A Tactile Solar System AND The GYB Giveaway Winner...

Its January 31st.........
the day when - 
although I forgot to give you a draw date ........duhhh 

I'd intended to pick a winner!
SOOOOOOOOoooooo

I drew the draw!

And the winner is Hula-la.......... !

I have emailed her, so once I have the address I can post off a little bundle of silky goodness to her.

Many thanks to all who visited, whether from the Grow Your Blog event, or not! It's been a fun event.

Well............now I must tell you about Baxter, who is safe and well but now called Sid!

I was telling a colleague at work about how he'd appeared and showed her his picture and she got quite overcome. 
Her own elderly ginger and white cat had died last summer and she told me that she would have loved to have given Baxter a home.

Now given that my own two cats had gone off their food and were determined to give him a hard time ........
I homed him on, knowing he was about to be spoilt, adored and cherished by a really nice lady and her hubby.
They came to see him and he was smitten with them......so off he went.
He's having one to one attention and he'll thrive on it.
They live in a quiet road too, so he wont have to dodge the traffic when he's out and about either.
But he's now become a Sid......lol so despite the name change, I think I've done right by the boy.

My two cats are eating again and no longer in a huff........ go figure!
My daft dog........his life was fine before and still is........that's his way lol

I completed the tactile Solar System Board this week and I will be making a second board like this so we have a duplicate to use. 
I used a variety of spheres, the sun is a large 6" polystyrene ball, halved. 
I've used ping pong balls, a sparkly covered plastic bauble ( Mars) and even a fake orange.........all have been halved and painted over.
I put a final sealing cover of modge podge on them too.

I have stitched the halves onto the velcro accepting fabric which we get from  
                     http://www.dickorydockdesigns.co.uk/home/

Mind you......I realise this picture hasn't got the brailled, planet name labels attached, so its still not the finished article as it is now! darn it.

You'll be able to see that I've pierced the halves in several places around their bases, so I could stitch them onto the fabric base. 
I just used a long needle to pierce the 'planets'.
You'll also notice how irregular the planets orbits are.....
lol well, there you go!
I thought I might put the planets moons on as well...........but one of them has 62 and another 31...........so I didn't!!

Yes........thats earth!
I double sided taped the fabric base down onto a board and then backed that with spare fabric.

This is the other board I made for this topic box...... illustrating why we have day and night on earth.

Right, now I must make some froggy hands and feet for my grandson....
I have him overnight tomorrow and you can be sure he will remember he'd told me to 'build' some for him!