Secret Santas, White Elephants, oh me, oh my!

As I mentioned a few different times on this blog, I organized a Secret Santa exchange on the Etsy forums that turned out to what I think was a success. We had about 40 participants from several countries. Most the U.S. and Canada, with a smithering of U.K., Denmark, Australia, China, and a few more :D BareMoose was kind enough to feature my shop and show what she got from the Secret Santa exchange here on her blog.

Because of a couple late comers, a few of us had 2 secret santas, so here are the 2 gifts that I received from them:


From hemingwayfun >>This cute vase (has butterflies on it) and the cute "prescription".






Next from jenmaestre >>This adorable artist palette pencil pin.




As a thank you for organizing the event, aLittleUnraveled sent me a chocolate chip cookie dough soap with handmade washcloths and the softest scarf I now own!






As for my last secret santa, this one is a big mystery to me...this beautiful beaded bracelet was mailed to me and the seller informed me that the buyer would like to remain anonymous....hmmm....I'll have to think about who would have my address :P Very sweet and very pretty! It feels great on my wrist! You can find this design and so many other unique beaded designs at the shop of SandFibers.



And of course, as promised, here are some photos of items I made for a white elephant gift exchange with some friends. I figured, why not have a trio of white elephants? I hand carved the soap and handmade the clay ornament (yes, they don't look that great, but they're white elephant right? I wasn't gonna try that hard :P) and my ultimate favorite was the plush white elephant. My mom actually made him. We used an old shirt of mine and she made up the pattern, she's great at sewing! I wanted to keep this little guy to myself! Anyway, it was fun.

























I decided to try to figure out why White Elephant exchanges were so named and I found this information, very interesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_elephant

For those that don't know what a white elephant gift is, you can find out here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_elephant_gift_exchange

And lastly, I wanted to remind you all of my Crafting4Causes shop. This month I'm donating all proceeds to Toys for Tots.