And the winners are....

The three winners are:

1. Belinda
2 Dom's Little Shop
3. Leslie H

I'll be contacting them and asking them to provide details on what colours they would like.

I've also decided not to limit my BOH to 100, if I can get to all 150 people, I will.

I had a lot of fun visiting all of the blogs. I was most drawn to glasswork, photography, and, of course, others that were making earrings. But everyone had beautiful gifts to offer and it was a treat to see them. I've made some new friends and have bookmarked blogs that I'd like to visit again.

I'm looking forward to next year's festival, which will be slightly different, but will have many of the same participants.

Thanks to all who stopped by and congratulations to the winners.

Cheers,

Sandy

My One World One Heart 2011

Hi All,

I dabble in polymer clay and have been for several years. I try to post a blog entry on clay at least once a week but admit to falling short at times. We have a guild here in Toronto, Canada that's always looking for new members so anyone who is local is more than welcome to stop by and say hi, but that's not a pre-requisite by any means.

I'm participating in the OWOH giveaway this year and many thanks to Lisa of Whimsical Bohemian for offering to organize this incredible event. As of today when I checked, there were over 600 bloggers participating world-wide.

My offerings are custom paperclip earrings that are embellished with polymer clay. I discovered these paper clips at our local stationery store and thought that there must be something I could do with them with clay.

You can choose the centre colours and whether you want them patterned, shiny, or simple. I'll be giving away 3 pairs, with the random draw winners to be announced on February 17th.

The rules are simple.

1. You must have an active blog that I can visit.
2. You must leave a comment on my blog with a way to find you.
3. I think that's it.

Your blog can be about anything - sometimes it's the side trips that I make that are the most fun.

Here is a picture of some colour and pattern options.

If you'd like a link to how to make bracelets out of the paper clips, go here. It'll also give a sense of different colour variations.





In addition to the earrings, I promise to make Bottles of Hope, which are clay decorated bottles that are given to cancer patients. I will do this on behalf of the first 100 bloggers that leave comments and the bottles will go to patients in Toronto. If you'd like to be notified when I make a BOH in your name, please leave me a way to contact you. Last year I managed to make all 100 bottles, but I was overly ambitious in trying to link each bottle to a blogger's website. So this year I may not link to your post, but I'll at least state your name.

You can see some of my bottles here, here, and here. A picture is below as well.



Enjoy the blogging event!

Cheers,

Sandy

Our favourite resort - Hawksbill Beach Resort, Antigua

Hi Everyone,

We've just gotten back from our favourite resort in the world. Actually, it's my second favourite resort, but we can't afford to go to my favourite resort, Petit St. Vincent more than once every 10 years.

Our second favourite resort's name is Hawksbill Beach Resort in Antigua. There's nothing fancy about the resort, it's definitely three star.

But we love it. This was our fourth visit to the resort after having spent 20+ years visiting various parts of the Caribbean.

All we do is eat, read, watch the water, and live on the beach. This is our completely unwind vacation. We don't tour, we don't mingle, and we're often in bed by 9:00. We're old fuddy-duddies on this vacation.

It's a peaceful resort - for the most part there is no loud booming music. The average age is probably 65 and there isn't much to do for activities. You can still come to one of the four beaches at 10:00 or noon and not have too much problems finding a beach chair.

It has its hiccups - and all of the reports on Tripadvisor including the positive and negative are true - it just depends on what's important. If you want glamour and social activity, this isn't the place.

But if relaxing on a beach where there might be more than 50 feet between you and the next person and having a hard time reading because your eyes drift back to the beautiful turquoise waters or because you start to nod off is more your style, then this is definitely a bit of heaven.

On a side note, I try to find books to bring down to read since I go through about 1.5 books a day. This year I managed to get a special on Ian Flemming's James Bond books and I bought 6 of them down with us. I've seen the movies but haven't read the books. They were written in the 1950s and 1960s. Times certainly have changed - in Casino Royale, his first book, within a few pages James Bond lights up his 70th cigarette of the day. There's a full chapter on the excitement of catching a cheater at the card game Bridge in a different book which I didn't understand at all.

We're already looking forward to our next bit of heaven next year.

Cheers,

Sandy