December Gifted Gorgeousness

So this is the last Gifted Gorgeousness of the year and I am so happy for managing to do a complete 2018 GG. This was my first year and I must say it made me stitch more in order to have a proper blog post every month. Thank you Jo of Serendipitous Stitching for making this possible. You can find the linking party here and see all the posts from other stitchers too.

So from November 15th to December 15th I stitched the following!
First this little dragon pin cushion. The pattern is December 2015 Holiday Treat from J.L. Aikman-Smith of Dragon Dreams Inc. on facebook. You can find lots of free dragon patterns there. This travelled to a dragon loving stitching friend but has not been received yet so I can't say who it is.

 At another occasion I stitched three little beautiful trees to give to charity. We gathered at our friend Anna's of In my closet kitchen and made the trees for Dromoi Zois, a charity in Athens. I managed to make three. Their bazaar was this weekend 15th and 16th December in Athens.

We made really many here are some of them.

 I stitched this for an expecting friend too. I gave it during her baby shower therefore had to delay this GG post so that she doesn't see it!LOL! Pattern by CREATIVITa found on Pinterest.

 This sea glass felted stone and the cactus pin cushion in a pot I made for the secret crafter exchange Anna of In my Closet organized.

 The cactus pin cushion is based on this post by a crafty composition.

 I also started making felt ornaments for my tree but they are not ready yet. I was going to give some of these as gifts but never managed to finish them in time for the mail.

I also made some other felt tree ornaments with sequins using the materials I was sent at the secrecrafter exchange as well as things I had.

I am decorating my Christmas tree with these this year.

I received my secret crafter exchange parcel from Poppy of Poppysstuff. There were lovely things inside.

 I especially liked these vintage stitched pieces that belonged to a relative of the sender.

She sent me all that!

She knows how much I love blue and sea glass.

 Using the material she sent me I made some brooches for pet friendly people.

 And I also made this sea glass felted stone for a friend's new offices.

 I also received a parcel from Mia of Craftartista which I had won in her birthday giveaway.

 She sent me lots of stitchy things. I loved the stamped angel and all the DMC.

I also sent the January birthstone 

 and the All dolled up pattern to Diane of Lavender dreams who won it in my last giveaway.

I also sent Clare of Aimetu's Stitching what she won in my giveaway,too, in the previous GG.

I made and sent lots of 3d paper cards this Christmas too. Like this one.

 Here's the lot.

 And added some embellishments to some IKEA cards to send too.

And something else I received.

From dear Rania a stitched card and handmade bookmarks. Thank you so much Rania.

Finally I would like to show you some stitched pieces I saw at Art Thessaloniki this year. Unfortunately I didn't write down the artists' names.

So that was all.

Hope to see you in the next GG in the middle of January in the New Year. Enjoy the holidays and have a merry Christmas!

Total eclipse of the heart!

I loved that song when I was young...er!
Anyway first of all I'd like to thank everyone for their comments in recent blogposts! I try to answer the comments of those people who have e-mails connected to their names, not everyone does!
Also I'd like to thank the visitors through the Madam Samm and !Sew we stitch. Unfortunately I didn't have much time to visit many blogs yet but I will soon.
Let me now show you what kept me busy this week!
We spent a day at school with the fear of the eclipse! A day before the eclipse the Ministry of Education sent us some instructions which obliged us to stay inside the building all the time during the eclipse and not allow the children to look at the sun!

There were various reactions to that but of course we had to follow the instructions.
We even had the curtains closed. At some point I had an hour out of the classroom and tried a couple of photos. The sun was blinding of course and I wasn't really looking at what I was photographing. Imagine my surprise to see afterwards that the eclipse is shown somewhere in the building opposite the school. Can you see it?

This week we attended a shadow puppet performance at Vafopoulion Cultural Centre. It was presented by Yiannis Chatzis and it was dedicated to the Thessaloniki writer George Ioannou, a great local writer. Thomas Korovinis and his band sang great songs. And Yiannis Chatzis presented stories of George Ioannou in shadow puppetry.

This week I also had the chance to go to the local Etsy Greek Street Team meeting and we made a lovely craft calendar.

 The meeting took place at Koumbi craft cafe.I love looking around at all the beautiful things there.

 We enjoyed our coffee and made our craft calendar using all the supplies.

 I started by writing with crayons, and used stamps and cut-outs.

 We also used the various appliances availiable at the cafe and made embossed designs on the calendar covers.

Here's the front of my craft calendar.

And here's the back of my calendar.

 And here's our group. (Photo by Popi Balouri of Poppysstuff)

Many thanks also to Vivika of The Wandering Deer for the organization and Olga for showing us how to use the appliances.
Also this week there was a meeting with my Book reading club
So little sleeping and so much reading!
It was fun having coffee with fellow readers at Zogia cafe and meeting old and new friends!

 We also exchanged books and here's what I got.

And what I gave.

Funny I got the book of the girl who got mine all by chance!
We also had a presentation of Captain Michalis at Malliaris bookstore with the International Friends of Nikos Kazantzakis Society.
Unfortunately due to lack of time we only presented a small part of the book as the talks of the speakers (among them Kostas Zouraris, European Parliament Member and writer) took longer than expected. I hate it when things like that happen. I feel as if people do not acknowledge what we do as a team to make a good presentation or that they don't realise how much effort it takes to prepare a presentation! I loved Kostas Zouraris speech though, it was great, short and to the point).Anyway that unfortunate event was followed by dinner out and that was good!

 This week we also enjoyed an impromptu Saturday dinner with my son, his friend from college, his brother and my brother and also coffee out with the family!

That was all about this week! I am sorry I don't manage to blog more often and put all these news in one blogpost but unfortunately I am lacking time!