Secret bunny 2016

Dear Zina of Efzin creations blog and etsy shop organized one more successful Easter gift exchange called #secretbunny2016.
This year I received a gift from Athena of Mummy's Little Man 

Athena sent me a little porcelain bunny covered in paper,a tealightcandle holder, some chocolate and candies, a beautiful pen, and a handmade card. Thank you Athena.
I sent my parcel to Helen of Karydotsouflo.
As I wasn't sure what Helen liked I decided to visit her blog and loved the banner.
So I started thinking about walnut shells and hedgehogs and finally I came up with copying her banner and turning it into a pyrography scene.

 Then I also cross stitched a little hedgehog family from a pattern I found on pinterest and made it into a bookmark

I then looked around my house for previously loved things I could add to my parcel.I always do that as I believe that sometimes I have too many  things I don't really need but love (usually books and handmade items) and that those could suit another person better.
I had bought a book covered box to post my parcel in so I thought of adding a book into the box too. And I had the most appropriate one The elegance of the hedgehog by Myriel Barbery!Amazing, isn't it?
I also added a walnut shell pin cushion made by dear Sonia of Cozymemories and finally a bunny I bought at the Melissa Orphanage bazaar. I added some little details on the bunny too.Oh and a card of course.
Before closing the parcel I added some chocolate and jelly candy for Helen's kids.
I really loved making this parcel and I am glad my recipient loved it too!
Apart from making this parcel I also made a couple more for two other friends.
One was for Maro aka Akamatra who was visiteing Thessaloniki and we met for coffee at Koumbi cafe
I gave her a box with chocolate.

her blog logo made with pyrography,

 a needle booklet made with aida and felt and I stitched the Stitch for Syria pattern on it,

 and a bunny from the afore mentioned bazaar.

Maro made me a lovely pouch!Thanks Maro!

I also sent Zina a small gift, her blog logo made with pyrography

and a bunny too since she is the organizer of the secret bunny exchange!
I really enjoyed all this gift making,sending and receiving once again!

Promoting friends work-some recent purchases (January to April)

As you can see I cannot cope much with my blog but I am willing to try.
Here are some purchases I made some months ago.
An Icaros porcelain egg cup from the neighbourhood antique store. It is broken on one part so he gave it away to me for 0.5 euro.

A woodburning Iron set from Lidl. I have plans for the summer with my driftwood.

A pair of lovely mask earrings from Efzin creations.

A lovely original from Decoasylum

I framed it in a bigger IKEA frame than the one you see here and is now at the beach house but forgot to take a picture.

I got carried away and ordered this set of sea themed figurines from ebay which is unusual for me.

I found this Karaghiozis shadow puppet print at this Greek etsy shop coocoovaya and loved it.Also got the owl pin and sent it as a gift.

I reordered the Karaghiozis in a bigger sized and framed as I have shown you in another blogpost with our framed art wall.

 And then got it framed and it looks lovely!

 These I had got from the Amymoni bazaar. I am not sure I had shown them.

These lovely spiders I bought from the Dans Le Lakehouse etsy shop. I follow Tanya's blog and love it. And Tanya was so sweet to give me an one for one offer which was so great!

 I got this from a new shop I happened to find from Italy.It's called Vijolcenne. It's painted on a piece of wood and it's gorgeous.

 You can see it on my Easter table here too.

(Yes I know that is quite an old post but I am too busy lately!)

The second week of the Easter holidays.

As we were busy with the doctors' appointments all this week, we didn't have time for much else. Apart from doing house chores,
we walked the seafront promenade a lot, us and thousands of others, enjoying the magnificent views,

I made egg salad following a recipe I found in this blog.It is a good way to use up Easter eggs, Add boiled eggs, shredded carrots, red pepper, dill, green onions, mustard, mayonaise, salt and pepper, olive oil and apple vinegar.Delicious!

I prepared some mail to post next week,
I got prepared for school that starts tomorrow,
I put away the Easter decorations and decorated my big table for spring,

we went to IKEA for some frames we needed,one for this oil painting a friend of mine made for me,

 and one for the watercolour I bought from Dimitra of Decorasylum, and her etsy shop,

I made some soap following this recipe by Zina of Efzin Creations here,
I used olive oil soap base, lavender essential oil, lemon essential oil and yellow food colouring as well as a bit of lavender flowers from Portugal.

 I liquidized the soap base in the microwave, added the rest of the ingredients and poured into the soap molds.You have to do the pouring very quickly!

 Here they are, so easy, great looking, smelling wonderful!

We went to the beach house,

and had coffee with the family.

Whoever starts school tomorrow, have a great new start!

I was a birthday girl this week.

It's already February 1st!Wow!
One more week (and a whole month in fact) flew by!
Somewhere between floods and disasters happening everywhere in Greece due to the bad weather and a new leftist government in discussions with the Europeans,causing unbelievable positive and negative reactions at the same time all over Greece, this little girl here (that's me) had her birthday!
As I mentioned I didn't celebrate it  but I was really happy to receive some gifts and I am showing them today.I know more are in the post somewhere so I will show those when I receive them!
First hubby bought me a new mobile phone. Not that I needed one but he insisted!

He also gave me some money and I got myself three pullovers since it is sales time here. I hadn't bought anything for ages and I didn't even know what size I was!!!!!

The two are Bershka and the bottom one is H&M.
I also received lots of phone calls, facebook messages, SMS, e-cards and a couple of cards on the mail.
This one from my dear friend Maria Jose in the Acores,

 this handmade one from my dear friend Carolyn from England,

and this one from dear Juliana in Scotland. It's a Victoria &Albert Museum card.

Juliana also sent me a birthday gift and a Pay It Forward gift (a facebook game)
Here is what there was in her parcel.

 Chocolate of course, Crafts Beautiful magazine with a quilling set,

 felting wool, sequins, buttons ribbons and beads in gorgeous hues of blue,

  a little cute Barca ornament,

 this butterfly was hiding...

 ...a gorgeous set of sea glass wired wrapped earrings and pendant made by Alienstoatdesigns on etsy and ebay.

 some lovely soap,

 a set of lovely sea glass fridge magnets Juliana made herself,

 and a very beautiful tote bag printed with a photo of her sea glass made by SusanSeamaiden.

 Juliana thank you, you have been very generous with me always.
This week I also received a lovely pair of earrings that I had won on a giveaway a long time ago on Efzincreations blog.

 The earrings I had won were a Christmas design. They never arrived so sweet Triada of
The Purple Balloon gave me a second chance to choose another pair and I chose this lovely cupcakes earrings pair which arrived in time for my birthday!Thank you Triada!

And thank you Zina for hosting the giveaway!