Giving and Receiving Handmade

Hello Lovelies! I do so hope that you enjoyed, and are enjoying your holidays. It has been quite sweet here at the little green cottage, if a tad busy and messy. There has been a glut of good food, a windfall of friends and family, and an all around feeling of being very fortunate. I offer one caveat; it may be some time before I am up for baking cookies again.

It was a very handmade holiday 'round here, though I did very little of the hand making myself, wait... I take that back, the food was all hand made; the treats, the dinners, the bread, etc. and my hands were definitely involved in the making. Except for the traditional Christmas Morning Belgium Waffles which were all The Engineer (thank you again darlin', perfect as usual!)

Because I didn't have time to make much for the holiday, I purchased some handmade goodness to give. I thought I should share a little of the goodness with you.

This gorgeous hand crafted ceramic horse ornament came from Christine's shop Shepherds Grove Studio. She was a joy to buy from and I couldn't be happier with the ornament. Pony Girl was pretty thrilled too!

Photo by Claire Moxon

A stunning bracelet made by Claire from Scotia Spinner. Claire spins amazing yarn and beautiful fibre creations, and she makes wonderful jewelry. Claire is one of the first blog friends I met when Lola Nova started out. Please check out her great shop! I was very tempted to keep this for myself, but I did give it to my sister in the end.

On the receiving end of things - there were hand made earrings from my beautiful sister, handcrafted beeswax candles from the divine Crystal, art from my dear friend Tricia and more!

I did want to show a very special gift that was made for Pony Girl by Aunt Lydia.

This amazing paper doll kit made from fabric! Dolls and outfits, a quilted panel with pockets to keep the clothes in and all in a quilted carrying tote! The pictures don't do it justice. The amount of work and love that went into this is amazing, I am completely in awe! Thank you so very much Aunt Lydia, you are a doll!

Lastly, I did manage to make one gift for the Engineer. He is a big fan of Waylon Jennings so I made him some wall art.

Here is a link to the original album cover I used for inspiration. My version is totally wonky, but my heart was in it.

Well, that's enough of my rambling on for today. All I can say is, I love handmade!