A few days ago I finally finished my swap ornaments and send them out to all participants. I made these small stockings.

I like to recycle or use whatever I have lying around, so for my ornaments I used a leftover piece of oilcloth, an old brown envelope, a bit of netting from a mandarine crate, a small piece of red felt, 2 different ribbons I bought at a christmas sale last year and small beige buttons from my button stash.

I made a little tutorial if you are interested in making some yourself, To make my little christmas stockings you can use whatever you prefer like felt, linen, cotton or even paper.

Save the template below (right click and use save picture as to save it to your harddrive). Print and cut out all pieces.

Click on the link below for the rest of the description.

Look what arrived on my doorstep this morning:

A box send by Amy wrapped in a wonderful green paper and inside I found some small packages

It was so much fun to see what's inside those packages... yet again I received some beautiful, lovely and most of all creative and wellmade ornaments. It's such a wonderful group that's participating in Amy's swaps!

I received a totally adorable glittering fairy made by Calamity Kim. I'm pretty sure I will keep this one hanging on my closet after the christmas decorations are gone!

Thanks to Amy and Kim I now know this little fellow is made by Margie.

This beautiful knitted and supersoft ornament is made by Bertha from Karmakitties.com and seeing this made me feel like knitting again :)
Oh and if you're interested she also provides a link to the free pattern she used as a base for these.

This beautiful delicate blue christmas tree was made by Kristin of Kleas. She used the template provided by The small object

And last but certainly not least the totally adorable little sugarplum fairy from Amy herself which came in a beautiful handmade package and as a bonus I received some of her beautiful handmade tags, a christmas card and some craftpapers.

I want to say thanks to each of these wonderful crafters for the beautiful ornaments I received.

Inside my studio it's almost the same temperature as outside and as you can see in the picture above ice is on the windows so it's pretty cold. I do have an old electric heater but it's almost impossible to get it warm enough to make beads without cracking them. That's why last week I decided to have a temporary stop and enjoy my little vacation.

The last couple of days I spent having long "pyama-mornings", lacy afternoons with a bit of crafting here and there. I also started reading a book and did some browsing the internet, visiting and reading blogs I haven't had time to visit in a long time.

My evenings are even more lacy watching movies on tv, browsing a bit more and simply enjoy familylife.

This all started me to think about the way I've been living my life the last couple of years. The way I have been pushing myself to start new things even before I've finished what I'm working on. In the end this definately results in less joy. So my big plan for the next year is to stop pushing and start enjoying.

Have a nice Eve and be carefull with the fireworks!