One World One Heart

Welcome to Lulu's Cottage. Lulu here (aka Stephanie). If you are stopping by from the One World One Heart event, nice to meet you. I know you have about a billion blogs to visit, so I will be quick.

I found OWOH last year and I had a BLAST visiting ALL (yes, I went to each and every one!). the wonderful entries. I found some new favorites to follow. I was amazed by the artistry of so many people. I won some fabulous give aways from all over the world. I can't tell you how excited I am that it is time for OWOH again!

If you do not know what the OWOH event is....oh boy are you in for a BIG surprise! click here look at the list of participants and start visiting!

On to my give away. I crocheted scarves for Christmas and I loved them so much I made some just for OWOH. From left to right: light purple multi, navy and light blue, brown and blue multi, lavender and plum, red black and gray. Each scarf will have a winner.

A close up for you.... It got crazy last year....so I will be crocheting away with scarves to add if the amount of entries gets really big. I have a gray and black multi on the way right now.

To enter. Leave a comment with your EMAIL ADDRESS (I have to contact you if you win, right?). If you are a OWOH participant, please tell me your entry number so I can come see you! And, if you like, tell me your favorite scarf color, either from these that I have shown or a color that you would like....who knows?

The winners will be chosen on Feb 15.

Enjoy your trip around the world as you flit from blog to blog...have fun! I can't wait to get started visiting everyone.

.

We survived the storm

It's raining again. That is a whole lotta rain! The snow is melting and we avoided any major damage. A friend of mine posted a picture on Facebook of a huge oak tree that fell at his place and that same day the picture showed up on the Sacramento News stations (2 of them!).


In the midst of all this WINTER are signs of spring....the daffodils are starting to come up!


We lost our electricity twice. One day for a couple of hours the other day was six. My handy friend here is my "wind up" radio. It sure does make my arm sore, but it's nice to have. You just wind the crank of the side and the radio comes on.


This is my old phone. I keep it in the cupboard just for when the power goes out. It has a really long cord. I was chatting with a girlfriend and I told her that I couldn't talk anymore because I couldn't keep HOLDING the phone up to my ear. I am so spoiled by my headset!


I found a few things to do while the power was out. This doesn't take any electricity:


Tomorrow the One World One Heart begins! Come back and see what I am giving away!


.

New Hat and Scarf

It's raining...no POURING today. I live in California and we are having a DOOZY of a storm! It's okay. It can rain and rain...it can snow...just leave the power ON and I will be just fine!! Everything I had planned for today has been cancelled. It's a nice opportunity to do some blogging, cleaning...and who knows?


This is the same hat I made for my son for Christmas, except mine has the earflaps. I also made his tighter around the face. I love this yarn, it's sooooo soft!


I think it needed a scarf. I tried making it with horizontal stripes, but I couldn't figure out how to keep the sides even. So, I switched to vertical.


Just in time for all this cold weather!

I'm so excited about the coming One World One Heart event that is coming soon!

Stay dry!!


.

New Year's Eve

We had a "Groovy" New Year's Eve. Our Band, Crystal Image, performed our show "Hippie Party" at the Schoolhouse. Lot's of fun, dancing and singing along to all the favorites!




The Band plus our friends who helped us man the door.


Far Out.


Happy New Year. 2010. Going to be a FABULOUS year!!


.

2009 A Year in Review

What a year. Time to reflect and review. I am joining with Cindy at My Romantic Home to look back over the year and share.



I had a wonderful year in my home based business as a Health and Cleansing Coach. I have personally coached many many folks in to Improved Health, Better Sleep, More Energy and Released Pounds and Inches like Crazy! I love helping people and hearing those happy comments about how our program has changed their lives is what keeps me going. I have taken on some new business partners in 2009 that have become more than partners more than friends (you know who you are!!).

I look forward to helping more people in 2010 with health and also how to make serious money working from home. more here: www.myskinnystory.com We are beginning a weight loss challenge right after the New Year....would you like to join us? email me.



I found Facebook early in 2009 and I've been hooked ever since. It makes me feel connected to the "outside" world. I work from home and live far from town, so it's nice to have friends that are constantly there. Are you on Facebook? Come find me isastephanie@yahoo.com

In Feb I found the One World One Heart Giveaway event. It was pretty much at the end and I was so happy that I found it. I gave away a crystal necklace that I made. I visited each and every participant, I think it was over 900. Wow. That was a blast.

And, I won several wonderful handcrafted items. My favorite was Miss Annabelle. You will see her again when I show you my finished (well it's not finished yet) sewing room reFRESH.

I did alot of sewing, mostly Refashion. Did some beading, knitting and decorating.

Then in March, I started guitar lessons. I wanted to learn to play for our camping trip in June. In April, my teacher asked me to sing with his group. I thought he was crazy. By June I was performing at the local Farmer's Market. That continued through the summer.


By Fall I was in the band and doing Gigs (that what we call a show....who came up with that anyway?). Music has dominated ever since. Hubby joined the band with his harmonica. We are both learning new instruments (more about that in the future). Here is the band: www.crystalimagemusic.com



Over the summer we lived for those wonderful family BBQ's!! And, brunches and sitting on our deck just enjoying where we live.


I also participated in Pink Saturday pretty consistently up until mid summer. I'm hoping to jump back in, I really miss my pink friends!


Family vacay in June...that was so fun. And, yes, I did play my guitar. We are really looking forward to this year.

This was the year of rafting for us. We love to raft in Yosemite, but that season is very short. This year we found a cool place close to home. I can't wait to go again!






At the end of summer we were graced with a visit from our beautiful Granddaughters. Aren't they precious! This was at our visit to Tea Eras.


In November I actually finished my project for my ASG group "Classic Clothes". I have procrastinated with this project for years. It took a luncheon to make me finish it!! That was so fun, those ladies are truly talented!!

In December I was elected to be President of Amador County Women's Network for 2010. I'm super excited about it and looking forward to a whole lot of fun and networking. It's a fabulous group and it is an honor for me to serve as President. Yay!

We had a wonderful Holiday Season, Thanksgiving and Christmas with our family, and we hope that you did too! Right now, I'm enjoying this quiet time after the holidays. I'm setting my goals and plans for 2010. I just know it's going to be a great year!

.

I can't stop making these....

I was privileged to tour a new friend's sewing and craft room. Sigh. It was lovely...BEAUTIFUL and full of treasures and so organized. I haven't wanted to even go in my own workspace. I just keep shoving more and more stuff in there, it's not nice anymore! So, Lulu's Cottage is in chaos. I have pulled everything out of my craft/sewing room (a closet really). So far, it's just a huge mess! My daughter said it looked like I was having a yard sale! I need to purge. It's so hard to let these things go.....I might want them. I decided to take a break and show you my latest obsession....


I made these for Christmas presents. I really enjoy making them while watching tv.




This doesn't even include all the ones that I already gave away. I must be crazy!! My favorite isn't even featured here, it's red with black and I wear it alot.


This pattern is SO easy!! And, I just adore how it turns out.








I may have a problem here. What the heck am I going to do with these? I have a new one already started and ideas for another. I must be crazy!

Is this lame?

My goal for this Christmas was to make all our gifts, and spend NO money. I usually do make things at Christmas. To be honest, when I look back on some of the gifts I made and gave away...I shudder. I decided on scarves, crochet (using my extensive stash of yarn) and I found a pattern I liked. For the guys I decided on something simple. And for my son, I decided to add a beanie.

I was watching tv and crocheting away when a commercial came on. It was a guy about the same age as my son. He was holding a scrunched up knitted beanie in his hand. He said something like "homemade gifts are LAME", then he went on to the rest of the commercial. I was at that MOMENT making a beanie for my kid. I had to ask myself, "is this lame?". Whatever. When I finished said hat....it WAS lame. It was worse than that, it was UGLY. Argh. I quickly found a different pattern and made another hat that was less lame. We ended up discarding my goal of all handmade gifts and used a gift card that we won from Lowes to buy things. Still didn't cost anything, so that sort of fit in with the original goal.

This is the "less" lame hat. I added a scarf at the last minute.

This is the Lame and Ugly hat and scarf. He wanted to keep it because it's warm and he lives in a cold climate.

What a sweet son....showing enthusiasm. And, he wore this cap for the rest of his visit here....making me so very happy!

Dear Daughter showing off one of the TWO scarves I made for her.

Son in Law seemed pleased with his scarf. I choose to BELIEVE that he was indeed pleased and not just trying to score points....which he did ...either way.

It was a lovely Christmas here at Lulus Cottage. We ate and ate and ate. And, we enjoyed just being together.

I hope that you had a wonderful Christmas too.