Today's Happy Mail, A Great End to a Great Year.

Today was a beautiful day for mail, after the post office was closed for 3 days last week and they will again be closed tomorrow and the day after, I am so glad I got these goodies today.
First my Sew Mama Sew Win a beautiful handmade gift from Anita of Daydreams of Quilts, I love handmade gifts the most, okay money is good too, hehehe!  But handmade is really wonderful, having something that someone else has made, just feels good.

Anita also included a handmade card! 4 ropes of twine, a cute zippered pouch and the largest mug rug I have ever seen.

The pink mug rug has become a doll blankie for my daughter's dolls, but I get to lay claim to the pouch, look at this awesome rainbow zipper!

She does a fantastic job on the binding and I love the labels, she has an Etsy shop if you need anything.

Next in the mail was 2 books I ordered from Amazon, kind of a Christmas gift to myself since my husband never buys me Christmas gifts, oh and by the way today is our 7 year anniversary of when I moved here, I came to Greece on New Years Eve in 2006.

This is showing ALL 5 of my craft books, today I got the "Sew Classic Clothes for Girls"(it was 50% off at Amazon UK) and "Hoop-La" ( I am thinking of making a business doing crafts with hoops), both seem awesome so far, was a little confused with the Sew Classic one and I might need to read a few other clothing instructions since it is more for intermediate and advanced sewers than beginners in clothes.  The "Handmade Home" I won from my good friend Shirley of Simple Sew, it's an interesting book and she talks alot about up-cycling which I like, but the author is like an extreme upcycler.  "In the Studio with Angela Walters" is good you can see my review here.  And while state side I picked up Sara Lawson's of Sew Sweetness "Big City Bags" book, I was excited about it, but now not so much I like her PDF patterns better, more picture :)

I'm going to join in the Craft Book Sew Along over at Live Love Create for this new year, I have lot's of inspiration!

Also in the mail were the charms from the Allison Glass Sunprints Charm Swap.

I purchased my fabric for this swap, while in the States, I had communicated with the fabric shop before I went and asked if they had her fabric and they said they had all of the sunprints, but when I arrived they actually only had her feathers and had just gotten in some of the Clover Sunshine prints.  I was a little bummed because I had been looking forward to getting some of the X and + prints (top right corner) only 1 other person had gotten them and our swap mama knew that I had wanted to get them and look at that she sent me 2 pieces that are larger than 5" square, they say trim on them, so sweet, Thank you Melissa.  And not only did she send me something extra, but she also cut the charms for me, since when I went to the shop they were going to charge me $10 to cut my fabric in their back room, even though they were having "open sew night", doesn't sound to open to me. (more on the shop later).  I thought I had gotten 2 fabrics that were already in the swap but actually the lilac corsage I got is different from the other lilac corsage so that's cool and the lilac feathers are so pretty that I don't mind having 4 squares of them.

I think I will use some of these in a new swap going on flickr, it's for mini quilts with the group Super Swaps, the talent in this group is amazing and the swaps are always beyond awesome, deadline to sign up is  January 6th, you should come join!  I made one mini quilt you can see it here.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!