Winter Cheer Swap

I joined my first swap!  I belong to a group of primitive crafters on ebay and this past month we did a Winter Cheer Swap to help get through all of the wonderful snow we are having.  This was my first experience with joining a swap and I had a ball.  It was so much fun to make some goodies and search for some extra goodies to go into the package.

Our theme was Simplify.  It was fun to see what everyone came up with and all of the wonderful talent in the group.  Below is the rug I hooked for my swap. One of the ladies, Rebecca,  designed some doodles for us to use for this swap.  I also made a red heart pin tuck out of wool and found some other goodies that I sent to her.

My swap sender as Betty of Primitive Bettys fame.  Here is the package I received for the swap from Betty.  Betty made this wonderful penny rug from a Maggie Bonanomi pattern.  I've had my eye on that pattern for awhile and was afraid to try it out.  I have to tell you it is wonderful!

She also took one of the doodles that Rebecca shared with us and did the wonderful pin tuck.  Her needle punch is fabulous and her finishing is wonderful.  This is something that I'm wanting to work on for myself.  I want to practice more of needle punch, but my finishing is where I lack.  So it's nice to see in person how others have finished things.  Now I'm ready to play in wools and I also shopped around for some trims to have on hand to try out.  Below is a close up pic of the pin tuck.  Isn't so prim and wonderful.   I have a wooden dough trough that I have wanted to fill up with yummy prim things, this is my start.

She also made me an adorable heart pin out of velveteen and it has one of those rusty bells.  Just makes it so prim.  I love it.  Awhile back, I saw a blog where the lady used a journal to plan her projects.  What I liked about it, was that it had graph paper in it instead of lined paper.  I started looking around for one, but only found the lined ones.  How surprised was I, when I saw that she sent me a journal and it has graph paper in it.  She also sent some yummy DMC colors that I will use in my needle punch.  Also, I can't forget she sent some chocolate M & Ms.  Thomas grabbed them first thing and kept teasing me to chase him for them.  LOL

I really enjoyed my experience of my first swap and hope to join in another one.  It has really helped to inspire me and now I have so many things running through my mind that I want to do.

We woke up this morning to another snow storm.  It's really coming down out there now and the wind is blowing so hard.  They are saying we will have 6 - 8 inches before it ends tomorrow.  I hope everyone stays in and stays warm.  I'm going to curl up on the couch and get a project out to work on.