An exchange (Ah kounelaki=little bunny!)

You might remember one of the exchanges I took part at Christmas was Secret Blog Santa organized by Zina of Efzin Creations.
This Easter Zina organized again an exchange called Ah kounelaki (referring to the Easter bunny).
I was the lucky recipient of Thalia's gift from this blog. Thalia is such a sweet artist and has a lovely blog where she shows her art and her town Distomo which has a tragic history. And of course all that with her sweet talented daughter Georgia.
Thalia sent me a beautiful gift but she showed great trust to the Greek Postal Service which unfortunately failed her.
Her beautiful hand painted pot arrived broken. She also sent me a lovely card she made along with her daughter and some freesia bulbs to plant. All in all a lovely gift.

 I managed to glue the pieces and the pot looks lovely!

But Thalia wasn't happy and wanted me to have something beautiful from her and not to be broken. So she surprised me with a lovely painting a few days later!

 Here is her painting and her pot along with Ahtida-Georgia's gifts. I will take them all to the beach house when we go there in summer.Don't they all look gorgeous together?So many sea colours together!

Here's what I sent to my recipient Dimitra of DimitrArt. I made her one of my stones and added some chocolate and a lovely soap from Karalis soap. As Dimitra is expecting  a baby I stitched her a little baby picture too that I found on pinterest in her favourite colour blue. The picture is by creativita and the frame by Tiger.

When she received the parcel and told me she is expecting a girl I made her another one in a more girlie colour!

Great exchange!Thanks Zina for organising this again!

A few purchases.

During the last weeks of 2014 I purchased some items, always in the budget.
From Tiger Stores very reasonably priced ribbons, washi tape and a button making set.

 From IKEA a frame for my woven picture and a set of coasters for future card making.

And again from IKEA wrapping paper, Xmas gift tags, some more coasters, sticker-labels, kitchen utensils and a set of stuffed animals to act out "The Town Musicians of Bremen" at school.

 From PLAISIO colourful quilling ribbons (although I don't make quilling but they are gorgeous paper ribbons you can use at other crafts), eyes for card or felt making and some little stickers.

From LIDL an aromatherapy set. Unfortunately the perfumes inside the bottles are not very strong.

A few threads, beads and vintage buttons from a neighbourhood antique-second hand shop.

And some vintage Greek souvenirs.

I am happy because....

... I ate some pomegranate...

...hubby made this shadow puppet of this ...."person"....

....I used this lovely gift from a dear islander...

....bought some handmade natural olive oil soap....

....I have this collection of Nicholas Sparks books for my summer reading, gifts of dear Dawn when she visited here.....

.....I read these books from the school library some time ago.....

(I might have shown some of these already)
....I used these lovely muffins accessories from Tigerstores...

...I prepared my shop for its first Black Friday to Cyber Monday sales....Go here to see....Free Shipping to all orders. Add coupon code BLACKFRIDAY2012...

...I managed to take a close up photo of an insect...

 ...every morning when I enter my school I see this lovely painting on the wall...and because I still have a job of course unlike too many others around here at present....

....I finally framed these lovely paintings I was given last year by a great painter teacher we had at school...

...because I bought a new glue gun and some other little things to use at my etsy shop....

....the bench at a nearby bus stop was painted in this lovely colour by volunteers....

...and finally I am happy because I managed to write this blogpost in half the time I usually do after being persuaded to use Google Chrome!LOL!