In my closet there are trees.

Down with a flu I am and went to the doctor yesterday. So I am on antibiotics and inspite of that I had fever yesterday. So I am too miserable to say something funny or anything so I'd better tell you what I did last Saturday.
We met again at Anna's In My Closet very cozy welcoming kitchen to make things. This time we were about 20 people and almost one on top of the other! But it was so enjoyable. The initial idea was to make various Christmas ornaments and we ended up making mainly the felt Christmas tree! I loooooved it! Mainly because it was something I could easily do as I have been making similar trees for the school bazaar lately!
The good thing was that Anna had prepared the base for the trees.
Here are photos from the meeting!

 Anna showed us the pattern and gave us the details!

 Some joked about it and made fun!

 Others like me fell on the job!

 There was lots to choose from but I chose this lovely soft light green felt.

 Everyone was making their own tree.

Some were taking photos.

 I made two trees. First I made one with beads I borrowed from Christina for Lia, a member who couldn't come.

Then I had a break and ate some great sweets !

 Martha made some lovely cardamon biscuits.

 And Anna's sister Vassiliki made the amazing Christmas tree cookies and oreo covered cookies. You can find that recipe here at her blog!

I also tried some of Demetra's chocolate mint icecream.
 After eating I made a second tree this time for me and adorned it with beautiful buttons that were sent to me at an exchange by Valma. They looked gorgeous on my tree.

The two trees in the front row are the ones I made.

I ate some great chocolate pie by Christina, and took some cookies at home.
I made cheese and dill muffins. I heard they were good.

You can read all the details and see me posing with my first tree in Anna's blog here.
Bytheway if you are eager to win some threads Nancy is having one more giveaway on her blog Victorian Motto Sample Shoppe. Go have  a look here.

Two giveaway wins and a RAK.

I was very lucky to have won two giveaways recently. First the monthly giveaway from the Etsy Greek Street Team that I recently joined.
It was this pair of mosaic in a nut Christmas ornament by cubo. Theoni of cubo is really sweet and you can find some amazing mosaics in her shop.

 As I won't be putting a tree up this year I just added them to my candles. If I get a branch of pine tree to decorate I will add them to it.

 They are lovely.Thank you very much both cubo and Etsy Greek Street Team.
Then I won this lovely Christmas pattern, threads and trims in Nancy's Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe.
Nancy does giveaways very very often and right now for Christmas she has one every day. You can find today's giveaway here. This is what I got, sorry for this blurred photo!I hope I will manage to stitch it till Christmas!

Then I was RAKed(Random Act of Kindness!) by sweet Chiara of the Grey tail blog.She found this lovely cross stitch kit (The Good Life by Dimensions)that shows a dog similar to Barca and was so kind to send it to me. So this is one more thing I have to stitch! I will just trim the ears as Barca's are shorter! Of course she added a little Christmas thing too! Thank you very much Chiara!

Cross stitch and giveaways

September is here. Just one day before school starts I am trying to catch up on blog reading, e-mail writing, phone calling, and much more.
So here I will show you a RAK I received just before leaving for the beach house.

It was sent to me by Teresa  At Willow tree pond. I only wanted the chart that was included in this magazine and she also sent me the threads and a handmade pouch. I am so thankful. I started to cross stitch on this but stopped as I am back in town and have to do house chores and start my Christmas stitching!
Now to giveaways.
Two blogs I follow are doing a giveaway if you care to take part.
The first is Amanda's on Samplers, Silks and Linens blog
and the second is Nancy's at Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe blog.
So I'll just pen off here to go do some ironing(yuk!).
If you want a beautiful wallpaper for the month of September why don't adopt Geninne's?
Have a great September!

More cross stitched gifts.

At last some of the stitched gifts were received by their receipients so I can show you what I have been stitching lately.
This I finished back in March but delayed so much to post it to my friend Marabeth in the States. It is a gift for her first grandchild and I really wanted it to be special. An ABC sampler of course from an old Cross Stitcher magazine I had.

It is lovely isn't it? I am sorry Marabeth has to frame it herself but if I had it done here it wouldn't have survived the trip I suppose.
In fact I had stitched the same ABC sampler years ago for my son in a Round Robin with some lovely ladies all over the world.

It is still in my son's room. In fact he suggested that I gave this as a gift to Marabeth's grandson but I preferred to stitch it again adding all the details too so that my son can keep his.
Another gift I finished, had framed and gave as a present to our neighbourhood hairdresser friend who had twins is this one again from Cross Stitcher.

Isn't it sweet as well?
Another baby gift was something I bought for my son's new baby sister. A charm for the little princess which we, my son and I,gave together to her during a visit at the hospital.

Finally I would like to mention here a giveaway in another blog, a cross stitch blog you might like to join in, those of you who stitch.
Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe blog  belongs to Nancy,a generous lady who always does beautiful patterns and shares them with her readers in giveaways  so join in if you like. I have won once alraedy.
So now I am going back to my Balinese Dancer although I am quite tired of today's school day trip so I will probably call it a night!Good night!