Green bag lady

Some time ago (in fact in January) I won a Sewmamasew giveaway and received my giveaway win from Green Bag Lady blog. 
I had won these two lovely shopping bags handmade by this great lady who has been making fabric bags and giving them away for free to persuade people to use plastic bags less and fabric bags more for their shopping!
Aren't they lovely?
Thank you Ms Green Bag Lady.
Here's something taken from her blog.

Green Bag Lady Bags

35,074 FREE SHOPPING BAGS have been given away by Green Bag Lady! They are used daily in more than 3300 US cities, plus over 1400 cities in over 600 territories/ provinces/ countries world wide!

Bag Count Updated: Mar 31, 2016

 That's amazing isn't it?
 If you visit her blog regularly she gives away bags all the time so you may win one too!
In fact that's the second time I win her bags, both times through Sewmamasew!!

I have won some giveaways and received some mail!

It's been some time now that I won a couple of giveaways and received some mail and I am sorry I haven't mentioned them so far.
First from June's blog Butterfly Wings.I had guessed her next cross stitch piece and she sent me all these lovely things just near my birthday.

Second is a more recent one. I won all these Just Cross stitch magazines and thread and scissors and buttons at Frances' blog A symphony of stitches. giveaway.

Third a giveaway win back in November which arrived sometime in the New Year from Sewmamasew blog this lovely Simply Redwork book.

Fourth an Easter gift from dear Juliana, a lovely Simply Homemade magazine with a magnificent set of alphabet stamps. And some chocolate of course!

Fifth a surprise thank you card with homemade wax crayons by my dear friend Anna of In My Closet.

and Sixth a letter accompanied with postcards and birthday wishes from dear Roberto in Brazil!

Thank you everyone these are all lovely!

Sewmamasew Giveaway Winner

So Sewmamasew Giveaway is over.
By Random Generator the winner of my giveaway is Number 32

...and the winner is  Deb@asimplelifequilts

and she wins one of my felted beaded stones.

You can find similar stones on more on my etsy thalasseaglass!

Congrats Deb.I will contact you!

SewMamaSew Giveaway Day- a felted stone by thalasseaglass

Hello and welcome to my blog!
If you are new here because you just saw my giveaway on SewMamaSew you are most welcome to have a look around.
You are in Greece and this is my little online home! I am Ariadne from Greece, a teacher of English, and lover of anything handmade as well as many more things like reading, photography, sea glass and travelling!
Today I am giving away this lovely beaded felted stone! I always loved collecting stones, sea glass and beach finds and I decided to incorporate them into one piece of art! Here it is, a decorative stone or a paperweight!A little sea garden that will make your desk, room, office, home more beautiful! You can find more of these in my little shop thalasseaglass.

Now about the Giveaway.What you have to do!
Just leave a comment on this post only till December the 13th, at  5 p.m. PST.
(For the local readers that's 3 in the morning of Saturday the 14th!)
In your comment tell me who you are, where you are from and what your favourite handicraft is which takes most of your free time. Don't forget to add your e-mail so that I can find you if you win.
I will choose the winner in random. I'd appreciate it if you become a follower of my blog but it is not obligatory. I will ship internationally.
Finished commenting? I'd recommend that you come back, with a cup of coffee to browse around my blog. You might find something interesting to read. Now go to SewMamaSew to find more giveaways to take part in! I know I am going to do the same!
Bye bye!
Ariadne
Edit: Giveaway is now closed. I will make a random generator choice and hopefully if the lucky person has a way to contact her I will let her know. Otherwise I will choose again.
Update!
The winner is comment number 32 Deb@asimplelifequilts! Congratulations!I have sent you an e-mail!

A giveaway win and a travelling pattern giveaway!

I was very lucky lately with giveaway winnings.
I usually take part only in giveaways organised in blogs I follow and read. Recently the sewmamasew blog did a huge giveaway where lots of bloggers gave away things they made or had. I was the lucky recipient of Hopfaldera blog's giveaway.Muriel is a quilter from the Netherlands and here is what I won.

Some lovely lace, a handmade fabric needle booklet and a card! Aren't they beautiful? Thanks Muriel!

Also I recently took part in Kathy's travelling pattern drawing and won so Count your blessings by Shakespeare's Peddler arrived to my home along with a beautiul fabric piece that Kathy was generous to send.

 I stitched it on a piece of canvas I had and am planning to frame it and give it as a gift and then restitch it on Kathy's fabric and keep it for myself. I used the recommended DMC threads and only replaced the dark brown one with a similar as I didn't have the original requested.

So now I have to let the travelling pattern go to another home so whoever wants to stitch it just say so and leave a comment here and I will draw the name on Wednesday 20th.
Have a nice weekend!

What the mail brought

I love it when I receive lots of mail together. I don't open it at once, I give it time.
I have lunch, relax and spend an hour opening everything, reading it, taking pictures.
Here is the mail of a very special day in the beginning of January just after the holidays (when the post office was closed).

The long round parcel was Andria's sea glass calendar I told you about in Calendars and Diaries post a couple of days ago.
The brown parcel in front is from my dear friend Marabeth whose parcels arrived filled to the rim with beautiful things and I will share in a separate post.
Don't you love that beautiful blue flower Marimekko envelope? Of course it is from Finland and it included a lovely sea glass Christmas card from my dear sea glass friend Tua.

There was a lovely parcel from Sharon whose blog , TaylorsNana, I recently started following. I was a RAK receiver. And if you like me don't know what that means, it means Random Act of Kindness!!!! She was so generous to send me a packet of erasable pens to use on my cross stitch patterns along with some threads and some patterns. I don't get Prairie Schooler here and they are fantastic, as well as a whole kit of Shakespeare's Pendler. It is lovely!

On the same day I received two handmade bags from GreenBagLady whose giveaway I won through Sewmamasew. They are bags to use while shopping instead of paper and plastic ones.These will be great for the beach house shopping!

Then there was a long letter and Christmas card from my pen pal Annette in Australia,

and the Spoonful zine I get four times a year from Australia too. This time I was fast to order it and got this collibri print by Kareena Zerefos as a gift.Bytheway Anthea of the Spoonful team recently got married so here's a chance to wish her all the best!

Then a couple of days later I received  this little pin cushion I had ordered from Sonia of Cozymemories.

I also received another giveaway ( I have really been lucky with giveaways recently) that I won from Arounna at Bookhou. I was afraid this would arrive broken but Arounna did her best to seal it perfectly!It is  abeautiful mug for my morning drink but I would say I could also use it as a little vase!

Finally a set of crocheted snowflakes I had ordered from Elina in Eljuks on etsy of course. I love crocheted snowflakes. I think it is the main reason why I want to learn to crochet.

Well I had great mailing days during the last month but I too sent lots of letters, cards and parcels around the world. My only disappointment is that I have realised that two of my parcels one to New York to my Christmas ornament giveaway winner and one to California to Edgar did not arrive to their recipients. The strange thing is that both these parcels contained cross stitched Christmas ornaments so I am afraid someone really liked my cross stitch and kept them!