So little sleeping and so much reading exchange.

#somuchChristmas  was this year's exchange of books and other gifts in
So little sleeping and so much reading.
It was my first year of taking part and I really enjoyed it.
We had to buy a book from the recipent's wishlist on Goodreads and add to the box whatever we felt like.
Here's what I received from sweet Marili who lives in my city too.
The book is Jessie Burton's The Miniaturist which was in my wishlist, and dear Marili made for me a crochet bookmark, a crochet bracelet, crocheted snowflakes which I adore and a crochet mug coaster. She also made me a lovely fabric owl bookmark, and sent me a beautiful card, some tea and delicious candy. All in all it was an exceptional parcel.

And here's what I sent to a lovely lady in Orestiada called Christina!

After wrapping up everything I realised I should have taken a photo of the things before wrapping them too, how silly of me!
I included two books from the recipient's wishlist, two more second hand books from my collection, I made some chocolate and put it in the tin box, I made a card, and the rest of the little parcels contain bookmarks, pencils, stationery, stickers, cards, music cds,candles and candle holders,handmade soap and more bits and pieces.
But here's a photo taken from my recipient's fb page.I know she enjoyed my parcel!

Thanks So little sleeping and so much reading for organising this!

A thimble exchange with Costa Rica

I am not a collector of thimbles. A couple of months ago I took part in a thimble exchange though.
It was via Kim's blog of Wisdom with needle and thread  and I exchanged with Christy from Peru!
You can read all about it here.
Then a lady from Costa Rica reached me to do an exchange with her too.
Here's what she sent me. A lovely thimble from her country, two fridge magnets, chocolate and a piece to stitch.

Here's what I had sent her. A thimble from Parga.Isn't it gorgeous?

A thimble from Thessaloniki.

(Sorry for the blurred photo!)

And a fridge magnet from my city.

My parcel took ages to reach her! Some postal services are really bad! Anyway I am glad my parcel arrived safely afterall and she liked everything I sent her!
Thank you Arlette for this lovely exchange.

In My Closet Secret Santa Exchange

Anna of In My Closet had arranged last Christmas a crafters handmade gifts and supplies exchange and it was a great success!
So this year she organized it again after popular demand!
And again it was a great success and lots more crafters took part!
Here's what I received.
Sweet Alexandra from far away Kongo was in Greece just before Christmas to post her parcel which included so many lovely things.
Everything was in this big green box.

Her handmade gift was a big beautiful shawl which I coordinated with a crochet pin from my school bazaar,

a card,

two bars of chocolate orange and caramel which vanished into thin air!!!!!!!

and five supplies inside beautiful little glass jars and a tin.
They were ribbons because one cannot have enough,

 hematite beads,

a wooden bead necklace, some feathers and a brooch for me to recycle

and two pieces of red and green felt.

I adored everything dear Alexandra.Thank you so very much!
 I have already started making some things with some of the supplies.
I used the ribbon on this good luck cloud ornament I made for a friend.

I used some red felt and some ribbon on this pomegranate good luck ornament I made for my best friend Gia.

I used some red felt and some pink ribbons to cover the tin and make a candle holder.

I also made a keyring with charms, a good luck charm and some of the hematite beads to hang at my new bag.

All that so far. I don't know yet what I will do next with them, we will see.

And here's what I sent to Daphne in Athens.
I made a felt bookmark and a felt mug cozy both in colours she likes blue and purple and in the shape of a cat as she loves cats.

I sent her a set of earrings, necklace and ring I had made during my jewelry lessons., and a glasses case Anna of In My Closet had made in one of our workshops but the colour so suited Daphne's choices.

Chocolate of course.
A Christmas card I made.
A book to read.
Some soap and bath salts
Some coasters I painted.
The supplies I sent were postcards to recycle,
beads,felt wool, papers for scrapbooking, and colours to paint with

I am looking forward to seeing what Daphne will make with her supplies.
Thank you Anna for organizing all this again!It was fun!

EGST Secret Santa exchange

Although I am not active anymore in my little etsy shop I decided to take part in the
 Etsy Greek Street Team Secret Santa exchange again like last year!
It was great fun!
This is what I received. Eleftheria of Personal2Treasures was so creative and generous with me.
I received a huge heavy box and wondered what was inside!

 Amazingly inside there was a heavy glass vase filled with blue aquarium pebble. The vase was covered with a handknitted case which Eleftheria suggested I can wear as a cap and indeed I can and will. It is in lovely colours!

 There were tealight candles inside the vase too. Also Eleftheria sent me some polymer clay Christmas ornaments, handcrocheted coasters and a beautiful fused glass keyring.

In total a lovely package! Thank you Eleftheria.

I was to send my gifts to Emilie of Prosinemi. She had sent me gifts in a previous exchange.
I made her one of my stones in the colours she likes.

 I added a Christmas card I made, some cards to recycle, a book to read, and a jar filled with chocolate. The jar was painted by the Art teacher at school who is amazing in making such things.

 It was a great egst exchange once again!

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!

Secret Santa blog exchange

This Christmas I took part in three gift exchanges.
The first one was the Etsy Greek Street Team Secret Santa Exchange about which I blogged here.
Then it was the materials exchange of  In My Closet blog. You can read all about it here.
And finally I took part in the Secret Santa Blog exchange which was organised by Zina of
efzin creations and Gia of One Perfect Day.

I  received a lovely parcel from Helen of ah kounelaki blog.
Helen sent me a beautiful fuchsia picture frame which she embellished with lace and beads, along with a blue felt flower brooch and a cinammon stick and ribbon tree ornament!
I loved everything, thanks Helen. I am looking for the perfect thing to stitch and put in the frame!

You can find Helen here on facebook.
I had to send my gift to Katerina of Kyriaki sto spiti (Sundayprojects) blog. I made a card with felt and embellishments

and I made a paper weight out of a felted wool ball on which I stitched sea glass and beads. Katerina liked my gift and you can read all about it in her blogpost here.

I am glad you liked my gift Katerina!
Zina and Gia thanks for organizing this! It was fun!

A Christmas exchange-share what you don't need

Anna of In my closet (my Secret Santa, remember?) organised a fantastic Christmas gift exchange in which I took part.

 The exchange was organised in perfect detail!
120 crafters took part in it and Anna really went out of her way to match all of them with each other for perfect exchanges!

We had to make a parcel that would contain a handmade gift but also something sweet and five materials we don't need and would like to send to someone else who might use them.

We had to take pictures and show our parcels in our group on facebook.
We were even given info on how to post the parcels.
It was great looking into your stash to find what you would like to share with others.
It was fun trying to figure out which one of the parcels shown might be yours.
It was exciting to anticipate the parcel sent to you! Or to see the reaction of the person who received yours!
One again I was very lucky! I received a lovely parcel from Crete island from dear Erina Katerina of rozkardies (=pink hearts) blog.

Erina loves scrapbooking so she made some lovely paper crafts for me.
A card,

 a bookmark,

a door knob sign

 and a gift tag.

Here's the whole handmade collection!

She added lots (and I mean lots) of buttons, ribbons, paints, a stamp,

charms, embelishments, stickers,papers, felt,

and little paper and fabric flowers she made herself for me to use in my crafts.
(Doesn't that picture have an Attic24 colour combination in it?)

Here's the lot of the "5" materials!That's 105!!!!!!

And there was bitter chocolate too! My favourite! Ooops, there was more, but till I find the right light conditions to take the pictures it was gone!

Thank you so much Erina for all the lovely things you sent me!
I hope the recepient of my parcel likes it too!
And thank you Anna for organising this whole thing! It was such a brilliant idea to reuse things in such a way!
Now I have one more thing to do. Make something with at least three of the things I received! Mmmm, let me think!