Christmas in July swap 2016

I signed up to take part in Kim's (wisdom with needle and thread) Christmas in July swap.  I took part last year (here is the post)  and really enjoyed it, so decided to take part again.  The idea was that you would be given a recipient's address and someone else would be given yours.  Three hand made Christmas items from a suggested list would be made and other items could be included if the sender wanted to.  The gifts would be posted in time to arrive for the great unwrapping on 25th July.  My sender was the lovely Debbie from  debbie's corner. The parcel arrived and I had to ignore it until 25th July (which required some willpower!)    

I undid the parcel to discover more exciting parcels waiting for me and I opened them up to find...  

...a very generous and lovely selection of beautiful things!  Debbie is obviously very creative as she had sent me some fingerless gloves, an appliqued placemat, a beautifully cross stitched decoration and another beautifully stitched box decoration, as well as pencils, a notepad, a cracker, a selection of tea and two recipes.  Wow!

 You can see what I mean about the beautiful stitching on the decoration.

 Inside the box are some flower tags - another surprise!

 I do suffer from cold hands, so gloves are always welcome.  A HUGE thank you to Debbie who was so generous and sent me the most beautiful things.  I am very lucky.

The recipient for my parcel was Gracie at needlespins and dragonflies.  I had sneaky peek at her blog to see what she liked and was able to include some things I hoped she would enjoy.  As you can see, the Christmas things were bunting, polymer clay heart decorations and a felt star.

The other things were a UK cross stitch magazine, a pug dog keyring and a pair of pearl and sterling silver earrings.
Thanks to Kim for running the swap and doing all the organising and again to Debbie for my lovely gifts.  Here's to Christmas in July 2017.