Five on Friday

Joining up again today with Amy of Love Made My Home and her world-famous Five on Friday!!

Today I'm going to share five things that have really brightened my days recently in the lead up to Christmas. There has a been a flurry of giving and receiving through the mail the past few weeks! All of which has been between fellow bloggers. I've also received some surprises from my son, who is a real sweetheart at times even though he can drive me to distraction at others ;)

One ~ Gifts received:

Through my card & tea exchange group, we've had lots of fun with the little gifts to accompany our cards. How cute are these little gifts that came through the mail! Colouring page (I enjoyed working on that during a Christmas special!), embroidered goodness, and sparkling snowflake delights!

Tea wallets, gift tags and lots of new teas to try!

Daily planners, knitted tea pouch and crocheted snowflake!

The best part about this card exchange is that we all live in Canada, but are spread far and wide across the entire width! From Prince Edward Island, Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia. A few of us are very close to each other. Now that we have got to know each other a little better, I do hope that we can meet up together sometime next year.

Two ~ Beautiful cards:

I've received lots of cards from blogging friends this year too. Quite a few of them were handmade. I know we all have our preference for displaying cards. My parents used to have all their cards on top of their baby grand piano. I have a few on my buffet until I get the Christmas decorations out. Then I find it better to tape them all to my kitchen window.

Three ~ A few gifts sent out:

These are the gifts I put in the card exchange. My second try at paper piecing which worked up much quicker than my first try. I did these assembly-line fashion which really helped.

Four ~ A gift from my son:

My teen son surprised us with this metal reindeer he made in welding class. I quite like the simple design and the rugged look of it. I just think it needs a little wreath of green around its neck and will try to make something up for that on the weekend.

I also received a "re-gifted" gift from my son. He gave me a metal heron that he made in welding class a couple of years ago, but the head broke off last year. I've been asking and asking him to take it into school and reattach the head. Today, that finally got fixed and he gave it back to me all together again. I love this piece and put it in his pond garden in the summertime. It's his own design.

Five ~ A little gift to me from me!

While browsing through some stores last week, I came across this cute glass cookie jar. It has a ceramic top and I just couldn't put it back on the shelf. So home it came even though I really shouldn't have. I like glass cookie jars because you can see what's inside them ... in this case, nothing :(

Thanks for stopping by today!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Wendy