don't look if the holidays stress you out...

...because I'm sorry, I just love them. Love them! I'm ridiculously happy pretty much from Halloween through New Year's because I'm busily plotting away how to spread Christmas cheer. And yes, I know it's still only August.

I've talked about how much I love Christmas before, and it's a sad fact that it's never too early for me to start thinking about it. It's nice to find like-minded people out there who are as crazy as I am, though, so I had great fun putting together a Pick Two Paper Christmas Items package for my swap-bot partner Lisa.

Being me, I couldn't just pick two items of course, so I included:

* a packet of several different holiday cards
* a recipe card with my favorite recipe for Royal Icing for sugar cookies
* two cozy knitting project cards, since Lisa enjoys knitting
* a packet of hand-stamped holiday tags with cheery striped yarn ribbons
* personalized shipping labels with vintage Santa image and "Merry Christmas!"
* personalized address labels with vintage Santa image and "Happy Holidays!"

I attempted to send the envelope with leftover Christmas stamps I had, thinking I'd weighed it properly, but was mortified to have it returned to me with postage due a few days later. Fortunately I'd made everything and sent it out on the first day, so the parcel made it safely with time to spare. Phew! Lisa wrote me a note to say how much she loved her "AWESOME" package, which I very much appreciate.

Here are a few other exchanges that also went out recently as well--three postcard swaps, for which I couldn't resist altering cards with images specifically for my partners, though it wasn't a requirement.

One partner said she likes gnomes, another partner said likes lighthouses (I sneaked in a little bit of my taste with the Rilla of Ingleside image there, too), and one partner made me really happy because she likes woodland animals such as hedgehogs. So of course I had to make her a sewn one using fabric left over from the baby quilt! All great fun to do. I can't believe I've never altered postcards until now, but I think many of the cards I send will be personalized from now on.