Christmas gift exchange.

Twice a year, Linda at Craftaholics anonymous hosts a gift exchange. Once again I took part in the Christmas gift exchange and it was so much fun!

 

This year my partner was a very sweet girl called Lisa. We chatted back and forth a couple of times , via email, and then set to work.

I received the sweetest gift through the post!

A crochet mug cosy!

I am so so excited. I have wanted one of these for such a long time and I love anything that is crochet.

And it is red. Be still my heart.

(Please excuse the ropy pics, my favourite new camera is needing batteries and I have been housebound for the past couple of days!  So the old faithful has to do)

I adore the purple heart on the front

and the super cute co-ordinating button on the back.

Love.

Thank you so so much to Lisa for my wonderful gift! I can't believe you are only just learning to crochet! You are a pro already!

And as always thanks to Linda for hosting the giveaway. It is lovely to meet new people and to enjoy exchanging something handmade and yummy!

Merry Christmas everyone! xx

I sent mail.

As I mentioned in a previous post  I once again took part in the handmade gift exchange hosted by Linda at Craftaholics anonymous. I was matched up with a fellow Brit blogger (who knew there was more than me!? ;-) )  My partner was Steph , who has a very sweet blog called southern fairy designs.

We chatted back and forth via email and asked a few questions, a few things I took from our conversations was that Steph liked colour, she enjoyed making and wearing jewellery/pins etc. I also found out that she had a little point and shoot camera , like myself, and after a little stalking  research on her pinterest boards, I noticed that she didn't have a case for her camera.

I made her a couple of little brooches/ pins. I used floral and gingham fabric.

The frst one had two little fabric rosettes with some pearls tucked in, it is ridiculously difficult to photograph as it was slightly rounded.

This fabric flower was made using a tutorial I found on the fab ruffles and stuff blog, but be warned - they are super duper addictive to make!!

I also made Steph a little pouch for her camera, I have used the tutorial before when making one for myself and noticed Steph had pinned the same tutorial.  I hesitated before making it though as I was a little worried that Steph really wanted to enjoy the process of the " making" . In the end I figured she was probably like me and could use more than one gadget pouch and there was also the scope for her to make one as a gift too!!

Lined with polks dot fabric, of course.

Thanks to Linda and Steph, once again I thoroughly enjoyed the gift exchange , can't wait until November and we can do it again!!

I got mail!

It is summer! We have almost completed our first week of holidays already! In less than a week we have already ticked a few activities off our list! We have had the hottest of days and the rainiest of days.

Today is a mixture. It was sunny for long enough that I ran around like a mad woman, emptying laundry baskets and sorting washing. 10 mins before the first load finished washing and I was going to hang it out, the heavens opened.
Someone somewhere is laughing at me for "wasting" the sunny days by spending time playing in the sunshine, and picnicking on the beach. Ah well, I have no regrets. I can hand on heart say we have enjoyed the best of the summer days, those 3 sunny days in a row will no doubt BE our summer.
Yes, I have a house full of people coming at the weekend, but I have hidden mount washmore before and I can do it again. My very favourite time was when I packed it all into black bags and pretended it was charity shop donations. Moving on .......

I have received a few things in the mail this week. I LOVE getting exciting things in the mail! I feel like a little girl when mail comes for me, well not when it is bills etc, but the good kind. Even if I know what it is, the business cards I ordered (which I am in LOVE with! Will share soon), or even the  bakers twine from ebay. Love it. I did receive two unknown parcels this week too, the first was a bouquet of lollipops! These were an early Birthday gift from my good friend Michelle. Honestly these are adorable! Must catch a photo before they are all eaten! Such a thoughtful and unusual gift, made me smile so wide!

The next was my gift from Steph  my partner for the handmade gift exchange, hosted by Linda at craftaholics anonymous. I received an adorable little package of goodies,

A little zippered pouch that I put to immediate use as a ne make up bag.

And an adorable wrist strap for my camera, Which I also put to immediate use but then had to remove so I could photograph it LOL.

Thank you Steph, I have really enjoyed this exchange.

I will share what I made in a few days because Steph has actually received it yet, because I am busy disorganised the ultimate procrastinator me. I don't want to spoil the surprise, I know how excited I was opening up the envelope to see what was inside! So I will wait until I hear it has arrived.

Thanks to Linda for hosting this exchange, it is great to get to meet new people and well, it's always nice to get some mail,.

Handmade gift exchange

I took part in another of craftaholi\c's anonymous' handmade Gift exchange. This one was for Christmas. I exchanged gifts with Tess from New York.

Unfortunately my gift hasn't quite made it's way there yet, but I'm not surprised! The state of Royal mail at the time I posted it was pretty poor! The snow wreaked havoc for weeks!

I excitedly opened up my gift, I received two handmade Christmas pins and a very sweet scented pillow.

My only mistake was to allow K to help me open the package! The beautiful pillow is now hanging nicely in her wardrobe!

Thank you so much to Tess. We got there in the end!! xx