good mail

As I said, the past few weeks have been full of great mail, especially more gimme your stuff packages (but not only)

Right before we moved I received this package from the lovely eireann, who has since moved to France, and gave away some of her fantastic crafty material before she left.



From Malin I received a great GYS package full of great Moomin items (handmade pincushion, magnet and keyring), swedish fabrics, trims and sweets. I've sent Malin a parcel of hello kitty goodies, hope she enjoys them as much as I've enjoyed mine.





From Lizzy in Singapore I received this package (almost got lost in the mail, I'm afraid) with singaporean candy, this lovely incense holder and nonya cookbook.




And finally, from Babs came this amazing package of fabrics (all beautiful), tea, candy, trims, japanese crafts book and magnet. We had so much fun with our first swap that we agreed to do a second round a few weeks later (and who knows, probably a third round sometime soon :)








 

my neighbour totoro

I've always been a fan of Miyazaki's movies, my favorites being Nausicaa and probably Castle in the sky. But I've always had a special fondness for Totoro as well, so when my friend B. went to Japan on vacation this summer I couldn't resist asking him to bring me a plushed version. He was lucky enough to go visit the Studio Ghibli Museum and it seems the souvenir shop was irresistible.

He also got me a copy of the latest edition of Cotton Time, which of course is full of amazing crafty ideas. We had a rushed lunch the other day where he told me the highlights of his trip (I., já tenho montes de dicas para quando te formos visitar) and now I want to go visit Japan even more badly (ha, as if I needed more incentive). Thanks, B., I love my Totoro :)








 

moo

One of the things that has arrived during the past weeks was my set of free moo mini cards, and don't they just look so cute ? Their free give-away seems to be over now, but I'll probably order more soon.
 

on balance and other things

I was reading Adriana's post on balance the other day, and it struck me that these past weeks I've been struggling with the same problem. This move has upset my daily routine more that I had planned, and it's been hard to get back on track. The unpacking may be all done, but there are so many little details that still need to be taken care of. Also, the fact that I now live much further away from work and have to spend more time in traffic doesn't help. But a-n-y-w-a-y, we finally hanged most of the pictures on our walls yesterday and now ... now, it finally starts to feel like home.



The photo above is of our red painted hall (the beautiful illustrations are by Ricardo Rodrigues)

I'll share some more photos of the new place soon, I promise, and I know I'm way behind updating this blog (there's been a lot of good mail and shopping recently) but I'll try to do all that in the next days. Craft wise, I'm slowly regaining my pace. I have a ton of swaps that need to be mailed out, and so many pending orders that need to be finished. I want to get it all done before X-Mas, at least that's my goal, so if you're waiting on something from me just be reassured that I haven't forgotten but I'm doing my best to get it done. On top of all that, I'm flying to S. Paulo on work related business again next week, so that's going to upset my routine a bit more, but on the other hand I'll get to hang with my friend Glá once more.

A few favourites from the past weeks:

♥ Ruby, the cutest doll ever
♥ leaf printing tutorial, by onegirl
♥ Gisela's new patchwork cushions

 

ufff ... feeling exhausted

ok, so maybe I lied when I said there were 72 boxes .. actually there were 113 at the end. 113 .. how is that possible ? Anyway, the move itself went without a hitch. We apparently chose the worst possible day to do it, it was pouring rain last Friday which made everything much more difficult. But the moving company guys were great, and in the end nothing was missing or broken. So that was the easy part, because after they were gone we had to unpack each one of those 113 boxes. Which we did, by the way, with the help of my in-laws and two very good friends (thanks girls, my bookshelves have never looked so great :)

By Sunday evening I was feeling so exhausted that I literally collapsed on my bed. There's still tons of things to do, but these will be taken care of slowly ...
So yesterday I felt I deserved a small shopping treat and picked up these gorgeous mugs at IKEA. Aren't they lovely ? Not that I needed more mugs, I've discovered that I have enough to fill two kitchen shelves already, but these were just begging to come home with me.