It was an Etsy Christmas ;-)

This Christmas I bought quite a few items from independent artists on Etsy.com and sent my Etsy favorites wish list to family members as gift ideas for me. I must say, this was one of the funnest gift-giving and receiving Christmases I've had! (Click on any of the pictures to see the items larger, and to visit their page on Etsy!)

To my Rock'n'Roll sister, I gave...


To my Med-Student Brother-In-Law, I gave...


My tea-drinking, note-writing, purple-flower-loving, librarian-of-a-mother received...


My shy-unique-artistic-brother received...


To my Mother-in-law, who keeps a few natural bars of soap around the house, I gave...


To my other Mother-in-law, who is one of the sweetest southern-living ladies you'll meet, and has a great sense of humor, I gave...


I gave all of these people other items as well, but I definitely liked the Etsy stuff the most. ;-) And just about every item I received from Etsy was already gift wrapped in a special way - I was seriously impressed, and it made everything really fun to give!! Oh yeah- I almost forgot!! I was also the lucky recipient of a few lovely items from my favorites list on Etsy!!! I WOULD share my list with you, but I learned my lesson the last time I listed items I liked on my blog- because someone bought them before my family could get to them!! However, I have no problem sharing the cool items I've already received! ;-P

My husband gave me both of the amazing gifts below! This painting and jewelry set are perfectly me for so many different reasons: I love the symbolism of trees and butterflies, the painting was done over sheet music- which is somewhat symbolic of my past as a musician still peeking through my present artistic endeavors, and the combination of cool greens and browns are my absolute favorite! LOVE IT!!!


I also received a beeeeautiful set of tilting swiftly earrings from the fabulous miss_o_hara - whom I consider a true fashion diva!! I received a lot of other wonderful gifts as well- but I wanted to give a special note to the independent artists so that I might encourage more people to shop on Etsy for gifts! ;-)

My favorite non-Etsy item was a Roomba!! My husband and I both hate cleaning, so we asked for a maid for Christmas. My mother-in-law got us the next best thing... a vacuuming robot!! ;-) My husband and I must have spent at least 15 full minutes in awe of this thing work its magic around our home! We were like cats watching a mouse run around- we even followed it and sometimes put our foot on it to see what would happen. I wish I had a video of those priceless moments.. but I think you can imagine how silly we must have looked!! ;-) If you're wondering whether or not the thing works... I have to say I was pretty impressed!! It takes a while to cover an entire room, and it will pass over places two or three times, but it really works!! It even managed to get over our jute rug and tile floors with no problems- and it vacuumed UNDER the couch- now how often to people really vacuum there?! I was amazed by what it picked up that we didn't even see! The only part that kinda sucked was having to pull all of my long hair out of the rolling brush after it was done. Apparently, I'm shedding and didn't even know it!!