January Gifted Gorgeousness

Hello everyone! This is the first Gifted Gorgeousness of the new year 2019. I hope I will manage to keep up with it this year too. GG is the brainchild of Jo of Serendipitous Stitching and I am happy to say I have been motivated to stitch more since I started taking part in it.

But first I'd like to show you a bit of my Christmas decorations this year. The table I covered with my stitched piece from last year.

 And put some more stitched pieces on it. The big one at the back was a gift from dear Marabeth from the States and I custom framed it.

 The little piece I stitched last Christmas and had won the pattern from Kaye of Kitten stitching and also gifted the pattern afterwards.The caroler next to the stitched piece is a gift from Marabeth's personal collection too.

I decorated my Christmas tree this year with stitched ornaments made by myself, or by friends.

And I added all the Christmas cards on the table. Not many cards this year.

This Christmas I  made some more felted trees and ornaments. I used fabric and beads that were gifted to me by my In my closet secret crafter exchange partner Poppy of poppysstuff.

 They look similar but they are not the same.

 I also made some wreathes with little fabric pieces I was given from dear Anthi the owner of Koumpi Coffee and crafts cafe.

 There was more blue fabric than green so I added sea themed items on the blue ones.Some of these will be gifted in future.

 I managed to stitch only two little pieces during a train trip to and from Athens recently. These were freebies from cross stitch magazines and they are needle cases.One of them I already had but was gifted the freebie once again.

 And I gifted the patterns to the fb Adopt a WIP page.

I received some handmade gifts this Christmas. Like this amazing metal Xmas ornament by Veronika of  Rountes Fountes  and the cute polymer clay baby ornament from Rania of Barbadakia during her baby shower event I attended.

 I also received this amazing sea glass ornament from Andria of  Andria's Serendipity. The card was handmade too and I loved it.

 The mail also brought two lovely parcels from dear Juliana which included cross stitch magazines

 as well as a felted mermaid from Nepal and sea glass art. I was so impressed.

The mail also brought a DMC Flower Fairy gift from England along with lovely cards. Thank you Kim!

 Also more cards and a DMC Flowers patterns booklet from dear Tua. Of course I received lots more cards and gifts and thank you very much everyone for sending a card.But of course they are not related to GG.

More gifts I got.A friend from school made me some kitchen ornaments that decorate my litchen now. Thank you Despina. 

 Another friend made me a makrame bracelet. Thank you Despina.

I recently found some vintage lace in my mum's drawers so I am planning to use it in future projects.

 Here are some gifts I gave. Purses made by Fani of Skeftomai kai ravo.

I kept the top one to use for my mobile phone.

 Also Fani made these sea glass purses for me which I gave as gifts to sea glass friends.The fabric was gifted to me by dear Marabeth and I decided to share the happiness of the sea glass fabric with others.

These are other handmade gifts I custom made at Evi of To Fourfouri.

I made some gifts to myself too. I ordered the Fancy Owl creations book box which apart from books it included handmade gifts too like a little crochet owl and a handmade felt bookmark.

I also bought the Tell Tale Book Box from faraway Dubai and had a friend who brought it to me.

 That contained handmade ornaments too.

 Also the winter craftpod box arrived and is very beautiful.

 and I bought this stitched cushion from a an open market seller.

 I hope you are not tired as I have more to show you.
Stitched pieces of Art by Ioannis Perdikis seen at an art exhibition.

 Photos from a walk in the city centre of Athens. I saw many shops selling threads and crafts materials.

 Look at those stitched pieces.

 Some photos from my aunt's house in Athens. I should have made a close up of that cross stitched piece.

 And some photos from the Benaki Museum that house a Yiannis Moralis' exhibition. Some works of art are fabric art related.

 This huge woven tapisserie was amazing.

Here's what I bought from the shop museum.See the cross stitch card?

 Before I go I have to show you something else. It recently snowed a lot in my city. I wasn't there the first time as we were in Athens for the funeral of a relative. But when we returned it snowed a bit again and I managed to take some macro photos of snowflakes.

 And finally I will close this very long blog post with some cross stitch on sea glass. Isn't it gorgeous?

 Thank you for reading all this! See you next month in the next GG.