Handmade in Melbourne Winners

Thanks to everyone who entered the giveaway for the Handmade in Melbourne books. It was so lovely to sit with a cuppa and read your comments. I found myself nodding and smiling and nodding again! I feel lucky to be surrounded by such inspired, connected and creative kindred spirits.

While I was sitting reading the comments, Mr joined me and started reading them too. Which gave me an idea. You see, while I get the whole random number generator thing, my issue was that I asked you to do something, not just leave a random comment. I asked you to think about your answer. So to then choose randomly didn't feel like I was doing you justice. But because I wanted to make everyone win, I took advantage of Mr's interest and asked him to choose the winning comments. I figured he was an unbias judge.

So Mr narrowed down the pile but as there was more than 5, I randomly pulled 5 from his pile. So I did resort to some randomness, but some I could live with!

Anyhoo, that was the long way to say congratulations to Kate from Craftastrophies, Miss Muggins, Leonie from Raglan Guld, snowflakes4sam and Mary from ChickenFlowerTots who all have a copy of Handmade in Melbourne with their name on it (not literally!).

Thanks again to everyone who took the time to comment.

PS.... I also wanted to tell you about this post I read by Sally at Virtually Sally. It is just beautiful.

Handmade in Melbourne - the book & a giveaway

When reading the foreword in Handmade in Melbourne, I had an "uhhhh" moment. Stephen Kent from Wilkins and Kent talks about how as designers, they have a story and how the materials they use have a story. He believes that it's the stories of handmade products that customers appreciate and value. Uhhhh..... of course!

I love knowing that a person has made what I buy, not a programmed machine.
I love that I can order or buy from the maker, not by lining up in a queue.
I love that the maker created their art because they knew what they wanted and were frustrated they couldn't find it.
I love that I don't have to remove tonnes of packaging to get to my handmade buy.
And I love that two products sitting next to each other are the same but not exactly.

Handmade in Melbourne tells the story of 200 Melbourne artisans, including photos and details on where to buy their products. While not a book you would sit and read cover-to-cover, it is beautiful to look at and great to flick through and read about a different person each time you pick it up. But a warning.... you are likely to be inspired and want to buy stuff!

You can buy a copy of Handmade in Melbourne at their website or I am lucky enough to have 5 copies to giveaway. All you have to do is leave a comment telling me why you love things that are handmade. I'll use some random thingy to pick five lucky people next Sunday night (20th Sep). Due to postage, this giveaway is only for bloggers in Australia.

***Giveaway has now closed***