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!

Paperless Post

Hi friends,
you might remember that at this time last year I was talking about writing Christmas cards and how I don't have the time for it.
And I had introduced you to Paperless Post., a site I had tried in order to send virtual Christmas cards.
You can read my last year's post here.
I don't know yet what I will do this year, if I will write real cards and letters or not. I will probably make a newsletter and send to all of my friends as well as some cards but I plan to use Paperless Post again for digital cards to all of my friends around the world as it is much faster and cheaper to do so.
So in case you don't receive a real snail mail letter and card from me don't worry, you are definitely going to receive a virtual one and who knows you might get the real one later.
I had a look at the Paperless Post site to see what they have new this year and I really fell in love with this card which became my favourite.

Runners up are these two.

But there is so much to choose from. For instance if you love Santa...

 If you live in NY ( as I would have loved to).....

If you love snowmen and snowflakes.....

or snowscapes....

or flamingoes....

There are funny ones......

bright ones......

classic ones of course....

and some with a smart twist....

There are some with stockings....

Some minimalistic....

and some religious...

or with the new year on....

for music lovers....

or if you want to add the photo of your family (which reminds me that I should be taking a family photo soon)

The site is very user friendly and you can choose from really many cards and you can change the fonts, the envelopes, even the postmarks on them. It is so entertaining to make your own digital card.

You can even use their Flyer which makes digital cards with gifs, text effects and stickers.

One thing I would really love to see in their site is a  bookish Christmas card and a fairy tale Christmas card too. Maybe they have one and I should look to other categories but there was not one in the Christmas, New Year and Holidays category.

So if you feel like making your own digital Christmas card go to Paperless Post.

(I was in no way compensated with money to write this review. My opinion is totally honest. This blog review was written after communication with Anagram Interactive.All the photos are from the Paperless Post site.)

January the cold month!

This January 2017 will be remembered for its cold and bad weather!
But January really started with sunshine and a walk at the seafront

 Look how clean the water is!

 On the first days of the new year I had the chance to have coffee with friends. At Macedonia Palace Hotel.

At Palermo cafe.

 In January I had my hair dyed.And loved the new hair cut.

Then before schools opened we spent two days at Tsepelovo. I have blogged about it so have a look in this blog post!

That's how it was when we arrived there....(view from our room)

 ...and that's how it was when we left.

Lovely village,

amazing stone bridges all around there...

And my small souvenirs from there, viewcards, wooden fridge magnets and a stone from the frozen river!

 Returning home I took down the tree and decorated with snow in my mind trying to keep the memories of snowed Tsepelovo in my eyes.

Little did I know that very soon this would become a reality. Snow storm "Ariadne" froze us all, the whole of Greece and filled every little space with snow! At first we enjoyed it!

Schools kept closed for a week so I had a week more of holidays!

(photo by my headteacher)

Having spent three weeks of holidays in January I had the chance to read more and stitch more.

Then the sun came out and melted the snow

And we returned back to normal.

 I met my crafty group

At school we performed in class Midsummer Night's Dream with my pupils.

Hubby and I enjoyed attending Smyrni my beloved at Music Hall.

Soon it was sunny again although bitterly cold.

So we went to the beach house.

I collected some sea glass and took some macro photos too with my new gadget.

Doesn't this flower centre look like it is beaded?

Back in the city I went to an exhibition about orchids and their protection,
a collaboration of Greece and Turkey.
There were works of art in various media. Wood.

Watercolours

We also visited the exhibition of Nikos Kryonidis at Zina Athanasiadou Gallery.
There were great paintings there.

I especially adored this painting.

After getting an info from a friend, hubby and I went to this junk shop. Oh it was an awful mess. Filled to the rim with books, cds and toys.  But you really had to look very very hard to find something good in it.

We got this lovely fabric painted with Indonesian shadow puppets.

It was my birthday in January too of course!

We had lunch out for the day and I got a birthday cake from my brother and sister!

We met again with my crafty group at Koumbi coffee and crafts cafe under the guidance of Anna of In my closet and made these lovely key chains and bows for charity.

I had to buy one for my bag as well!

We were also invited at a friend's house for dinner!It was really nice!

As I mentioned before hubby bought a very cheap gadget, a macro lens for our mobiles. I loved taking photos with it.I had the chance to take macro photos at Tsepelovo

during the snowstorm

of my stones

at the beach as I showed earlier.

Barca had to stay a lot in the flat because of the weather unfortunately.

But she really enjoyed the snow when we went to play with it!

In January I received this beautiful new year charm from my friend Kikitsa of DIY my day.

I also received one of my pupil's dolls from the Parents' Association at my school. I had loved her dolls and I am glad I have one now!

I also received some gifts for my birthday. From dear Anna, Angela and Efi,Thank you girls!

My mum and son brought me roses!

In January I also received Christmas cards. From dear Nicholas, a talented shadow puppeteer...

from dear Andria in the States,

from Sophie in the States and Cathy in England,

A beautiful parcel arrived from Marabeth in the States again and Barca was eager to open it.

There were so many lovely little gifts inside.

And then from Tua in Finland,

And a painted card from Ian in England,

Thank you all for the cards and letters and gifts!

In January I read Malkin Moonlight by Emma Cox, which is a great story of a cat world. The book has received the National Literacy Trust Award in England and was sent to me from dear Ian as Emma is his daughter. This was my first book in #readathon17, the So little sleeping and so much reading challenge.

The second book was one more gift this time from Marie -Anne of  L'atelier de Marie-Anne. It is Anthony Quinn's Half of the Human Race and I found it very good too.

No 3 in my #readathon17 challenge was one more gift by my friend Gia. Kathryn Stockett's 

The Help. I had seen the movie and the book is even better.

Speaking about books I also received some books from Anna,

and Efi,

and these two I bought from the junk shop.

In January I started stitching a UFO (unfinished object) I had left behind for a very long time. It was one of my New Year's Resolutions to finish some stash I have.So this is Thea Gouverneur's The Indonesian Dancer (or The Balinese Dancer)

Barca keeps me good company while I stitch every night.

And this is how far I went in it in January.

I made a stone for a friend

and this one for Neus , a friend in Spain who unfortunately never received it.

At my ceramics class I finished my tea/coffee pot.

I also started two more dishes!

I love using my tea/coffee pot!

In January I bought a pair of lovely warm home slippers from a chemist's as it was on sale.

I also bought a diary and a magazine. I found these through another blog and found it interesting. They are so very beautiful inside.It's called Daphne's Diary. If you hurry the diary is half price now.

Finally I bought a little pouch for my bag from my favourite little French e-shop Cozy Memories. Dear Sonia made this such a special parcel.

January was a good month. Let's see what February will bring!See you then!