Friendship and Heart-warming gifts

Hi Everyone,

Continuing in the theme of convention talk, I'd like to share some gifts I made for my roomies, some hostesses for the week following workshops, thankyou tokens and the lovely pieces I was also given by friends, some I met for the first time in real life!

After the adventure of swaps were completed I made these little pink gifts using the SU Bigz Die- Candy Wrapper. It is actually two candy wrappers cut shorter of one end, overlapped and joined together with the trusty red 'sticky' strip. I decorated the centre wraps using papers from DSP- Beau Chateau (a long time fav collection of mine) with some stamp work from another fav set- Attic Boutique, Hostess thankyou set (currently in the main catalogue) and the new Blossom Punch in the current Autumn/Winter Mini. Inside was 2 lovely.... (and I can say lovely because my dad always said -"don't give anything to someone else you'd never want yourself"- so it was only right that I taste-test right? for quality control and all that jazz LOL!) so back to what I was saying 'lovely chocolate truffles'! They were wrapped in pink fancy papers too :-)

I made 9 of them altogether and decorated them with some torn strips of Beau Chateau Designer Fabric and some 'retired' soft suede spotted gross-grain ribbon.

Friendship Gifts

And then as well as the swaps that were made for convention itself, of those 54 (previously mentioned in last  post) quiet a few were for my fellow JAI team members, many of whom I got to meet for the first time face to face and even better included as their roomies. In exchange I have a beautiful selection of swaps from these very creative girls.

Here is the selection from my JAI team mates (minus mine which was featured in last blog post) and my apologies the lighting , the tinge or should I say photography does not do these creative works any justice.

   

   

These 3 swaps are from Left- Trish Radacs, Right- Tina Gillespie and centre front- Patrice Easton.- Love the colours and stamps :-)

These two below were done by Nikki Spencer with the cute elegant little bag and the Chic Butterfly embossed  card was made by Kim Badelt

 These next lovely Teal featured creations were made by Left- Christine Blain, Centre - Delys Cram and Right- Mae Collins

And these beautiful Red features. The left one with that gorgeous red rose was made by Chantell Randel and the right one made by Jodene Tripp which features clever diagonal scoring and that new Mixed bunch/Blossom Punch in the current SU Autumn/Winter Mini catalogue. 

The two cards are by Paula Dobson on the Left- she is a mavel with all these ink ideads, I'de love to be over her shoulder when these are getting put together and 

the Right one is by Narelle Farrugia, she has a gorgeous neat style with a lovely vintage touch in her work, been a fan forever!

I was also spoilt with some lovely friendship gifts this beautiful broach below was made by Kim Badelt. She has used the 'Fun Flowers' dies from Stampin Up and cut the flowers from felt, then added lovely hand stitching and beading, I totally adore it and she made several in all our favourite colours.

This lovely set below was a gorgeous roomie gift from Nikki Spencer, I love the elegance and richness of the  Stamped Letter and Cherry Cobbler and the Bag label is gorgeous! It makes a great way to tell the difference at convention whose bag is whose, otherwise they're all the same.

And here is a universal photo of all my roomie gifts together. I felt so spoilt and can totally say I have treasured every moment of my conference experience with these girls.

The way that every little step just worked together so well this year was so great, I had my long time friends Al and Janet had me over the night before in Brissie and then drove me to the airport at 5am in the morning delivered safe and sound and then on arrival I got to meet Nikki Spencer and Kim Badelt who kindly not only picked us both up from the airport but along with our other roomies Delys Cram and sister Andrea Morgan, showed us around Canberra for the day and on other occasion. Arriving back home I was picked again by my friends Al and Janet and stayed the night catching up. All this coordination and offers from friends took such a weight off my mind.

Arriving at Janet's she gave me a lovely gift that she had put careful creative time into, such dedication and care in every detail, opened up to reveal this gorgeous crocheted fan that holds a scented sachet. Along with the gorgeous card. She made each item herself. She made it for my birthday and I shall treasure it always.

So in the theme of friendship I'll finish this long post with this lovely blessing to all my friends those I've known a longtime, those new, those I'm still to meet-

"May there always be work for your hands to do, may your purse always hold a coin or two. May the sun always shine on your windowpane, may a rainbow be certain to follow each rain. May the hand of a friend always be near you, may God fill your heart with gladness to cheer you."

- Irish Blessing

Enjoy - Ruthy