Seaside Swap fun with Ina from the Netherlands!

My Seaside Swap package is being mailed this week. Ina and I got a little late start for this swap...but a little late is better than not at all.
A preview to share with all of you....in the photo above, the little cute mermaid...I made for my swap partner Ina who lives in the Netherlands. One of the details for the swap is to include one handmade gift and this is what I came up with.

I hope that Ina will have fun putting these earrings together. There are a couple of styles to choose from. Maybe she'll choose the sea shell pattern!

Here is one of my first 'finds' for the swap. A sea shell bracelet with little light beads set in between. Very sweet!

Other little swap gift items include a sun glasses holder for the car  visor (I added the dots for the lady bug look). Other fun stuff...gifts from the sea 'beautiful little seashells', a Quilters magazine filled with crafting project ideas, a little package of 2 lace applique hearts, a new buckle luggage tag for Ina's next trip to the seaside, a miniature sewing machine 'just for fun' and inspiration, a package of country blue paper for creating package bows and last but not least...the luau Party CD...with sounds from the isles..."Kuku, Hapa 'I, Kini', On the beach of Waikiki, Paradise Island" to name a few.

I added some small pieces of pretty colored fabric from my sewing craft box for her. Ina shared that she likes to sew. Maybe she'll create something pretty with them.

I have enjoyed anchoring down for the Seaside Swap with Ina. This swap hosted by http://wwwcraftysmiles.blogspot.com/. What a neat and interesting new friend I've made! We'll try and stay in touch with one another via e-mail even though we live clear across the big beautiful Atlantic Ocean from each other. I will think about Ina when I get to a seaside, one of my favorite places I love to go. 

The Ever-Changing Sea

You can say it is blue, and green as you define the color it has turned to purple, or green, or gray, or black, or violet, and back to blue again. You can say it is restless, and while you speak the wind drops, the swells subside and from horizon to horizon there is no ripple, no flaw, no movement, only a vast sheer of pallid satin color. You can say it is calm and it rises and sweep your cost cities away, throws your ships ashore, washes the keels of the flying cloud above. A the last, when you have sailed long enough and far enough, you come to understand that the sea is everything. It is calm and restless, stormy and laughing, many-hued and one-colored, salty and fresh, warm and cold, an enemy and a friend, a help and a hindrance, a tragedy and a jest. Everything! Sufficient for every mood, for every dream for every hope, for every sorrow.

Wilbert Richard Wetien (1900-1940)

From "Way For A Sailor"