my gifts from Nicole

...sooooooo, Elfster notifies me that the package my gifter (from Craftaholics Anonymous' summer gift exchange) is sending is in the mail. USPS tracking tells me it should show up sometime on July 7th. Cool!
Imagine my surprise when Saturday evening after we arrived home from shopping at Lowes, I find a parcel in the mail. (How did it traverse roughly 2,000 miles after being sent Parcel Post on June 28?)
Ah well, that shall remain as one of life's deep mysteries -- let's get to the good stuff.
My wonderful new friend Nicole sent me these:

four tiles Mod Podged into lovely coasters

& a wonderful print that fits me to a T!

(trying to decide what color frame...)

Thank you so much!


And I wish to thank Linda of Craftaholics Anonymous for such a fun summer handmade gift exchange.  Can't wait to participate in the November swap!

an ONLINE, HANDMADE gift exchange

I posted earlier in the month that I was excited to participate in Craftaholics Anonymous' summer gift exchange.
Linda, from Craftaholics Anonymous, set up about 650 of us into an Elfster account. We were automatically paired up with a "giftee" and a "gifter" on June 7th. We have (had) until June 30th to create & ship the item(s) to the recipient.

My giftee turned out to be Rebecca from Boise. I was able to ask her a couple anonymous questions to formulate my plan of attack:

Oh good! Maybe I'll make a coffee-something design for her kitchen since she likes food.

ugh! Not coffee...

Green, I can work with green.

hmmmmmmm -- perhaps a tea towel with cookie cutter designs & her name?

So, as I'm going through my designs I realize I don't have any suitable cookie cutter-ish files to stitch on a towel. (I had in mind those old-fashioned aluminum ones with the little green wooden handles...)

(source)

I then determined I would just appliqué her name onto the towel. In green fabric. Make that alternating green fabrics. 

(I modified the "Cheri" alphabet from Bunnycup Embroidery)

So I did.

I also made some microwave finger mitts to coordinate.

(I enclosed a card I made with her name, as well.)
I'm still waiting to see what I receive in the mail...


***6/30/2012 -- Saved by the buzzer! Guess what was in the mail this evening? (Guess you'll just have to "stay tuned" for that post...)