A Fairy Went A-Marketing

Once again my sister is hostessing a very enchanting swap! I am so excited about it this year as we worked together to come up with ideas. There are two categories - one for adults and one for kids, and prizes for both. For more information and to JOIN hop on over to her blog. To see pictures of some of last year's enchantment, check out the flickr group here and pictures of what I sent here.

Crafting, Cooking, Crazy!!

The holiday season is upon us and we are in the full spirit of it here. Earlier this month I signed up for three swaps, you can see the tags on the right sidebar. Two were due this week, we are also hosting Thanksgiving Dinner for my family (37+ people!) and Lucy is making Homemade Pies this afternoon to raise money for her marching band fees. So, it is very festive here!!These are all the cute things we made for the Handmade Stocking Stuffer Swap. We had 14 children on our list, 8 boys and 6 girls. David made the boy things, and I made the mermaid dollies for the girls. I was so glad that David stepped in to help! He is so creative and handy when he wants to be :)

A close up of the mermaids. I had so much fun making these for the swap that I decided to make some for my little nieces for Christmas.

I made these handmade chocolate truffles for the goody in the Enchanted Forest Ornament Swap. They were so easy and soooo yummy! If you want to try them, here's the recipe...

1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

1 cup good quality chocolate (I used Ghiradelli dark chocolate chips)

Heat the cream over medium heat to just before boiling, remove from heat, add the chocolate and stir to melt.

If you would like to add flavorings, do so now. I added about a tablespoon of peanut butter to one batch, to the other I added about a tablespoon of reduced cherry syrup (another recipe maybe!) and a teaspoon of rum. Stir in the flavorings thoroughly.

Put in a covered bowl in the refrigerator until stiff enough to mold. (about 1-2 hours or overnight is fine.)

Form into little balls - I scooped with a melon baller and then rolled to form. Roll in cinnamon sugar or cocoa powder.

That's it! Easy!

Here they are all packaged up, with the ornament and a kitchen towel. The towel is made of natural linen with a border of Japanese woodland friends fabric I got on etsy.


With all the craziness, I let Jesse stay home from school today (it was only a half day anyway!) and he rewarded me by making these amazing blueberry scones! Thank you sweet boy! I think he's turning into a fine cook!

Easter Basket Swap 2

Real quick, because I really need to get over to the county fair...but Missy keeps bugging me to post the pictures of what I sent for the Very Vintage Easter Basket Swap! So here it is:

All packaged up and ready to go!

I made the linen emroidered bunny towel, framed Faith picture, pom pom bunny and chick, vintage easter art tags. The German paper mache egg is filled with Desiree's favorite Easter treat - Hershey's candy coated milk chocolate eggs.

Desiree did receive her package in time for Easter and reported that she loved it all!

Thanks Desiree for being a great partner, and thanks Heidi for hosting such a fun swap!!

Easter Basket Swap

Well, I bravely participated in Heidi Devlin's of Foxgloves, Fabric and Folly "Very Vintage Easter Basket Swap". Here is what my partner, Desiree, sent me... A whole box of fun Easter goodies! Ornaments, lavender soap and spray, Mary Engelbreit notepads & magnets, cute fabric pom pom pen made by Desiree, German Easter eggs....
A darling bunny candy dish filled with my favorite chocolate malted milk eggs (these have always been the "taste" of Easter for me!)


A sweet vintage hanky (how did she guess?) and cute little chick ornament she made out of salt dough.
Thanks Desiree! You were a great partner!

(I will post pictures of what I sent Desiree just as soon as she receives it...)

Robin's Pixie Swap

When everyone was getting excited about Fairy and Pixie swaps, Robin really wanted to participate too. Fortunately one of Missy's friends has a son about Robin's age who also wanted to participate, so they got to be partners. Both boys had fun being creative and magical!


Here is what Robin made for Ezie. He sewed the pouch himself and helped with the brass eyelets. He felted a ball and a pouch, and made the borax crystal ornament. He made the wand almost entirely on his own with a stick from our yard, copper wire, wool roving, and peacock feathers from our peacocks.

Robin was so excited to come home from playing on Saturday and find his box from Ezie! He ripped right in to it and found all the great treasures above. Thanks, Ezie for being a great partner! Robin loves everything you sent, has already used some of the tattoos and driven us all crazy with the noisemakers :-)

Elsa's Pixie Swap

Elsa's partner for the Pixie Swap was FawnDear's little Princess. These little girls had a great time coming up with magical goodies for each other!

Here is Elsa opening her package. She was so excited to find it in the mail and had to open it immediately, of course!

And here is all her magical goodness. The wand is so sweet! On the other side it says "A dream is a wish your heart makes" which made all of us swoon! It's our favorite Cinderella quote. Thank you, Princess and Fawn!

Here is all the sweetness that Elsa sent to Princess. She had so much fun felting the little pouch, stringing the beads on the bracelet, painting all the blue on the pixie doll, and gathering up all the tiny little things.

Luck of the Fae Swap

Whew! My first swap is finally complete! My partner was Fawn~Dear and it was a delight to swap with her. I would love to be her partner again!

Here are all the goodies Fawn sent to me...I couldn't believe she sent one of her fairy doors! And Fawn, where did you find the Flower Fairy seeds?! The wand is wood-burned and painted with roses and a quote from Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream", one of my favorite Shakespeare plays. I love how it says "Fairy Queen Beth Miller"!

Here is the enchanting little doll Fawn made. She has the sweetest flower petal dress, and soft golden hair. Aren't those wings beautiful? Fawn says she made them from a flexible cutting board from the dollar store! So creative!

Here is what I made for Fawn. I think I got a little carried away with the ribbons and charms on the wand! The shamrock pin is my first ever needle-felting project and it was really fun.

Once I got the little doll made, I couldn't resist making her a little house out of a seed pot. It's wallpapered with old seed packets and pages from an old gardening book. It was a blast to make!

Here's a close-up of the plethora of charms and stuff on the wand. I had a great time with this swap. It was so fun to be really creative for a change. Thanks, Fawn for being an awesome partner!