Advent - Day 14 Cracker Swap

My photo for Day 14 of Julie's Scrapbook Advent Calendar is my gorgeous quilted fabric cracker that I received from Suzanne, my swap partner in the Cracker Swap

The stitching detail on the cracker is just lovely and this will become a Christmas Cracker to treasure for years to come.

Inside were lots of wonderful gifts 

including this very sweet pocket charm.

I'd never seen these before and had to look them up on the internet,

 I love the saying on the card just as much as the bird charm.

There was also this mini glass apothecary jar filled will teeny tiny colourful bells 

A cute stocking hanger, I have these for the children with a little fireplace to hang them on and I'm so glad I have one of my very own now.

This heart shaped soap smells divine and I've popped it in my smalls drawer!

Some very tasty chocolate snowballs, which I ate whilst everyone was out and a candy cane that was eaten by Tomas!

We love robins in our house so this painted pebble is just perfect.

I'm looking forward to trying out my new nail varnish although I have hidden it away because I can see it disappearing into my daughter's room if I'm not careful!

And finally this sewing machine charm which I think I might an to add sewing themed embroidery or make into a scissor fob. I shall be scouring Pinterest over the festive break for some ideas.

And here are all my goodies together.

Thank you Suzanne for all my wonderful gifts especially my quilted cracker.

Here is what I sent Suzanne. 

Now Suzanne and I have been emailing each other for a while and I found out that she likes owls, well....

I think I may well have gone a bit overboard with that theme!!!

Caution - Owl heavy photos.....

I found this christmas owl fabric on one of my recent trips to And Sew On fabrics at the Blake Craft Centre, which I used to wrap the cracker in.

I also found this owl button there too. I thought Suzanne could make it into a brooch or add it to one of her makes.

I was lucky on my owl themed hunt at the fabric shop as they also had this owl ribbon.

I love Ebay as if you can't find what you are looking for on there then it probably doesn't exist!

A quick search for owl buttons and I came up trumps.

As most of you know I belong to a swap group on Facebook and as part of a swap with Ems Genuine Gems I received this owl themed kilt pin brooch which was ideal for Suzanne's cracker. 

I picked up these two cheeky chappies on a recent charity shop trip,

and I couldn't believe my luck when I went to my WI meeting the other week and as part of the trading table boxes were these delicious owl chocolates. How do I know they were delicious I hear you ask, well there were more of them in the box but I could only fit six in the cracker tube and......

I ate them!!! Sorry Suzanne!

I cheated a little on my handmade make for Suzanne as I really wanted to make her a bag and the only way to do that and fit it in her cracker was to wrap it around the tube before putting the fabric over it.

I loved the colours of these fabrics as soon as I saw them.

I told you I went a bit mad on the owl them didn't I....

Here is Suzanne's finished cracker

and another lucky find at the charity shop was this bottle gift box which the cracker snuggly fitted into

but I completely forget about how I was going to add the owl themed Christmas card to the tube so I had to put it all in another box!!!

I've really enjoyed this swap again this year and I am always amazed at how much lovely stuff you can cram into a kitchen roll tube. I hope you all enjoyed it as much as me and please add your Cracker Swap blog posts to the linky list below.