have to buy. 

Here are some of the packs I have made. I sell them at $5.00 per pack and weighs about 40-50gms each and at a special price of $12.00 for 3 packs. I have bundles and bundles of Christmas fabrics I have collected over the years and I thought it was time to use some of them especially those ones whose prints are big enough to use as cover. Some are covered with vintage christmas card images printed on fabric which I bought from a handmade market I went to in one of my holiday trips. (This lady's hobby was printing on fabrics and was selling them in bundles). For some packs just regular cotton fabrics and embellished with wooden beads. I was able to send one more parcel last week from the sale of these packs -

And I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to Joan for making it possible. Thank you Joan, thank you for your random act of kindness and generosity. It is much appreciated.

Auction is now going on

Hi everyone! The bidding has started for the Charity Auction for Dress A Girl Australia. The auction bidding will be running until the 7th of Nov(7pm). 

There is still enough time to drop by the page when you have the time and check out the gorgeous selection of handmade items. You may find something that you like and bid for it. Please click on the link below to checkout the page and please help spread the word at the same time. It will be much appreciated. Thanks!

                                 Charity Auction for Dress A Girl Australia

Dress Sizes and a bit of this and that

I hope everyone is having a good week. I thought I should let everyone know that after doing a lot of sorting and packing the past couple of weeks, dress sizes between 7 and 10 would be most desirable if anyone is making dresses to donate to Dress A Girl Australia. 

Also, I will be selling Christmas cards made by me to sell to help defray the cost of sending parcels this Christmas. I want to be able to send more parcels. Proceeds from the sale of the cards will help a lot. Once I have completed them, the cards will be posted on this site. 

Dont forget the Charity Auction for Dress A Girl Australia starting on the 2nd of November to the 7th of November. Auction starts 7pm. Please check out the site by clicking on the link below. You may see something you like.
                                     Charity Auction for Dress A Girl Australia

'Make-it' or 'Break-it' Christmas charity drive is now fully underway. If you want to share the spirit of Christmas with the less fortunate children around the world, join us on this charity drive of making dresses and pairs of shorts. Create a mess of handmade dresses and pairs of shorts in Dress A Girl Australia's living room this Christmas. Gifts that will make real differences to kids who needs it the most. Please feel free to send your items as early as possible to Dress A Girl Australia, P.O Box 240 Casula Mall Casula NSW 2170

Thanks everyone!