It Starts!!! our 13 Days of Christmas Swap

13 Packages of Artful Christmas Happy!!!

This has been a long while in the making!! Several of my art pals and I have been wanting to do a Christmas Swap for a long time, we always seem to think of it when we see other artists unveiling their swaps around this time of year. This year we actually managed to get our acts together and plan a swap in time to share with each other at the First of December. Well, almost!! Almost for two reasons, Reason #1 being that we were in search of artists to join us who we knew and who we knew would follow thru . In so doing I managed to loose my list of those we had invited, as I had offered to organize the swap, and ended up having 13 fabulous Art Friends to join in. So it is officially the 13 Days of Christmas Swap!!!!! We DO like to be different after all!! Reason #2 for our different sort of swap was the fact that not all packages arrived to their destinations at the same time. So we waited till all packages were in hand before we opened our first Gift!

Initially each participant made 13 individual ornaments or small art gifts, wrapped them and marked each package with their assigned number. then each artist sent their set of 13 items to me to swap out, then I sent each artist back a box that contained one of each ornament/present from 1-13.

At this point I was sorting all the packages into each person's box! No interruptions allowed!!!

The tower of boxes grew and grew!!! I got help getting it all to the post office.

Then we all waited.

Martha's box finally arrived in Toronto and the Opening began!!

Yesterday was our First Day, so we opened Package #1 from the ever amazing Barbara Burkhard!!!

Dear Barb and I ahve known each other for several years and we became good friends as we were both members of a wonderful on line art Group for several years. I knew that I wanted to have Barb be a part of this swap as soon as Martha and I decided that we had to have one!! Fortunately for all of us , Barb said that she would love to partake. This was Barb's lovely package. Almost too pretty to open.... I said almost!!!

Nestled in that lovely box was this delicate glass ball filled with crystals with a transparency with a wonderful snowman image printed on it. the transparency fit perfectly in the glass globe and is the same image as the card atop the package- clever girl!!!! The ball was topped off by the gorgeous silver ribbon and a lovely little silver bell with the sweetest clear sound! The ball was nestled down into a wonderful felt and lace, snowflake encrusted cuff bracelet!! What an amazing package!

Barb has certainly set the bar quite high for this swap, but I am not at all surprised this is just how my dear friend Barb is- an amazing and generous and loving heart!!!!

Thank you so very much, Barb, for joining us in our swap. What a way to begin!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here is Barb's wonderful ornament hanging on our tree. This weekend I am going to make time to dig out my special tree that I use just for my art ornaments. After several years of being in several groups I have gotten quite an amazing collection and they all deserve a very special tree. In fact I might have to get a bigger tree!! I am also going to have to work at getting a better picture of this ornament- this one is a bit tricky to photograph.

So today, December 6 was day 2 in our 13 Days Swap. Package #2 was from my good friend Mary Zimany. Mary was another member of the art group that both Barb and I belonged to and she was also quite anxious to revive some of our wonderful art fun from years past.

As I knew she would, Mary apid attention to every possible little detail!! I just adore her packaging! She used a wonderful piece of sari silk yarn to tie the bag closed and i am sure that she knows that this scrap will be going into some fiber project soon!! :)

This was inside! (Please overlook the white dog hair on the red carpet, Buddy the dog just ran thru and left some of himself behind!)

I love the way Mary made use of this darling little glass topped tin to create this wonderful scene. She coated the outside of the tin with colorful alcohol inks and hung the tin from a soft green velvet ribbon and a lovely lace rose. Perfection!!! The two sweet little girls spreading their prayer for Peace On Earth is a very special addition to my collection. Thank you so very much, dear Mary!!

So tomorrow we will all open Package #3!! Stay tuned!!!