Birthday Swap

This year I've been participating in Kaisa's Birthday Swap and yesterday it was my turn to receive all the gifts! It was so exciting opening so many gifts in one day. Here they are.

Drora used her little shells from the Sea of Galilee to make the framed collection and little box. She also made me flowers and jewellery. There's a lovely heart shaped jewellery box and a water cooler that lights up!

 Faby has been stitching table mats and a bread bag. And can you see the spoon holder!

 Maria has sent so many things from a bed set to useful beads. She also made a pretty bread bag with a loaf inside!

Rosella stitched me a cushion with the letter 'G'! And the sweet parasole opens and closes!

 Simona has been printing! A book with readable pages, a tiny stationeryset and bags.

 Teresa has made a sweet set of baby items and a vintage sign to hang on the wall.

Karin made a lamp trimmed with crystals, beautiful candle sticks and birthday chocolates!

It's been fun swapping gifts and interesting to see all the lovely miniatures made by others.
I still have four more to arrive, so this birthday will stretch our for some time yet!
A big thank you to everyone! 

Kaisa's Birthday Swap - Rosella

I'm sure you have heard that Kaisa organised a birthday swap for this year.
Rosella had the first birthday, in February and Kaisa has now posted photos of all the gifts.
Although everyone shipped their gifts in good time, so far only half have arrived.
These are what I sent to Rosella on 23rd January. She is still waiting for their arrival.

The late gifts will hopefully help to extend Rosella's birthday celebrations.
If you are having a birthday this week, Many Happy Returns to You!

Surprise Gift!

If it's your birthday you might expect some greetings cards and a gift or two. It makes you happy to know friends and family have remembered your special day. BUT when a little parcel arrives and it isn't your birthday and you haven't ordered anything from Etsy or another website you become very curious and excited!
This happened to me today!
When I saw the return address I was so pleased to see it was from a very kind and lovely person - Sandra!
She wished me a Belated Happy Birthday which is wonderful because it makes the celebration last even longer!

Look what what was inside!

 How can she part with these?

So beautifully made - I just love them! Thank you, thank you, thank you!
If you'd like to see other things Sandra makes and collects she has a lovely blog with some very detailed photos of her miniatures here. http://samirasminis.blogspot.com/
What a great way to start the week!

Drawing the Winner Soon!

There are only  six hours left to add your name to the list for the Birthday Draw, I'm getting excited myself!
As for my birthday, I had a really wonderful evening, thanks to the hard work of my daughter and her 'soon to be husband', who I've mentioned before is a wizard in the kitchen. I was sent out for the day and during that time he prepared all the food for a delicious three course meal, made a fabulous fruit cake, and decorated the house with balloons and streamers. All the other guests were our children and partners who gave me such lovely presents I was really over whelmed, and over weight - well, my luggage was going back on Ryanair!
I'll be back tomorrow with news of the winner! Meantime a photo of lovely presents made for me by my friend Oly, the other half of 'The Dollshouse Club', stitched on silk gauze.

Halloween Parties!

My son, Alex was born on Halloween, 26 years ago. Every year he had to have a special Halloween party with a pumpkin cut into a gruesome face and a cake made to look the same. Now he's an adult he has grown up parties but still loves to have fancy dress and spooky stuff decorating the house, so the parties haven't really changed that much!
I started making a mini party but got so carried away that I've made enough for three parties, with birthday cakes, cupcakes in little cases, paper plates and presents.
I got the artwork for the tableware from http://www.theshabbyshoppe.com, it's one of their fabulous Confection Collections that I have shrunk down. I hope you like them - and Happy Birthday, Alex. xx

Birthday Give Away

Those of you who've been following for a while may recall back in September, that I mentioned a certain birthday I'm about to 'celebrate'. I've decided to have a Give Away to cheer myself up!
I'm heavily into box designing this week so the give away will be boxes! These are for a man, possibly his birthday as there is gift wrap included and also one of my little patchworks for his chair or bed.
I shall be away for a week with family and friends, so will draw the winner the day after my return which is also the birthday of my youngest son who was born on Halloween, 31st October.
All you have to do for a chance to win is be a follower, leave a comment on this blog and it must be before midnight 30th October Spanish time.
Good Luck!

Here are the boxes shown on the reverse of the patchwork.

Birthdays

I have always wondered why people knock a few years off their age, as if embarrassed about when they were born. You hear people thinking 'yeah, and the rest'. My thoughts are - why not ADD five years, then everyone will think how good you look for your age!
I've always been honest and quite amused about being 40, then 50, but 60 - I don't like this one. A give-away to celebrate a birthday is such a nice idea. I've decided to have a give-away in October, not to celebrate but to help take my mind off this one! Details later.

Birthday Party

Painting miniature tables and baskets didn't go according to plan. I did make a start but since then have been snowed under with real life size tasks largely due to the fact we live in Spain.
Residing in Spain puts us on the top of everyone's holiday list - to visit, well the family's list, that is and I have to admit I love it and enjoy preparing for guests and looking after them. But it does involve extra shopping time, bed making, cleaning - cleaning? What's that? And a drive of an hour and a half each way to the airport to collect and then again to drop off.

This week has been the week of my husband's birthday, so apart from the family guests we've also had a riotous garden party with friends, entwined with noisy football watching, agonisingly childish antics in the pool and far, far too much food and drink - especially drink. My favourite 'fizzy pop' was on special so there was many a bottle of that consumed along with all the other bottles and cans of whatever and the sangria my husband made - I dread to think what was in it but three large jugs were downed.

Today has passed in a flash. Despite the help I had, I wasn't finished getting the house back to anything like normal until 4pm this afternoon when I needed to lie down! All I've done tonight is cook a meal and I'm ready for bed again.

I'll get the tables done tomorrow - and we'll eat out.