Christmas exchange

This year Essie and I decided to do a Christmas Exchange.  Whilst I had taken part in a couple previously, this was Essie's first.  We had decided on themes and set to work earlier in the year.

When Essie and her family visited in the autumn, unbeknownst to her I had passed my gift to her husband Frido to squirrel away until the unveiling.

This week, timed beautifully to cheer me up after my eye surgery, and more perfectly with Sinterklaas, we opened our exchanges.

The padded scissor keep features a hidden magnet to attach to Essie's chart holder and keep her scissors safe.  The chart is by Teresa Wentzler and has been adapted to be for scissors rather than needles (although the magnet can hold these also).  I switched the colours to mainly shades of coral, the dragon was stitched with variegated threads and a shiny green silk thread to add texture. 

The biscornu picked up the colours and featured similar celtic knots in variegated coral thread. A smaller dragon was stitched at each corner on the underside, matching the colour of the big dragon.  I had filled the design with plastic beans to give it some weight. A celtic styled metal button finishes off the biscornu nicely.

The scissor fob continued the theme with a silk dragon on one side and an "E" on the reverse. 

Essie's parcel to me arrived on 5th December and we agreed to open them in the evening. 

As most folk know, I'm a little obsessed with the Wizarding World created by JK Rowling.   Essie tapped into this perfectly, creating a beautiful box with a stitched lid.  The box itself is covered with midnight blue fabric with black polkadots.  It's sumptuously padded, giving it a luxurious appeal.  The top is stitched as a perfect replica of a chocolate frog carton featured in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.  The design is extremely intricate and I can imagine a great many hours were spent stitching it.

As if this were not enough, on opening the box treasure within was revealed. 

Three chocolate frogs of course! But what else?

Ornaments featuring Harry and Ron...

...and Professor Dumbledore and Hermione 

And yet more! A detailed bookmark (or should that be darkmark) on a gorgeous blue fabric which is already in use as my younger son and hubby are kindly reading me The Philosopher's Stone while my eyes recover.

I am extremely happy with my exchange gift, and Essie tells me that she too is very happy.  It was fun to do the exchange, a little stressful at times, but on the whole very enjoyable.  I think we might be tempted to do another at some point.