Some Particularly Nifty Gifts

Here are pictures of some particular gifts that I wanted to share! Above is the art bag my sister made for me. The blue is canvas and the red is some other sort of material. She put a seine twine shoulder strap on it just long enough to go over my neck. It has two pockets: the main one large enough to accommodate a good-sized journal and then a smaller, longer pocket, which is where the red material is.

This was tricky to get a picture of simply because the camera did not like it; this was the best one I could get. Sorry! But you can see that it is a porcelain cameo necklace of a woman and her child set in a light blue background and inset into a 10 karat gold frame. If it hadn't been on sale, I wouldn't have gotten it for Christmas, the original price being $150.

This is the box that the cameo came in - porcelain and inlayed with gold. The box probably accounts for why its original price was so high.

This is a cast-iron teapot! I have used it twice already and it is wonderful. It can hold a lot of tea and keeps the water fairly warm. It's very easy to clean, too, since it is cast-iron and the inside is lined with porcelain. So you just swill some warm water around several times and pour it out. Once you've wiped the exterior free of water, you let the inside air dry.

This is a completely awesome box that my friend got me. It's not a cheap little Walmart box, either, that is just for looks. It's actually a very nice one, and I cannot wait to find a use for it! Boxes are a weakness.

Finally, this is the jacket that my sister-in-law got me. It is purely silk - inside and out - and ordered all the way from Beijing. I won't put the price down; let's just say that I am going to ensure that I never wear this jacket where it might get dirty. Which will be hard, because I absolutely love this jacket. It is so comfortable and pretty!

Of course, what sort of blog would this be if I did not mention the books I got? Certainly not a literature blog. You will be surprised at the small number of books I got, but I don't normally ask for many because my mom doesn't yet know the tricks of finding books. So I keep my list to a small number of easy-to-find titles and then ask for gift certificates to bookstores. So, the titles I received:

• Reckless by Cornelia Funke
• Ranger's Apprentice: The Siege of Macindaw by John Flanagan
• The Sonnets by Shakespeare
• Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

The 3 latter titles are the pocket-sized classics that I so dearly love. And then I got a $25 gift certificate to Barnes & Noble, so more books will be coming! Among other things, I also got watercolor supplies (lovely little fine paintbrushes, paper, etc.), a journal, charcoal sticks, and tons of scrapbooking supplies. I shouldn't have to visit Michael's for quite some time! Oh, yes, and a little tin of pu-erh-tuo tea - Chinese, of course. The tin has seven different kinds of pu-erh-tuo, each wrapped in these awesome little round cakes. One cake makes a pot of tea, and so far I have been able to get 2 uses out of one cake. The leaves seem to still have plenty of wear in them, so I am going to dry them out again and see how many more I can get! It is very, very good tea.

Cheers!