Christmas Decoration Swap 2015

If you've been following my blog for a while you may remember the Christmas decoration swap  I did with some of my friends last year, we decided to do the same swap again this year but kept it low key - rather than making decorations for everyone we each made one decoration for one person.

My friend Joy was kind enough to arrange swap partners and my partner was Shell. As you guys all know I love to cross-stitch and decided to make Shell a cross-stitch decoration. I was only meant to make a small decoration, but when I found this design  by Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery I knew I was making a hoopla.

The pattern is called "Here comes Santa Claus" and it basically killed me with cute - I think Shell was pretty into it too.

Next up is Joy's decoration, made by Shell. It's pretty amazing - a measuring tape, turned into a festive bow, to hang on the tree. For bonus recycling points Shell told us she got the measuring tape in a Christmas cracker the previous year.

Ria's decoration is up next and it was made by Joy who has this amazing paper cutting computer thing that I don't understand at all, but she makes so amazing stuff with it!

The flower is the Pohutukawa which is also called New Zealand's Christmas tree and they are in full bloom at the moment as it is summer time. Joy also gave us all some of he off cuts from her creative process - we all got a mini Pohutukawa.

Finally, my decoration! I was lucky enough to have Ria as my partner and she gave me something perfect.

Last year Ria made me a Jack Skellington as my favourite Christmas movie is The Nightmare Before Christmas (I know you're all really surprised by that). This year she totally hit the nail on the head with my decoration again.

In Nightmare, Christmas and Halloween merge and all of the Christmas icons end up being creepy (basically my dream for Christmas) including the humble Christmas wreath. I don't think the wreath actually has a name in the movie, so we decided "Keith the Wreath" was appropriate. I love it so much.

So that was this years swap - I hope this can be an annual event with this bunch of friends. Here are a few more photos we took on the day just for fun.

I hope you've all been having a wonderful Christmas whatever you have been up to, ours has been very quiet but we have been enjoying lots of sunshine.