Parcels received today

Received today 2 express post parcels from the Faith Lutheran College (c/o Vanessa Lane) of Thornlands, Queensland. Acknowledgement of the contents of the parcels will be made at a later time. Thank you

3-day sale going on at my etsy store

I am having a 3-day sale (started today actually) at my etsy store. 15-25% discount on craft books, fabric advent calendars, quilts and handmade fabric dolls. Check it out quickly before the 3-day sale ends. All you have to do is click on the link below or search for  'softtreasures' in etsy.

softtreasures in etsy

2014 activities start in April

In response to an email I received, there is no deadline to meet on the submission of dresses. There is even no need to hurry to send your dresses to me especially that I am not doing any distributions until April. When I say April distribution it does not mean that all dresses will be sent in April. It will only be in April that I will start to think where to send the dresses, which dresses to include etc. As I have said it takes a lot of time to prepare and organize for these dresses to be distributed and for 2014 I will only start the process in April. Thank you.

Dress A Girl Australia Well for clean water update and others

I am now below $10,000 on the Dress A Girl Australia fundraising campaign for a clean water for the people of Kalagi Uganda. I have raised $609 so far. It is still a very,very,very long way to reaching the goal but it is moving through the help of friends and I hope to spend more time on this project for the next two months. Thank you to those who have donated so far. I really appreciate it.

Except for the parcels that I am sending in the next two weeks, I am still sticking to my plan of no new distributions until I start 2014 activities in April. I am still sticking to the plan I had last year where no dresses received in October to December will be distributed until I restart in April unless sizes are needed. This is in reply to a few emails I have received asking how come their dresses have not been distributed yet. Please note that it is not just a matter of sending off the dresses once I receive your donations. It takes a lot of time, effort, money, sizing, weighing of parcels, coordination, communication and organization between myself and the recipients before the parcels are actually sent and I really hope some donors do understand this. 

I am still sticking to my plan of having a rest from Dress A Girl Australia activities between now and April. I still have my left arm to take care of which got hurt in one of the parcels sent to me last year weighing more than 5 kilos. And I am still sticking to what I have said earlier that parcels should be packed in kilos of 5 or less. I have not been getting a good feedback (a few unwanted emails received) since I imposed this maximum limit of kilos on parcels. I just want everyone to know that I love what I am doing and the only way I can keep on doing this is if I am fit and dont get hurt so I need to look after myself as well. Even if it is my choice to do all of this for free, I also have the choice of not getting hurt while doing what I like to do and so I try to find ways of avoiding injuries or inconveniences to happen. I try to find ways on how to improve this campaign. If anyone is unhappy with what I am doing, then what can I do.

Donation acknowledgements will resume when I resume 2014 Dress A Girl Australia activities in April.

Thank you.

Yarn Bombing

I went to Melbourne this morning so I could watch the matinee show of the King Kong musical which is ending in 2 weeks time. While waiting for the start of the musical I decided to walk around Federation Square and wondered why the tree trunks seemed to be very colourful. I went to where the trees were and that is when I saw yarn bombing. I have read about this being done in several parts of the USA and one or two in Australia but I have never really seen it happening or seen what it looks like until today.

Yarn bombing is a type of graffiti or street art that employs colourful displays of knitted or crocheted yarn or fibre rather than paint or chalk. Here are some pictures of the Yarn bombing at Federation Square at Cnr Flinders Street & Swanston Street, Melbourne. 

I love it. Maybe I should do one in my frontyard. At least I would not need council approval as it is inside my block of land. :-) Maybe...start with prayer flags? This would be a great thing to do. By the way, the King Kong musical was absolutely awesome. Mind-blowing production. The one-day trip was very worth it.

Unaccompanied Baggage Trial

I am currently on trial sending an unaccompanied baggage to Johannesburg South Africa. I have encountered a small hiccup in that I keep on missing(two weeks in a row)  the time that I need to go to the airport to endorse the baggage that I want to send. I cannot let anyone else bring the baggage as I need to sign some forms and that it should be the sender who endorses the baggage. The only time I can do it is on weekends. I will not be able to do it this Saturday as I am going away for a day so I will be attempting again on Sunday and hopefully it will be a success this time. The arrangement is for the recipient of the unaccompanied baggage to come and pick it up from the airport when it arrives. If this trial turns out to be a success and that there are no hassles to sending unaccompanied baggages to South Africa, that would really be my lucky day. A successful delivery will allow me to send another baggage to Durban South Africa. So am keeping my fingers crossed on this one.

Parcels for Kenya

Aside from the Philippines' parcels, I will be sending two more parcels to Kenya this month. Pastor Joshua of the Widows of Africa in Kenya has more or less agreed that when he visits his ministry in Rwanda, he will take with him dresses for the kids in the community. So I will be sending two boxes. One for Kenya and the other if he wants to for the children of Rwanda. These parcels have to leave Australia by the end of this month so it arrives in Kenya in time for Easter. Thank you Pastor Joshua.

And I am glad I joined the Habit factor challenge. As of today I have saved $22.00 from my habit of gold coin a day. By the end of 4 weeks, I would have enough to send one parcel to Kenya including the money I received from selling an item in ebay which reminds me that I have more items to sell that I no longer need. Maybe this weekend I will list all of them.

Important Information on parcels

Good morning everyone. Last year i hurt my left arm due to a parcel weighing more than 5 kilos. Even the guy at the counter of the post office said to me that it was very heavy. He helped me but he could not take out the parcel from the trolley anymore. My arm still hurts a bit everytime i lift something. This is not my main job guys i have a real job to earn a living and i dont want to get hurt or be in pain because of this. 

So i am going to make a change as far as sending parcels is concerned. There should be no parcels sent that is weighing more than 5 kilos each. You can send as many dresses as you want. That is not a problem but please make sure that they are packed in kilos of 5 each. This is a must to avoid injuries. Remember i dont only picked up parcels i also send. 

People who are offering to help pick up parcels they are older than me so i cannot expect them to lift something that i myself cannot do so please be considerate. If the postoffice guy tells me that he thinks it is too heavy for me to lift then i will not pick up the parcel until such time i can find someone to pick it up. I worked for a company where safety is the number one priority and practically brainwashed by it so i will also apply this concept to this volunteer/work campaign to avoid accidents and inconveniences.

So again, please be considerate and be guided with this information. Thank you.

Pictures and Dresses

I am not supposed to be writing this because I am at work but I have no choice because it is a bit disturbing. I just want to let everyone know that sometimes pictures are not possible to be taken. Imagine if there are 200 children around you and there are only 2 of you distributing. Sometimes some of you would be lucky to see your dresses worn by a child in a picture sometimes not but this does not mean your dresses were not distributed. If you have any doubts about the dresses you contribute, please go to my blog and there is a special tab "Dress Distribution” where you can find all the links to all the distributions I have made. I also post links to the postage I paid for the parcels that I send. I try to update this page whenever I can but since this is only a volunteer work for me(which is now taking up my spare time just to make everyone happy) I cannot spend all my time just doing updates. Please note that I also have a full-time job from Monday to Friday. Sometimes it is not possible for me to identify all the donors of the dresses but if you see your dresses as part of the parcels then let me know.

 

The last thing I want to happen is for the people distributing dresses especially in remote areas to buy a camera just so pictures can be taken and to pay huge amounts of money to have them developed to send to me or pay huge internet charges to send emails with pictures attached. Dont forget that these dresses are sent to less fortunate locations where communications are not readily available or not so cheap the same way here in Australia. Asking these individuals or groups to make the distribution on  my behalf is already asking a huge favour from them especially if they have to hire transport to take these dresses to the children. They also have their own personal commitments like family, work etc. Once they received the parcels any expenses incurred by them comes from their pocket so this is also a big sacrifice on their part so I hope that some of you could be more understanding. The way I see it everyone involved from sewing to sending to distributing plays an equal part as far as time, money and effort are concerned. No one is at a losing end.

 

Pictures are just bonuses if I get to receive any. What is important to me is that the parcels arrived at its destination and gets released to the recipients. Making follow-ups is not an easy task.  I never  said I was going to provide a picture of every child wearing a dress donated. If this is what some expected and is going to be a problem then I hate to be blunt and rude and that maybe  some of you should re-think whether to donate a dress or not to my cause  because I cannot assure everyone that their dresses worn by the children will end up in a picture.  Thank you.

The Habit Factor challenge that will benefit Dress A Girl Australia

About a year ago I bought a digital copy of a book titled the Habit Factor. It is about goals and habits and how it influences our world and that the world we create probably depends on our habits. Then I bought the iphone app that allowed me to set goals, habits and activities which I used last year in my One-dress-a-day for 365 days journey. Everyday for almost 6 months(until I stopped), I would login to the app and tick the habit box whenever I finished sewing a dress.

About three weeks ago( from the Habit factor page which I follow in facebook) I found out that  there was a habit factor challenge coming up in the new year where you set up a minimum of 3 goals and what habits you want to develop in order to achieve your goals. I submitted my name to join the challenge. I  thought I would drop out from it before it started but after receiving two emails about the challenge I decided why not go on with it. I have nothing to lose and what to do if I cannot make it.  I think it was the idea that if I win, I will win an IPAD mini (I think)that made it attractive. I already have an IPAD but if I win am thinking of keeping the new one and sell my old IPAD and have more money for postage.

So here are the goals I setup for the challenge. Realistic and practical goals which I really needed to do anyway  for good health and well-being.

Goal #1 is to lose weight. Am starting to feel uncomfortable wearing my size 12 clothes that it is time to wake up and start losing some pounds. And to help me achieve this goal I need to form the habit of walking 10,000 steps a day which is about an hour and 15 minutes of walking. I did 10,000 steps a day as an office challenge (Global Corporate Challenge) about 3-1/2 years ago where for over 16 weeks I made a total of 1,720,246 steps with a daily step average of 15,497. It is like walking from Sydney to Pomeroon Supernaam wherever that is. J

Goal #2 is learn a new language and I chose Japanese. I’ve always been intrigued about Japan so the best way to learn more about the place and its people is by learning their language. The very first time I visited Japan about 12 years ago, I made sure I always had a pen and paper with me so I can draw a picture or an image to show where I wanted to go. I thought this was really funny but it was very helpful. It is not easy to find real Japanese craft shops if you cannot speak  or at least understand basic words.  I bought an iphone app (Mirai Japanese) and I think learning this new skill will take me maybe a year or more but for the sake of this challenge I need to develop the habit of learning something Japanese for at least an hour a day.

Goal #3 I think is the best part.  Save money for postage and/or Dress A Girl Australia well  and the habit I want to develop is save a gold coin a day. Imagine a gold coin for the next 365 days. That would mean a total savings of $730.00 in one year which I can donate to my fundraising campaign for a Dress A Girl well to be built in Kalagi Uganda if at the end of the year I still have not reached my goal or with $730.00 that is the equivalent of almost 7 or conservatively 6 parcels of at least 65 dresses each. A whopping 390 dresses to 390 less fortunate children anywhere in the world. 390 more happy faces in this world. And I have also worked out what I need to do and what I would be accomplishing in the next 4 weeks –

Goal #1 – By the end of 4 weeks I would have walked about 310,000 steps which hopefully would mean at least 3 kilos lost.

Goal #2 – At the rate of 4 Japanese words a day (which is the average number on the iphone app am using)  I would have learned about 124 Japanese words that I can use in a sentence

Goal #3 – Saved $62.00 . Another 3 weeks of gold coin a day I can add another $100 to my Dress A Girl well or send another parcel to India or whatever will make me happy on the day that I reach a $100. And this is how my plastic box looks like as of yesterday after starting last Monday -

So habit factor challenge….bring it on!

A few more of this....a little bit of that.

1) Before anything else, one of the items I listed on ebay just got sold about an hour ago. One more item to go and my parcel to Kenya is going to say goodbye to Australia. WooHoo!! Thank you to the buyer of the item. You probably do not know that with your purchase you just helped Dress A Girl Australia in dressing about 70 less fortunate kiddies in Kenya. Thank you for your purchase. It is much appreciated.

2) It looks like I have an unscheduled distribution that needs to be sent to the Philippines by end of January. Feeling happy as I can send small sizes.

3) If anyone is thinking of donating undies, please consider sizes between 0 to 6 for girls. Overflowing supplies for boys so dont need any. Have lots of 8 to 12 and dresses are mostly between 0 to 4. Sizes 0 to 6 will make me feel high. :-) Thanks heaps!

4) Anyone out there who wants to see a chart on average waist/size measurement for boys shorts, please see below - (Thank you Katherine! )
           

Till next this and that!

A couple of reminders for the day

One of these days I will be making a summary of all my observations on all parcels I receive. 

Reminder #1 is on straps. When making dresses with straps, please be generous with your straps. Dont forget that you do not know who is going to end up wearing the dress you are making so a bit of flexibility is needed. We dont want the child to become uncomfortable with her new dress. We want her to enjoy wearing the dress. 

Reminder #2 is on pins left on dresses or boys' shorts that you make. Make sure that before you packed your dresses or boys shorts that you remove all the pins you used. Twice in a row last night I got pricked by a pin. Note that I usually do sorting and packing at night after a full day's work so I cannot really see these pins sometimes. I only know about it when I have been pricked. We are here to help one another so it would be nice if along the way while helping no one gets hurt. 

Thank you for being so understanding.

Important Notice regarding dress sizes below 4 please read !!

As of tonight, I have 735 dresses on hand and 462 of these dresses are below size 4 (between the sizes of 0 to 3). I am having a difficult time distributing these dresses as the feedback I am getting is they need bigger sizes. With the cost of sending parcels overseas going up again, I dont want to send these dresses only to find out that no one is wearing them. This is a difficult decision to make especially for those who have been making a lot of these sizes (but for almost 6 months now I have been posting about sizes that are needed) but as of tonight and until such time that I am able to clear these 462 dresses, I will not be accepting dresses below size 4. I cannot afford to rent a small warehouse to safekeep dresses that are slow moving. I hardly have a space left in the room that I am using in my house so please if you want to help please make bigger sizes. 

I want to focus my expenses on the sending of dresses for distribution rather than paying for a space to safekeep dresses that cannot be distributed. This restriction will be lifted as soon as I have cleared these dress sizes for distribution. Thank you.

New Year it is !!

Happy New Year to one and all! Hope 2014 will be a great and prosperous year for all.

After Christmas Day.....

This is what I have been up to and will be up to in 2014 !

It's finally here....Merry Christmas

“And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.”
  ~ Dr. Seuss

Merry Christmas to one and all!

My pre-Christmas Day Diary

It is the day before Christmas and having a day off from work and Dress A Girl Australia. As early as 6:30 in the morning and avoiding traffic jam and parking chaos I decided to go to Coles for some prawns and flowers for my Dad. Indeed I had so many choices as to where to park. :-) 

On my way back to the parking lot I thought about making a dress for my 10-year old niece (youngest girl in our clan). Since I started Dress A Girl Australia I kind of made it a point to sew a dress for her too and usually at the end of the year. She had a pillowcase dress and last year she received a t-shirt dress which was a bit too small for her that I think after 2 months it hardly fitted her. I learned a lesson then and this became my standard of distributing dresses. I should give at least 1 or even better 2 sizes bigger than the actual age of the child so they could wear it for a longer period of time as this could be the only decent dress they would own. 

So I went back to K-mart but could not find a proper t-shirt for her. Most of them had kind of open or plunging necklines and the t-shirts for girls were too small for her. Maybe the dress was not such a good idea after all this year and was on my way out when I saw school uniform t-shirts on sale at $2.00 each. Well, why not! I just wanted to make my niece a dress so she will be the last girl in the world I will dress in 2013 and I don't really care if she wears it to sleep. So I bought 1 yellow-one size bigger t-shirt and I also bought 5 extra t-shirts to start my Dress-A-Girl t-shirt collection for 2014. Here are the 5-tshirts I bought to start my collection -

and here is the dress I made for my niece using a material from my personal fabric collection. And I think it is about 2 sizes bigger this time.

Then I decided to  give her a couple of the simple treasures I make for Dress A Girl which I sell from my e-shop to raise funds for postage. Actually I did not get a chance to post my decoupaged pendants but they were bestsellers in my last market. Simple treasures of a decoupaged pendant/necklace and my 'Girl's best friend' charm bracelet in a heart-shaped tin.

and bundled them all up in a biscuit tin with a five-dollar note inside an envelope -

Then I decided to make one for one of my nephews to represent the boys who received t-shirts and pairs of shorts this year. Since I did not have the time to sew a pair of shorts anymore (I don't even think he would wear it) and forgot to buy a t-shirt for him I thought I should just give him a 'Love our Earth' necklace (another fundraiser - now you all would really think I have such weird ideas! LOL!). My nephew is at an age (12?) where he wants to wear something or anything that makes him look cool. :-) Well, he gets an earth-friendly bicycle and recycle charms to wear to remind him to love our earth for his future.

and again I bundled them all up in a small tin (from my soy candle supplies) with  a $10 dollar worth of coins so he can buy his own t-shirt hopefully with the print of 'I Love the Earth' ( this would really be funny and great)!

And with less than 3 hours to go before our traditional family Christmas dinner (and I had to wrap up my other presents for the rest of the kiddies/family + Kris Kringle present) I managed to make last minute clear ball decorations filled with M&M's. I also was able to finish my Christmas cottage ball.

Seems like I accomplished a lot during the day. I had a great time making these items the same way that I had a great time, fun and enjoyable 2013 with Dress A Girl Australia. 

Am off for our family dinner, wait for midnight to sing a happy birthday for another niece whose celebrating her birthday on christmas day (that is why we call her Chrissie) and I hope you all have a very lovely Christmas!

Almost Christmas !

Christmas is almost here!

Well, 2 more days and Christmas will be here. I know (just like me) we all are looking forward to getting some Christmas presents. A lot of you have been extra good for a lot of disadvantaged kiddies around the world and would like to say a wholehearted thank you to everyone! Thank you from the bottom of my heart. 2013 is/was a job very well done and I hope nothing is going to stop you from continuing on being good next year too. 

                        Merry, merry Christmas and a happy new year!!

Nemo and Dress A Girl Australia

This is Nemo. With Nemo's help in 2014 (fingers crossed), I hope to be able to provide more dresses/shorts/shirts to the less fortunate children around the world. 

"We are going to shake the world" says Nemo and Dress A Girl Australia. WooHoo!!

So be on the lookout for Nemo in the coming weeks.