Causes – Nightwolf's Den

Teal Ribbon Day

Today (Feb 24th) is Teal Ribbon Day here in Australia.

Each year we wear a teal ribbon to show our support for women living with ovarian cancer, to remember those we’ve lost and to honour the 1480 women who will be diagnosed this year.

Ovarian cancer has the lowest five-year survival rate of all women’s cancers. All funds raised by Ovarian Cancer Australia (OCA) goes towards research, raising awareness, taking action on behalf of women living with ovarian cancer and to help Ovarian Cancer Australia continue to provide the best support possible to everyone in the community who has been affected by the disease.

Do you know the symptoms of Ovarian Cancer?

Women who are diagnosed with ovarian cancer report four types of symptoms most frequently:

Abdominal or pelvic pain.
Increased abdominal size or persistent abdominal bloating.
Needing to urinate often or urgently.
Feeling full after eating a small amount.

If you have any of these symptoms, they are new for you and you have experienced them multiple times during a 4-week period, go to your GP. To help track these symptoms, download OCA’s Symptom diary now.

You can buy your teal ribbons from your local Chemmart Pharmacy Australia, Black Pepper, and Coles Queensland stores.

Even our pollies (for once) are actually talking about it. Karen Mcnamara MP, Federal Member for Dobell addressed Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month and ‪#‎TealRibbonDay‬ in Parliament in this video.

AND 1480 windmills have been planted on the lawn of Parliament House in Canberra in honour of the women who will be diagnosed with ovarian cancer this year.

So do your bit and buy a teal ribbon, host an Afternoon Teal, or support one (like mine)

It’s a Frocking good time

It’s official I suck at remembering to Instagram my frocks but here’s what I wore this month. and for the record I cropped my head out of most cause I have a head cold and look shocking :p Anyways, it’s all about the frocks this month! 30 Frocks (I wore one twice) in all and even a little dress up for Halloween! (& a guest appearance by my cats)

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Did you know one woman dies from Ovarian Cancer every 10 hours! You can still donate and help fund more research into Ovarian Cancer here.

Official last day in jeans til November 1st 2015

Yup, it’s that time of year again. Time for me to Frock up for a great cause!

So here’s the obligatory last day of jeans wearing til November 1st selfie

For those who have no idea what Frocktober is all about…..

Held throughout the whole month of October, Frocktober is a fundraising initiative to raise
funds and awareness for the Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation (OCRF). The classic
Frocktober challenge asks participants to wear a frock every a day during the month. It’s
all about increasing public awareness of ovarian cancer and raising money to support the
development of an early detection test. Since its inception, Frocktober has raised over $1
million for the OCRF.
One woman dies every ten hours from ovarian cancer. As there is currently no early
detection test and a lack of symptoms in the early stages of disease, women are usually
diagnosed in the late stages of the disease – when the cancer has spread to other organs
in the body. If the cancer is diagnosed and treated early, between 80-100% of patients
will survive for more than five years. But only approximately 30% of women diagnosed at
advanced stages will survive for more than five years.

As I’ve done every year for the last 4 years I’m going to frock it up every day in October. This year I’m aiming to wear a different dress every day.
You can donate here and keep up to date by following me on Instagram

And if you think you’d be stuck wearing a dress a day, check out this post by The mummy & the minx.

Scrap Teal You Drop 2015

For the last couple of years I’ve taken part in the Ovarian Cancer Australia fundraising event – Afternoon Teal. Mum & I have named our event Scrap Teal You Drop and attendees take part in a full day of scrapbooking and card making.

This year we gave our small group two challenges. The first challenge which took up the morning portion of the day was to create two cards in an hour. We gave the ladies a bag which contained two cards (one rectangle and the other was either a teapot or teacup), 2 pieces of ribbon, some twine, 2 blank boxes to add a sentiment to if they wished, some embellishments, 3 pieces of pattern paper and a doily. They could only use what was in their bag plus our range of stamps, inks and paper punches.

I was amazed at the variety of cards that were created. The judging process was not a job I wanted on the day. I recruited my dad and uncles to be our judges for the day and the whole process was anonymous with only myself knowing which creation belonged to which attendant. So I wasn’t allowed to talk to the judges all day 😉

Our winners were the following cards and I’ve placed the rest of the cards up on my Facebook page

The afternoon challenge was a bit harder. The Teal Throw Down challenge the ladies to create a 6×12 page using only the colours we gave them – teal, pink, yellow, purple and a neutral (white or kraft) plus 3 embellishments, a piece of pattern paper ,a piece or ribbon OR twine (not both) and no more than 5 rhinestones or sequins. Honestly I would struggle with this one but the ladies created some amazing pages. A couple worked in pairs while others worked alone. The judges picked this page as our winner:

the other pages can be seen on my Facebook page as well.

Everyone had a great time and we managed to raise $800. Donations are still open so if you would like to donate to this cause, pop on over to my Afternoon Teal page.

A huge thank you to the wonderful businesses who donated prizes for our day. Please go check them out and give them some love!

Bev’s Cross Craft, Kellie Stamps, Simple Scrapper, Max & I, Sweets Caroline and ThermoFun.

A MASSIVE thank you must go to my mum (& dad), who let us use their house, organised a delicious lunch and helped with all the prep and running the day.

Lastly thanks to all who came along. Hope you had a great day. Look forward to seeing you all next year!

Frocktober 2014

is almost upon us again – like tomorrow!

So here’s my first selfie for the month – the last day of jeans until 1st November.

After our rainy, cold weather today here’s hoping the weather improves.

To donate you can go to my Frocktober site. You can donate using your credit card, using PayPal or by using BPAY

The Frocktober challenge

So while everyone is challenging everyone to do the Ice Bucket Challenge (which I have been challenged to do) I’d like to put out another challenge. Donate to my Frocktober page and help raise funds for Ovarian Cancer Research. Oh yeah and then take a photo of you in a dress and share it.
So don those frocks, donate and share this link, I’ll be interested to see who is game to Frock up

I’ll be blogging my Frocking efforts here (along with my frock stories), on Instagram & on my Facebook page.
Let me know if you’ll be frocking up in October so I can follow your journey in the dress 🙂

Lace it up

(So this is a little late but I’ve been away having a baby. You can read all about our newest little bundle over at From the Wolf’s Den)

Many years ago in my late teens, during what mum calls my troubled years, my period of being totally off the rails, i spent a short period of time without housing. Yes I could have gone home but I chose not to – you know, being a stubborn teenager and all that (plus a few other circumstances I put upon myself but that’s not what I want to talk about). It was early winter and totally not pleasant. Lucky for me & my then boyfriend, there was some great support from the local City Mission and through someone we met there managed to find housing. But this post is not about me. It’s about the approximate 47,000 young people who are homeless around Australia and what we can do to help them.

August 4-10 is National Homeless Week and as part of that Father Chris Riley and the Youth Off The Street programs are raising funds through the #LaceItUp campaign. By purchasing a pair of blue laces for $5 you can help Youth Off The Street continue to provide services to those in need in NSW. Then share your photos on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter with the hashtag #laceitup to spread the word.

Some of the services provided by Youth Off The Street:

crisis accommodation
early intervention & outreach
drug & alcohol counselling & rehab
parenting programs
Food van

So let’s #LaceItUp and help support a great cause.

You can find out more or donate here or check out the #LaceItUp Facebook page

Scrap Teal You Drop 2014

Ovarian Cancer Australia invites groups and individuals around Australia host an Afternoon Teal® – a summer tea party for a great cause! Raising awareness of the symptoms, risks and impact of ovarian cancer, as well as raise vital funds to support their work in awareness, support, advocacy and research .

For the last two years mum & I have organised an Afternoon Teal® event called Scrap Teal You Drop. This year we organised a full day event and spent a couple of months planning and organising, sourcing donations for our raffles and supplies for our scrapbooking challenges.

We received some AMAZING donations from private individuals meaning those who have no scrapping ‘stash’ to raid had an wonderful selection of papers & embellishments to use. Mum bought some gorgeous teal products from Sawyer’s Place to help create our Teal challenge pack but I’ll get to that in a moment.

Saturday night we set up our space, organised tables and packs for our attendees – a teal ribbon and information about Ovarian Cancer plus a symptom diary.

Sunday morning, the day of our event. Our all dayers and the morning crowd arrived and were welcomed and given a run down of our morning schedule. We had a couple of quick quizzes to warm up the brains and just for a little bit of fun. Then the ladies were shown a demo of some gorgeous handmade cards and an idea for using calico and stamping to make some lovely, individual gift ribbon.

We then had our first challenge of the day – a blind scrap. The ladies were given a list of products and after about 10 minutes sat down so I could read them their steps. Some followed along pretty close, others added their own spin and a few did their own thing.

Lunchtime and a wonderful spread provided by mum and a few others. A group photo was taken once the afternoon group arrived and before our morning group had left

Mum shared with us that the day marked 3 years since she had her surgery and was given 18 months to 3 years. In Australia, the overall five year survival rate for women diagnosed with ovarian cancer is approximately 43% so fingers crossed we make it past the 5 years and beyond. This set me off – thanks pregnancy hormones so I had to have a quick teary break before struggling to read the first part of my afternoon speech discussing Ovarian Cancer and the symptoms. So after that slightly teary start to the afternoon our group got stuck into our Teal Challenge. It’s amazing to see how everyone created such a wide variety of pages were created using the same supplies (some seasoned scrappers who joined us added their own supplies) and the majority used the same photo.

Our pack consisted of a white cardstock base, some Sawyer’s Place sticky paper (I love this stuff), flair and washi tape plus some other pattern paper, teal ribbons and a teal ribbon sticker.

We finished of the day with afternoon tea. Lots of yummy goodies including a fruitcake made by mum, a delish mars bar slice and my Teal Ribbon cake, teal ribbon biscuits and teal cupcakes.

I must give a few thanks. To the lovely Ruth from Polly Scrap Kits who, apart from letting me share about Ovarian Cancer on the Polly Scrap site, added some teal products to the February kits (& had a teal add-on kit) AND donated 50c from each kit sold to our fundraising tally. To the local George Town businesses who donated prizes for our minor raffle. To Hawthorn Football Club and Phil Kuruvita who donated prizes for our major raffle which is being drawn at the end of April.

After speaking to Mum today so far our fundraising tally is sitting at $1738! Thank you to all who have donated so far. If you’d like to donate, you still can by going to my GoFundraise page

Is teal the hot colour for nails this summer?

Well it is this February! Chemmart Pharmacies along with Ovarian Cancer Australia (OCA) are holding Colour for a Cause this month as part of Ovarian Cancer Awareness month.

Chemmart Pharmacies around Australia are stocking a limited edition teal nail polish pack during February with proceeds going to OCA to assist the delivery of its awareness, support, advocacy and research programs.

During February, call into your local Chemmart Pharmacy to see if they are one of many stores offering an in-store manicure for a gold coin donation, which will also be passed onto OCA.

And girls aren’t having all the fun with guys being challenged to sport some teal nails in February. So guys, man up and go teal this February. My dad went teal on his thumbs and even some of the Melbourne Rebels rugby union went teal. I dared a few of the boys at Hawthorn FC via Twitter but none have done it yet.

Check out this gorgeous mani over at More Nail Polish (I’m a little obsessed with her blog lol) and has another planned for 26th February (today) – Teal Ribbon Day.

Mum & Dad got in on the action

and Miss K and I have had some fun

Have you gone teal with your nails this February? I’d love to see them if you have 😀

Look Good…Feel Better

You may have this ad on tv

It’s Kerri-Anne Kennerley talking about the Look Good…Feel Better workshops that are held around Australia.

The Look Good…Feel Better workshops are a free community service program for people undergoing cancer treatments to learn about ways to help manage appearance-related side-effects that may be caused by their treatment. Their mission is “to help improve the wellbeing and confidence of people undergoing treatment for any sort of cancer.
We do this by providing free Look Good…Feel Better workshops for women, men and teens to help manage the appearance-related side effects caused by cancer.”

I was lucky enough to get to attend one of these amazing workshops with my Mum, as her plus one, earlier this week at the local Cancer Centre. The workshop was run by a lovely group of volunteers who have all worked in the beauty industry. Workshop participants were walked through some basic skin care techniques and make up techniques to a) help manage the appearance-related changes caused by cancer treatment and b) make them feel better – cause we all know when we look good, we seem to feel a little better 🙂 Headwear (like scarves, hats, turbans and beanies) and wigs was also discussed and demonstrated.

I was totally blown away by the cosmetics and skin care that is so generously donated for these workshops, companies include Chanel, Elizabeth Arden, Estee Lauder and many more (current sponsors can be viewed on the LGFB website). Each workshop participant takes home an amazing Confidence kit containing an instruction booklet as well as the skincare and cosmetics used during the workshop.

After the workshop I saw the women who attended smiling, laughing and talking together. No one really discussed their cancer as the day was not about cancer but about looking good and feeling better. I’d say the women who attended looked good and many of them, I’m sure, felt better.

If you’d like to read more about the Look Good…Feel Better workshops have a look at the LGFB website, spread the word about this great service and maybe donate