What the mail brought

It was a lovely weekend with great weather, a visit to the beach (with very little sea glassing), a wedding, a visit to my Godson and a lot of reading.
For the time being I will show you what the mail recently brought....
Some beautiful prints I bought, made of the collages that Bianca at Goodnight Little Spoon has created. Bianca recently got married with a lovely handmade wedding!Congrats Bianca!
A postcard from France from my new French pen pal Christine.

But earlier in the beginning of summer I also received the cards I bought from Anna in Lila Ruby King. You can find them here.

 The cards depict Greek scenes but her shop includes lots of different very original art pieces, fabric and jewelry!

 Don't you love those sea world Greek stamps on her envelope?

 Finally the stamp from the letter of my pen pal Ruth from Israel who sent me a letter and a bit of sea glass from her country.

Frames

I know I have not been blogging for a couple of days but things have been a bit hectic with my mum's health problems and all the chores I have to run out for her as well as certain things hubby and I have to utilize. More in future about this.
Anyway I have had for some time some things framed so here they are in no specific order!
Remember that card I had bought from Lilarubyking?

Well I turned it into a frame.

I also framed my very first cross stitch which was school work.

Then I framed a poster Kim, a sea glass friend, sent me from the Sea glass Festival in the States.

I gave a facelift to this old frame of Manto Mavrogenous I salvaged from school!

These previous three are going to be added in the summer house collection!
Another photo with Anna's card framed. Next to my son's Aris Salonica team clock of course!

I at last decided to give some space on my wall for my University diploma and my awards for getting a very good entry place and for adding to the collection of books in the Educational Museum of Veria, Greece.

Since this is the year of the dragon here is my dragon, I painted this on acrylic sheet and it is a shadow puppet theatre figure. It is quite big and enjoys a place over my Billy bookcases.

Two more additions on my pink bedroom wall.
A frame of a beautiful card I had bought in England years ago
La Belle Dame Sans Merci by Sir Edward Dicksee.
John Keats wrote the ballad that so many painters illustrated.
I love the ballad and this painting.

I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful-a faery's child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.

And a small cross stitched dancing girl from my childhood years again.

Last but not least, Geninne's original The Umbrellas.
I had trouble framing this one because when I realised there was a drawing on the back of the collage I wanted to show it too and not imprison it in a frame. So I gave it a full extra plexiglass frame which I can turn around and show the back anytime I want.

Of course you do recognise Margie's crocheted stones and Paula's vases,crochet pebbles and delicate porcelain leaves.

Post and postage

I love letter writing, pen pals, letters and parcels, sending and receiving. I used to have 100 pen pals as a teenager and I still have some of them who can still stand my delays in answering. The last couple of years I have lots of new type pen pals, people I exchange e-mails with, or counteract on facebook (not that often), or the sea glass sites or on blogs. And with these people we have started exchanging parcels with sea glass and small gifts and things have evolved from there in great beautiful friendships.
I decided this year to send fewer parcels for Christmas and try to save on postage as postage has gone high again and the whole financial situation is troubling me.
Still I managed to post in December 16 parcels and 17 letters/cards!!!!!!!Some of them were already received and aknowledged and I am happy about that. Unfortunately I still have a dozen more to write and send!!!!!!And I don't think I will manage that before Christmas so maybe I will have to do it at my relaxing time during the holidays.
I am glad I have started receiving my Christmas mail too, yesterday for example I received 6 Christmas cards together, and today four parcels, wow!
I am sorry some people will not receive this year anything from me, or they will receive something very little. I had to cut down on my list!
Here are some photos of outgoing mail.

 And here are a couple of photos of etsy purchases which will be gifts.
I found this etsy shop Lila Ruby King by chance when reading Star of the East blog and realised it is someone in Greece. I love her art and here is what I got. A card made from little pieces of fabric. I gave that for framing.I also bought a pdf file from her with beautiful patterns that I am going to use at school!
I loved her map inside envelope and the extra cards she sent me too.

 This is a pencil case by Jill Wignall of Today I saw. It is handprinted and sewn. And comes in a lovely handmade envelope,too.

The inside fabric of the pencil case is lovely too.