Blog friends are the best!!

When I was in Australia recently I was lucky enough to meet my wonderful blog friend Heather Jacobs
for the first time in real life. Not only did we spent the most fabulous day together, we had arranged to do a swap and I received the most amazing gifts from Heather:

Heather and I in front of the wonderful restaurant where we had lunch together with her lovely husband Baden.

Having the best of times inside the restaurant.

 Below are some photos of the wonderful gifts I received:

A beautifully decorated gift bag

A stunning tag holder and tag

The most touching and poetic message inside, with all of Heather's special touches.

The tag and holder from the inside

A view of all the beautiful layers on the front.

Now if that was not enough, Heather also made the most stunning birthday card for me, even though my birthday is not until October.

The most gorgeous holder, just look at all those layers again!!

If you don't know Heather's amazing work, do check out her blog, and if you want to see what I made for Heather, you can see it on her blog by clicking HERE.

But my story of wonderful blog friends still goes on. Some of you may have seen the work of some Dutch crafters using an incredible product called Bister.

Now the amazing thing is, that while in Australia, another blog friend Anneke Voskuil from Anneke's Card Art contacted me to say she would get me some of this and send it to me as a gift, and all of this just in response to me having left a comment on her blog. Now I ask you, how kind is that? Eight little packets arrived just the day after I returned from Australia and included was this beautiful tag made by Anneke and of course it uses Bister for the background.

I just love the effect of the Bister on the background!

Well of course I had to have a play with it straight away and below you can see the card for Anneke to say thanks. Both the background and the little sea horse were made using Bister.

I had great fun doing this, but did realize that I need a lot more practice!!!

Now I cannot finish this post without mentioning one other wonderful blog friend, Anne Redfern, also known as Redanne. Anne and I met a little while back and will soon meet again. Anne makes the most amazing ATBs, if you have not seen them check them out, here is a link to just one of them, but there are many more on her blog.
Well just before I left for Australia, Anne sent me two packs of extra thick card to make ATBs with, how amazingly kind was that??? I cannot wait to start to play with it and make some more ATBs, ha, I might even combine it with using Bister.

So what more can I say,, but BLOG FRIENDS ARE THE BEST!!!

Thank you so much Heather, Anneke and Anne, I cannot tell you how much your gifts are appreciated!!!