Our Birthday Sale Nominations

Thank you very much to everyone who nominated a deserving New Zealand charity / cause. They are all causes that I would be very proud to support during our birthday celebration sale starting 10th October. I will be donating $5 from EVERY item sold during the sale to the winning charity from the list below.

The nominations are:

• At Heart (@Heart)
• Baby Eva Mitchell
• Camp Quality NZ
• Child Cancer Foundation
• Cholmondeley Children's Home
• Dream Chaser Foundation - a Chace Topperwien Charity
• Early Buds
• Little Sprouts
• Madison Merrick
• Otago at Heart
• Support for Jethro Morrow (aka Jethro Gantley)

You can learn more about each charity by clicking them. You will be taken to their facebook pages.

Voting for these charities is strictly limited to fans of Meys Made - Cool Crochet For Cool Kids only. Not a fan yet? You can easily become a fan when you enter the giveaway. Fans will be able to vote for their favourite charity as an extra entry into the September giveaway. The charity that receives the most votes will be the lucky charity that benefits from our birthday sale.

You can enter through the giveaway widget to the left ===> You can also enter by clicking on the giveaway tab on our facebook page or by following this mobile friendly link:  http://inboxme.info/meysmade

The September giveaway prize will be the winners choice of either a $40 Meys Made gift certificate OR a made to order summer baby set as pictured. This can be made in any colour combination and size up to 12 months old. The giveaway closes 12am 1st October 2013 and the prize will be drawn the same day.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS:
The giveaway will run via rafflecoptor starting at 12am 7/9/2013 and finishing at 12am 1/10/2013. The winner will be randomly drawn via rafflecoptor. Entries are limited to New Zealand residents only. One entry per person. Prize includes your choice of either a made to order acrylic summer baby set up to size 12 months and shipping within New Zealand OR a $40 gift certificate to be redeemed by November 30th 2013. The gift certificate may be used to a made to order item. The winner will be drawn and notified via supplied email address on the 01/10/2013. The winner must claim their prize by providing a postal address within 3 working days of the notification email being sent. If the winner does not claim their prize in this time frame then the prize will be re drawn. The prize can not be exchanged for cash and is non-transferable. No purchase is necessary  Meys Made is the promoter of this giveaway. The winner accepts that their name may be published by Meys Made. This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with Facebook. You understand that you are providing your information to Meys Made and not to Facebook.

2000+ Fans Celebration Giveaway

Hi everyone,

it's Miss Ella Meys here. Mum said that I could write a blog post to try and use up some of my excess energy this afternoon.

Did you know that last week she got all these cool parcels in the post from small businesses all over New Zealand. Do you know what she did? She hid them all from me and said they weren't for me! I'm not at all impressed as I really wanted all of them for myself. So I better tell you all why I think the prize pack for one lucky winner is just amazing.

My mum has made up an adult acrylic textured head wrap and a cool acrylic penguin hat for someone my age (1-3 years). She also said she will give the winner $40 store credit but I'm not really that interested in that as I don't really understand money. You can keep that part of the prize.

You can enter right here on the blog using the widget directly on your right ===>
There is also another giveaway for a mystery hat running above it until Wednesday.



Cobalt Heights has donated this funky jewellery set. They sell unique funky fashion jewellery at prices you can afford, which means more money left over to spend on us kids.

Mud Mates have donated a pair of gold overpants OR a half price pair of gold Mud Mates in your chosen size. I love these. I can get as messy as I want and mum doesn't get grumpy about having more washing to do as my clothes stay nice and clean.






Ee's Creations has donated this adorable size 2-3 penguin animal cape. They hand make these and they are fully reversible using quality anti-pill fleece. The best bit is that all details are sewn on so there are no small bits to worry about.

Talking Dribble has donated this practical Excursion Bib. Your mummy or daddy won't have to dig for loose spoons in the bottom of their bag anymore. It is a stain resistant polar fleece bib with waterproof backing and has a divided pocket at the back of the bib to hold mealtime essentials. The Excursion Bib then folds up into a package to take with you anywhere!



Squoodles has donated this trendy nappy wallet with a handy nappy pack inside. Mum is happy when she looks good. She's even happier when all the baby stuff she has to cart around for me looks good.

Birds Nest Bunting has made up this beautiful 10 flag double sided bunting. This would look great in a cool kids bedroom and will get all your friends talking. It is a real attention grabber.




CoochyCoo Ltd has given the prize pack a very generous $35 voucher which can be redeemed on their website. They stock beautiful handmade merino clothing, NZ souvenirs, merino & cotton fabrics and heaps more items that I love.

And while we are on the subject of vouchers, check out this awesome donation from KJdesigns. A $20 gift certificate to go towards some gorgeous hand stamped jewellery. Mum has a few of these necklaces and she is always getting asked about where to get them from.



Last but not least are these mega cute Bibbles from Bibbles - Dribble Bibs. I have a whole drawer in my bedroom devoted to these bibs. I like to look cool when I drool and these let me do that. You can get them in so many different fabric designs. Mum is addicted to them.



Mum is really trying hard to teach me about sharing is caring at the moment. I think I am understanding the concept. I think it means going to visit all of these pages and becoming a fan to thank them for their generous offers. If you could share this link to the giveaway that would make mum really happy as it will bring in even more fans which means she can have another milestone giveaway really soon.

I'm starting to feel tired now. I might go and have a nap.

Look cool and stay warm everyone,
- Ella

Such a neat idea!

I saw this pop up in my newsfeed and think it is such a wonderful idea. What a great memento to have of your pregnancy.

Did you do anything creative to capture your pregnancy journey?

And the leg warmer winners are:

Congratulations to Angela and Nicole who have each won their cool kid a pair of acrylic made to order leg warmers. Please contact me via email to claim your prize. Thank you to everybody who entered, and many apologies for the delay in drawing the winners. As you are probably all aware, this was the last thing on my mind the previous few days.

Leg warmers will be available to order from Monday 27th May, 2013. Check out our facebook page next week to see how.

Thanks everyone.

*Pattern for these leg warmers is available from https://www.etsy.com/shop/ACrochetedSimplicity

A febrile convulsion changed our view on everything...

Yesterday morning I thought I loved my girls more than anything. I thought that I had no more love to give them. But yesterday when our two year old daughter started convulsing I suddenly discovered there was a massive amount of love in me that I wasn't even aware of... and quite a few regrets.
As our beautiful princess lay on the ground fitting with blood streaked foam coming out of her mouth all I could think was that this was it. This was that moment that every parent fears. I thought our happy little girl was dying.

I felt so helpless. I could not do anything other than put her in the recovery position. I couldn't make her better. I thought our princess was dying and there was no way to stop it.
Between my cries out for help, desperately hoping they would make the ambulance arrive faster, all I could think of were all the regrets. All the times I put something else that wasn't even important before her. All times times I had become frustrated with her for silly reasons. All these stupid things that I regretted immensely. 

After what seemed like hours but was less than a minute she stopped shaking. Her beautiful porcelain skin had turned a horrible white blotchy colour, her mouth was blue and her poor wee heart was racing.

When the ambulance arrived they instantly calmed us down. How they managed to achieve that I'll never know. Maybe it was the thought that it had to be OK now they had arrived. I remember thinking that nothing bad could happen now as they knew how to save her. I went from desperately clutching on to my daughter hoping she would be OK to watching her open her eyes in response to her name with relief. It was the exact same feeling you get when you hear your baby cry for the first time when they are born. Relief, pure and simple.

Ella then started crying. Really crying. The paramedics told us that was a really good sign. Then they gave Ella a beautiful penguin soft toy. How they knew penguins were her favourite I'll never know. Penguin calmed her down quite quickly. By the time we arrived at hospital Ella had stopped crying. I was desperate for her to say something, anything, so I knew she was OK. I didn't want her amazing cheeky personality to have been affected in any way. And then it came... "cuddle daddy". I burst into tears of happiness. Our little girl was in there still. Before we knew it she was playing with toys in the ED room, asking for a drink and telling her pop that he was silly.

We were told she had most likely had a febrile convulsion and that we had done the right thing calling the ambulance. It was caused by a spike in her temperature due to a virus (that we didn't know she had) and these are really quite common in children under 5. 1 in 25 kids will have one and we were told they can run in families. I put my parents through this three times as a child, as did my younger brother. She might have many more, this might be a one off. No one can say. Very rarely do they cause long term problems so most likely our poppet is going to be just fine.

As for my husband and myself though, this was a very traumatising experience. One that we will never forget and one that has taught us a lot about what is really important in life. Everything can be taken away in a flash so you need to make the most of it when you can. Don't put things off until tomorrow. Try to make the most of every single moment you have with your kids. Most importantly tell them you love them. The thought of "Ella! Stop climbing on me!" possibly being the last thing she ever heard me say to her broke my heart. Toddlers are hard work and nobody is perfect, but this has really made us want to make that extra effort to be more patient at the end of a long, hard day.

Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero

Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65 BC – 8 BC)

Seize the day, trusting as little as possible in the next (day)[/future]

Here is some information from kidshealth.org.nz about febrile convulsions. I really hope none of you have to go through this, but hopefully this information will help if you do.

WIN a pair of acrylic made to order leg warmers

To be in to win a made to order pair of these acrylic leg warmers all you have to do is repin the pin linked below to one of your public boards. You will need to fill in the following information as a description when you repin:
1. Favourite style (1, 2 or 3 colours)
2. Childs age
3. Leg circumference just under the knee
4. Leg circumference just above the ankle
5. length from just below the knee to just above the ankle

I will be announcing two lucky winners here on my blog tomorrow at 8pm so check back here then. You have 24 hours from then to claim your prize by emailing me MeysMade@gmail.com

Here is the pin for you to repin: http://pinterest.com/pin/149392912611947564/

Good luck!

The easy to follow pattern to make these leg warmers is available from https://www.etsy.com/shop/ACrochetedSimplicity

Terms and conditions:

NO PURCHASE IS NECESSARY.

Prize includes two separate draw for ONE pair of crochet leg warmers. They will be custom made in any child size out of acrylic yarn.

The leg warmers will be posted within New Zealand for free, if the winner is from outside New Zealand then postage will be at their additional expense.

The winner will be announced on our blog 8pm Thursday 23/5/13 NZ time and will need to email MeysMade@gmail.com with the postal address in order to claim their prize within 24 hours of the announcement.

This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with Facebook. You understand that you are providing your information to the owner of this Facebook page and not to Facebook.

Meys Made is now a proud member of the EtsyKids Team

I am very proud to announce that Meys Made has been accepted to be part of the EtsyKids Team. This is a group of crafty people from all over the world who sell handmade items for babies through to teenagers on Etsy. You can check out all the stylish designs over on their website.

A requirement for me to be a member is to actively contribute to the group which I am really excited about doing. I have already contributed my first treasury with the theme of 'the birds and the bees'. All the items in the treasury were created by fellow members of the EtsyKids team from all over the world. There is bound to be an item in the treasury you will like... especially if you are a fan of birds, bees, yellow and black. You can have a look at the goodies I compiled by clicking here.

Speaking of Etsy... our puppy dog hat is still on special over there for the rest of May so order yours now before it goes back to full price.

Have a fantastic Mothers day in paradise everyone.

-Sarah