You might remember a while back I mentioned I was doing this swap. Well, I did it, and the time has come to talk about it!

First, let me tell you about my Swap Partner! The poor girl lives in Ohio and was RIGHT in the path of Hurricane Ike which was RIGHT before we were supposed to send out these swaps. She was out of power for an entire week. (As many others were.) And after that, she was just so swamped with getting back to life as normal that the Halloween Swap sort of went on the back burner. If you ask me, that is more than a little understandable. The point here is that I do not have it yet, so I cannot rave as I properly should. It will probably arrive tomorrow when this post goes up, but I will be half-way to Missouri by then and not able to see it for a week.

But she sent me pictures, and I think I can adequately rave from those, though I know it will be better when they arrive.

These are the packages she sent to me. OOOOOOOO, it makes me want to tear right in and rip them open! I love tissue paper tied with ribbon! (I must also say that I did not send my package so cutely wrapped. I will show you what I sent later, but there is no picture of wrapping because I was more than a little, uh, not impressed with how I did it!)

This is the whole pile of stuff. You must know that I LOVE Halloween. It might be my favorite holiday. I love the weather at Halloween. I love the moon at this time of year. I love the festivity. I have never thought of it as evil or scary, just festive and fun. So this pile of stuff makes me giddy!

Here are some close-ups. The first is a box of wrapped Hersheys Nuggets. I LOVE it that Angela is a stamper like me because just knowing what this is, I know it is SO cool. Her style and taste are much different than mine, and she is more artistic. From the picture I can tell these are beautiful. Unfortunately, they probably will not last very long under my care, but at least there is a picture by which to remember them! And they are in a very cute tin, which makes it even better.

This one is a paper bag Halloween Journal. Do you love it? I do! I LOVE black cats. That really has nothing to do with Halloween, but I currently have two black cats and had another before these. This is just TOO cute! Maybe I can fill it with pictures of my black cats? Or maybe my children? I do not know. I will probably just use it as a decoration for a while. It is definitely worthy of doing that.

I think this one might be my favorite. It is a collage just for the sake of art. I. LOVE. IT! And the girl on it has red hair which is icing.

The last one is something she said EVERYONE needs… a pooping cat. Is that hilarious?! I think so. I have never seen such a thing. (But I never shop which could possibly be part of that problem.) It being a black cat and all is good enough, but there appears to be candy (poop–I just will not think about that) attached, so it is even better!

Here is what I made for her.

This cookie jar was SOOOOO easy; it took about 5 minutes which put me into a mood of guilt over it. I used a Decor Elements piece from St*mpin’ Up! to do it. When I sent it to her, I put a ribbons on the lid. I apologize that I did not send hers with cookies, but I was using it as a display for an Open House when I made it about a month before I shipped it. Unfortunately I ate all the cookies before then. Yes, I think I ate every single one. No, a few customers ate some, but they were polite. I am not so polite when it comes to cookies. You MUST go to Angela’s blog to see how she is using this cookie jar. (She also has a better picture there than I do of the other item I sent.) I love what she did! I would have never thought of it on my own.

The other thing I made was this “Spooky” banner. These are wonderful. I used a special pennant die for the St*mpin’ Up!/Sizzix Big Shot machine to cut the pennants. This was so. much. fun to make! It took quite a lot more than five minutes to make, so my guilt was significantly eased. (I could not get the “Y” to show up, so I just left it out. I am too tired and have to drive all day tomorrow to try to figure out what the problem is.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Heidi at Foxgloves, Fabric and Folly!! is hosting another swap for Christmas. Go check it out. I am sure it will be just as much fun!