Craftartista Birthday Candy

Hello there,
the year is coming to its end and I still want to blog a bit.
I recently won a beautiful giveaway from Craftartista blog from dear Maria (aka Mia) who is very talented and makes beautiful things. She was celebrating her blog birthday and chose 22 winners! Wow! I was one of them!
Here's what Mia sent me.
Mia made for me a beautiful fabric tote which I will definitely use a lot. The lovely doilies were made by her grandmother and I really loved them. She also added a stamped cross stitch fabric which although I don't stitch on stamped fabrics I really want to do this one as it looks so sweet. She added lots of DMC threads, wooden items to stitch, three pairs of earrings she made herself and a lovely card she also made.

 

 Look at the earrings. And the detail of the doilies.

 The stamped canvas, and the chocolate!

 The wooden items and the card.

Dear Maria thank you so very much!

Green bag lady

Some time ago (in fact in January) I won a Sewmamasew giveaway and received my giveaway win from Green Bag Lady blog. 
I had won these two lovely shopping bags handmade by this great lady who has been making fabric bags and giving them away for free to persuade people to use plastic bags less and fabric bags more for their shopping!
Aren't they lovely?
Thank you Ms Green Bag Lady.
Here's something taken from her blog.

Green Bag Lady Bags

35,074 FREE SHOPPING BAGS have been given away by Green Bag Lady! They are used daily in more than 3300 US cities, plus over 1400 cities in over 600 territories/ provinces/ countries world wide!

Bag Count Updated: Mar 31, 2016

 That's amazing isn't it?
 If you visit her blog regularly she gives away bags all the time so you may win one too!
In fact that's the second time I win her bags, both times through Sewmamasew!!

I have won some giveaways and received some mail!

It's been some time now that I won a couple of giveaways and received some mail and I am sorry I haven't mentioned them so far.
First from June's blog Butterfly Wings.I had guessed her next cross stitch piece and she sent me all these lovely things just near my birthday.

Second is a more recent one. I won all these Just Cross stitch magazines and thread and scissors and buttons at Frances' blog A symphony of stitches. giveaway.

Third a giveaway win back in November which arrived sometime in the New Year from Sewmamasew blog this lovely Simply Redwork book.

Fourth an Easter gift from dear Juliana, a lovely Simply Homemade magazine with a magnificent set of alphabet stamps. And some chocolate of course!

Fifth a surprise thank you card with homemade wax crayons by my dear friend Anna of In My Closet.

and Sixth a letter accompanied with postcards and birthday wishes from dear Roberto in Brazil!

Thank you everyone these are all lovely!

I was a birthday girl this week.

It's already February 1st!Wow!
One more week (and a whole month in fact) flew by!
Somewhere between floods and disasters happening everywhere in Greece due to the bad weather and a new leftist government in discussions with the Europeans,causing unbelievable positive and negative reactions at the same time all over Greece, this little girl here (that's me) had her birthday!
As I mentioned I didn't celebrate it  but I was really happy to receive some gifts and I am showing them today.I know more are in the post somewhere so I will show those when I receive them!
First hubby bought me a new mobile phone. Not that I needed one but he insisted!

He also gave me some money and I got myself three pullovers since it is sales time here. I hadn't bought anything for ages and I didn't even know what size I was!!!!!

The two are Bershka and the bottom one is H&M.
I also received lots of phone calls, facebook messages, SMS, e-cards and a couple of cards on the mail.
This one from my dear friend Maria Jose in the Acores,

 this handmade one from my dear friend Carolyn from England,

and this one from dear Juliana in Scotland. It's a Victoria &Albert Museum card.

Juliana also sent me a birthday gift and a Pay It Forward gift (a facebook game)
Here is what there was in her parcel.

 Chocolate of course, Crafts Beautiful magazine with a quilling set,

 felting wool, sequins, buttons ribbons and beads in gorgeous hues of blue,

  a little cute Barca ornament,

 this butterfly was hiding...

 ...a gorgeous set of sea glass wired wrapped earrings and pendant made by Alienstoatdesigns on etsy and ebay.

 some lovely soap,

 a set of lovely sea glass fridge magnets Juliana made herself,

 and a very beautiful tote bag printed with a photo of her sea glass made by SusanSeamaiden.

 Juliana thank you, you have been very generous with me always.
This week I also received a lovely pair of earrings that I had won on a giveaway a long time ago on Efzincreations blog.

 The earrings I had won were a Christmas design. They never arrived so sweet Triada of
The Purple Balloon gave me a second chance to choose another pair and I chose this lovely cupcakes earrings pair which arrived in time for my birthday!Thank you Triada!

And thank you Zina for hosting the giveaway!

An Otchipotchi giveaway win and purchase.

I have many a time mentioned otchipotchi and Paula Valentim from Portugal. I love her work.

 Every Christmas she makes some lovely ornaments.

 I loved this year's too and bought a set. They are very reasonably priced! And I was very lucky and won a set in her giveaway on her blog too!
So here they are.

 As always she added some little extras!

 And here they are on my small fir tree branch! I know they don't show much and maybe I should have put them by themselves but I also wanted to put some of my other friends' ornaments like Cathy's felt hearts she made for me some years ago,Gaby's little Scottish doll,a couple of my cross stitched ornaments, Gara's snowflakes and finally some ornaments I bought from the Metropolitan Museum of Art shop in New York at their summer clearance!!!!!.Now that I compare their prices to their on line shop I am shocked how great a bargain I scored!

Giveaway winning and a lovely gift.

Some time ago I was the happy winner of what generously was offered by Kim 

of Wisdom with needle and thread

Here's what Kim sent me ...her own handmade thread holder, along with a scissors keep, some cross stitch tags and some beautiful cards.

Kim was kind enough to let me choose which gifts I wanted from these.

And from these....

She also allowed me to nominate one more cross stitcher friend to whom she also sent similar gifts. I nominated Sarah of Sarah in Stitches. You can read all about it here.

Thanks Kim!

Also I recently received a lovely gift from dear Anna of inmyc.

She made this beautiful cushion out of one of my sea glass felted stones photograph. The photo was taken by Mak.Semers Digital Artist.

Thanks Anna!

What the mail brought

I received lots of Christmas cards, letters and parcels before and during the holidays. I find it a bit out of time to show the Christmas cards now. But I would like to thank all of my friends and pen pals for sending them.
Here are some things the mail brought a bit later in January and February.
At the beginning of January I received this lovely Christmas parcel with gifts and sea glass from dear Juliana in Scotland. Thank you so much sweetie!

 There were gifts for Barca too. The edelweiss soap from Austria smells divinely!

 Amazing sea glass from Scotland.

A lovely gift from dear Marabeth for all the celebrations of the new year!

 I loved the blue and white cross stitch kit.But the most special gift was the signed copy of the book Mermaid Tears by Madelyn Kavanaugh and gorgeously illustrated by Monica Loomis. Thank you so much Marabeth!

I had taken part in a giveaway on Sarah in Stitches blog some time ago and I was very lucky to win it.
Here is what sweet Sarah sent me.
Vintage cross stitch patterns, beads and buttons and a lovely Christmas fabric.

Two amazing pincushions made by Sarah.

 And this lovely pair of earrings. Thank you so much Sarah!

 I also received a letter from Christine in France which I really enjoyed reading with my coffee and sweets.

Another friend from Finland dear Tua sent me some very interesting booklets and cards from her country and this amazing sea glass pendant made by herself!

 Unique!Thank you Tua!

 Finally a little mermaid arrived all the way from snowy Denmark due to the generosity of avid Lego collector Julie of Moments of perfect clarity blog. I really enjoy reading your blog julochka. Your sweet mermaid really loved finding my sea glass and the Greek sun!