Personal Planner Winner!

Woohoo! We have a winner, Congratulations Donna Raye!

Lol, Screencap

I will be in touch with you shortly Donna! Thank you very much to the guys at Personal Planner for providing Bought by Birdette with such a great prize! Everyone else, I'll be holding more competitions soon and hope you'll be back for them!

Update

Hey Everyone, just a quick update.
I've run myself ragged and am sick with a rotten flu again, But I just wanted to let everyone who entered the competition know that yes it has wrapped up, but I'm waiting to hear back from the guys at Personal Planner before I announce the winner, so stay tuned! Thank you to everyone who entered and shared the competition! I can't wait to see what you design.
Also the Thrift Challenge has sort of fallen flat on its face, that's a long story that deserves a post all of its own, but I'm still going to power through and not give up! It's just been a very expensive fortnight.
I hope you're all keeping well! I'm hoping posts as usual will be back soon, but I just need to get back to 100%.

Brisbane gets wet again

You may be seeing on the news right now that Brisbane and her surrounds are undergoing another flood crisis, making this the second in just over two years. It's quite eerie, the rivers will peak in the sunlight with very little rain coming down. Quietly the banks break and the water creeps up, not during the torrential rains that we have already had.
Like the last time I'm quite fortunate, I live in an area of Brisbane that is quite safe from floods, and our biggest worries have been trees falling in the strong winds. I haven't heard yet whether or not I'll be going in to my office job tomorrow in the city centre, I'm not fussed either way but I know people will be stuck in their homes, and if we're allowed the time off to go and help and do our 'Mud Army' thing like last time, it would be good.
Ultimately if I have any readers in places that are in trouble, stay safe, look out for others, and for god's sake, do not drive through flooded roads!

Customize your creations with Spoonflower

When I used to study Fashion at TAFE, one of my favourite parts of designing garments was choosing the fabric.  Different patterns, colours, textures, weave, and materials can drastically alter anything you have put on paper, and availability was another matter! If you wanted to be sure that a print existed, most of the time you had to design it for yourself, and find somewhere to quickly print it, and for a decent price!
Sadly for me back then, a wonderful website called Spoonflower hadn't been crated yet.

The basic concept is that site give you the ability to put any designs you might create and print them onto fabric, and not just quilting fabric either. Yes there is a large array of cottons and linens to print onto but there's also some gorgeous dress making fabrics too. You can order a swatch book to see what each fabric is like for $1.
They don't just sell designs on material either, you can also have them printed up on wallpaper. Imagine your own cute creation on the walls of your babies room? A feature wall created by you anywhere in your home.
The most awesome thing? You can sell your designs! Come up with something truly gorgeous, it doesn't have to be intricate, set up shop, enable your design to be sold and it's just that easy, your awesome creativity can earn you money. Of course if you want your designs to be available to just you, you can do that too. Best way I've ever know to have a one of a kind anything!

After discovering the site only this year it's already on high rotation. Because of its expansive array of indie designers you never know what you will find on any given day. Within seconds you can find something perfect, that speaks to you, that you simply have to have. With over half a million members, there's almost endless options!
Highly recommended for days when you have the chance to be sucked into another world. This is a hobby I won't be finishing anytime soon.

Go and check them out!

Thrift Challenge update - Day 13

(I'm currently embarking on a Thrift Challenge  so this post might not make much sense, please check out the details here! Also, don't forget to enter my giveaway!

We've made it over 12% of the way through! Hurray indeed, though I do have to admit that while I've refrained from my biggest spending weakness of clothes and makeup, I've been putting the money elsewhere, still following the rules, but the loopholes are glaring at me ... Even though this fortnight has been rather brutal for bills, I have a set amount I've always put aside for bills each fortnight but this fortnight the amount I need almost doubled. Ouch.
Because we haven't gone grocery shopping for a fortnight, I haven't taken my lunch to work. Some days where dinner the night before has rendered leftovers (Satay chicken and rice? Perfect!) but on others my kitchen has been pretty useless. We're going grocery shopping today though, so now I know to look out for things I can bring for lunch, we might improve a lot.
I also went ahead and bought some craft supplies, Fabrics to make presents and I may have gone a little over the stipulation of "only what I need to finish a project" When the shipping is expensive and I'm ordering from overseas I kind of allowed myself some le-way to stock up at Hancocks of Paducah. I have to admit I'm not impressed by the service so far, I ordered more then a week ago, and according to my account it still hasn't shipped. Wait, let me correct, ONE product, out of the 29 I bought has shipped according to my account, however they've sent me emails saying it's out of stock and I'll be refunded. WTF!

All in all though, I haven't dug into my fortnightly credit card payment which is something I would normally do, so I will still call this fortnight a success. it's the boy's turn to pay for groceries this week, It's been too hot to stay home without air conditioning so we've still been out to the shops and bought nothing. I admit I was sorely tempted by the perfect canvas backpack at Typo. I've seen a flurry of cute backpacks recently but they've either been designed with vinyl details, or too expensive for words. This simple backpack would be great, but I think in keeping up with my challenge, (and harking back to my original sewing adventures where I actually did make a heap of cute bags in my teens) I might just be able to justify buying some fabric and making my own backpack to create a tute.

What I spent:
Hancocks order - $150
Dumplings x 2 - $20 (Hey! We're moving offices this week, I won't get to eat these dumplings again after next week!)
After work drinks - $15
Other various food - $20 (packing up office building, need quick energy boosts a lot.)

What's in the kitty:
Still $60, like I said, bills cleaned out me.

Lessons learnt?
Bills suck.
Slack postage is frustrating.
Hot weather is hard to deal with, without a trip to the air-conditioned mall.