First Giveaway

For the last few days

I've been kinda struggling with an horrible tooth ache 

and at the same time been trying to manage

all my daily tasks and small projects.

I've finished another project
and I'll let you all have a peek right here,

but this one is part of a more ambitious project called

Oh La La Maya Doll series

(as a sequence to my Oh La La Lolita Doll);

you might remember those from my Lolita Doll tutorial

and you can also find them at my shop on Etsy.

This one is the second of the series,

and has been ready for a little while now.

I'm still working on more of those,
but soon they are going to be listed on BearyNiceCrafts.

Now that I've shared with you what's been going on,

the promise is due!

My first giveaway is set to go!

You can check this post to know what to do to enter,

or you can check

my section "Giveaways" at the top of page.

The Giveaway will be from today, September 30,

till Friday, October 15.

There will three winners: first, second and third.

The lucky winners will be sort out by Randomizer

and I'll publish the results Saturday, October 16.

Now, for the prizes:

1 -

2 -
3 -
1. 
   
   handmade pouch, Tunisian crochet, lavender and lime, lined with fabric, flower embellishment and magnetic closure.
2. 
   
   handmade pouch, Tunisian crochet, brownish tones, crochet closure, shoulder strap.
3. 
   
   handmade pouch, purple, crochet, with needle felted embellishments, zippered.
   
   
   So... here's what you'll have to do to enter the giveaway: 

Come and visit Helenismos, look around, check out my Tutorials and Ideas section, my Recipe Box section, take a peek at my BearyNiceCrafts shop, and then write a comment and let me know what you liked the most.

Or, you can follow Helenismos with Google Friend Connect and then write a comment telling me you did it.

Or, you can blog about this giveaway and link to Helenismos and then come back and leave me a comment telling me about it.

Don't forget to leave me a contact if you don't have a public profile so I can contact you if you win.

You can leave as many comments as you wish to enter, 

and you only need to do one of the things above,

tough I would be really happy if you would do them all!

And that's it!

I hope you'll like this little giveaway

and I will be waiting for your comments.

Gook luck everybody!

Table runners & Autumn Flowers

I still have some trouble with my sleeping routines.

Shame on me, I know, because

I insist in  staying on the couch and not going to bed

(I blame it on the bedroom TV because of the bad image color).

The truth is it's just easier,

and then there is nobody to wake me up

with honey, let's go to bed...

Those of you who have been there

where I am now

know what I'm talking about.

Anyway...

I had some visitors yesterday

and they are the kind of nice people that makes the world a nicer place.

My thank you to them,

they who keep visiting me

just for the kindness of offering me some company.

If Katy is reading this

she'll know this about her. Loved the card and the words.

So... Yesterday was busy...

... but I did it!

I finished the big project I've been talking about!

Ta da da... (drums rolling),

here it is!

What do you think...?

I really love the visual effect.

And after debating myself, either to keep it

or sell it on my BearyNiceCrafts etsy shop,

I've decided to list it

and it is already there.

What else...?

I've told you yesterday

about my planned giveaway.

I've already started working on it

and very soon I'll give all the details.

I hope all my readers won't miss it

because I truly believe

you'll love it!

See you soon. 

My Quilted Cd Xmas Ornaments Tutorial @ Totally Tutorials

Today Dotty from

Totally Tutorials

posted my Quilted Cd Xmas Ornaments tutorial.

Thanks for your nice words Dotty!

Some of my other tutorials have also been posted by her

and every time it brings lots of real nice people to visit my blog.

Thank you to you all who have been visiting and leaving me a comment.

Who doesn't just love to read the nice words appreciating your work?

My readers and friends

know that I've been trough some very difficult personal times lately

and being able to share here some of my helenismos with you all

really does make me feel like I'm still part of this world.

I've been busy working on that hexagon quilted project

I told you about last time

(it does take time!),

and here's another peek how it is going.

I'm thinking I might be able to finish it by tomorrow.

I' m really happy with it so far. 

I'll let you know.

Today was another very hot day

(we were on the 90's again).

But according to the forecast

it's supposed to start cooling down by tomorrow.

I really hope so.

I still have a lot to do on my gardens

and I can't be outside with all this heat.

My cat Alvin doesn't like the heat neither.

Every time I open the door he sneaks in

and doesn't want to leave.

I'm thinking maybe let him stay inside this winter

(if I ever can make him quit marking his territory inside the house!).

Ah! Almost forgot...

I'm thinking about having a giveaway in a few days.

 I had been thinking about it for my blog first anniversary,

back in August.

Unfortunately,

that wasn't possible for the sad reasons you know.

But I'm thinking now would be a good time,

it gives me a goal and it will keep me busy.

It will be open to everyone, everywhere,

of course,

and all you'll have to do is to leave a comment.

But soon I'll give you all the details

and show you what I have in mind.

I think you all going to like it!

And that's it for today.

I'll see you soon.

Fall - time to get the hands dirty!

I've started a big project,

and I've been working on it since last Sunday.

To give you just a brief peek for a small taste...

... and a promise to show off when it's done!

Since a few months now
I had not been taking care of my gardens...
I think I was not even noticing the weeds taking over everything!

But a couple days ago I did start noticing it... and remembered

how proud J always felt about my gardens.

So... Since then I've been working outside a little bit everyday.

Even with all the neglect I still have some flowers.

I took some pics to share with you:

While I was trimming down my English ivy

something crawling trough the green
took my breath away for a moment!

Ah ah! Gotcha ya!

You thought it was a baby snake, didn't you?, so did I!

Well, look closer...

I had never seen one of those...

... just the regular tiny weeny brownish slugs...

... but it's kinda pretty, isn't it?

Another find on my lawn... I don't know why

but those little blue gnomes (Smurfs...?)

always come to my mind every time I find one of these:

After weeding & mulching
now the front garden looks nice.

A small taste of Fall on my garden.
After all, tough here we still have 90 degrees,
one my favourite times of the year starts tonight!

"All is worthwhile if the soul is not small"

At 6:00 in the morning everything seems to have a different dimension...

I've been up since 4:00 am.

I still keep waking up to different weird unusual things...

Since J's passing it has been like that.

Please don't misunderstand...

I'm fine, and I do realize that missing him this much

can do that to your subconscious mind.

But somehow it's very comforting to me.

It started that week of August 17th... static...

and static and static on the phones...

...till they died.

Unusual sounds in the house,

smoke detectors will go on for no reason and won't stop

(I had to remove them).

This night it was a phone ringing, just the ringing sound,

the phone was not actually ringing.

And the butterflies.

Everyday I see all these wonderful butterflies

just fluttering around.

After my mom passed,

I kept awaking up to the sound of her voice and the words Lena, get up!

The words of the Portuguese most famous and wonderful poet

Fernando Pessoa

keep popping in my mind

"all is worthwhile if the soul is not small"

(tudo vale a pena quando a alma nao e pequena).

Time is very strange... 

... in one hand it seems like

I'm still inside a long nightmare struggling to wake up,

but on the other hand it seems like everything happened a long time ago...

and it has been only 32 days since it happened.

My niece has been staying with me since Friday night.

Like usual we did lots of things...

... a little sewing,

a little cooking, a little manicure,

a little napping while watching movies on TV...

... projects for Halloween costume

(this year she wants to be a vampire princess,

so we tried some of my dresses, projected a cape out of

a velvet material I had from years and years ago),

and sewn a few small prizes for her future scavenger hunt

she has been planning.

This is the pic of the tiara she sewn for her costume...

Do you remember Mr. Yellow Bunny I had made for my sister-in-law...?,

I had promised I would show you the pic

when she had it on the bench...?, well, here it is.

 The saying is very cute and its purpose

is to function like a time out bench,

but a well pleasant time out...don't you think?

The week has been busy,

I still have so many things to deal with,

and of course I still have to pursue finding a job

until I can (hopefully) go back to my career as a special ed teacher.

I think this may explain the reason of this time distortion to me...

... my days used to be very routine like... taking care of J

was a very methodical and regular task,

everything circled towards his care

and now it seems I have all this time on my hands!

The shop has taken some of all this time out my hands,

setting it up, making things to sell, promoting it,

takes quite a bit of it

but still...

... sometimes the emptiness just kind installs itself without a warning...

Oh well...

I've made 3 more sets of quilted coasters for the shop.

I like them a lot and they look quite good I think.

And about my last post... about what happened

with my floppy disk treasure box tutorial,

 I checked it out yesterday again and of course

she hadn't post my comment but she did rectify it, linking it to my blog,

as you can see by the pic bellow.

Anyhow... at least she did rectify it.

But I also noticed by her last post

she had been somehow punished by Google,

it seems she could not publish graphics and images...

I've also noticed I was not the only one

she was not giving credits or linking to...

... and for sure I should not have been the only one aggravated by that.

And that's it for today.

My niece is still sleeping

and shortly I'll have to go get her up and get her ready for church.

Until my next post, I'll see you then.

Thieves of tutorials

Yesterday while browsing the web

I've found something really disturbing

which made me realize

that the cyberspace sometimes can be as ugly as any other thing in life.

Do you remember my floppy disk treasure box tutorial ?

Well, I found this brazilian blog...

she used my pics, translated my words and posted my tutorial

as if it was hers, 

not giving me any credit for my work nor linking to my blog.

When you read people's comments

they congrat her for the nice work!

On the left side she has a box stating that she posts about things 

she finds on the net, and that's it!

I left a comment, which was not posted 

and I very much doubt it ever will.

It's a shame that people who call themselves craft lovers can do stuff like that.

I don't have a problem with sharing

(thus the name of my blog, helenismostoshare),

and my tutorials are exactly for sharing the things I create and make,

so other people can make it also 

(that's what tuts are for, right?),

but they are definitely not to be stolen!

Credits and proper links,

that's all that's about!