My Easter with Trollbeads (and my 100th blog post)

Reflecting on the blogging process, aside from having somewhere to rabbit on about trollbeads and show some of the photographs I take on my mobile phone, I realised it has directly, and indirectly, introduced me to some really lovely people from the Trollbead Community.  Scattered across posts you will find phrases such as "a lovely troll friend", "with the help of the trollbead community" or " a trollfairy helped me out".

So for my 100th post, and seeing as it's Easter Sunday, I thought I would tell you about something that was done between a small group of friends from all over the world who like trollbeads, a Secret Easter Swap.  This is a bit like a workplace Secret Santa for those of you who are wondering what this is.  One person collected all the names and addresses and assigned a Secret Easter Bunny for each person.  The Secret Easter Bunny had only 2 rules to stick to, that they sent their partner 1 genuine trollbead and a card to tell them who they are.  The partner had 2 rules too, to announce when their parcel arrived and share photos with the group of what came, so everyone got to see lots of lovely parcels being sent and received all over the world.

Secret Easter Swap

Obviously I had no idea who my Secret Easter Bunny was, but I did know that my partner didn't live a million miles away, although this was my very first swap I know that it's traditional to put things in the parcel, if you want to, from your own country.  As we both lived in England, in the UK and only 1 or 2 counties apart I decided to do a Welsh theme for my parcel, as not only did I grow up there but I'd also lived there quite recently and had shared photos with this group of friends from our mad year in the middle of nowhere (but that's a whole other blog).

I planned my parcel sending with my next trip to Wales so my partner got theirs quite early as I didn't want anything to go off!  My top tip is don't buy the chocolate in advance... these are the second lot of eggs I had to buy my partner having got chocolate urges the entire week beforehand!

My other top tip, is think about the weight of your parcel, Jam is actually quite heavy!  If you're wondering what the long things are, the fluorescent strips are glowsticks complete with connectors, when we had parties I used to hang 100s of these in our apple tree to create a strange glowing garden light, the dark ones are incense sticks, well I can bit a bit of an old hippie at heart.

There were also Welsh Cakes, a film subscription, a (very thin and thankfully bendy) calendar, words to "Land of My Fathers" (whilst I don't know the words myself I have to say when in the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff and this is being sung before Wales vs New Zealand All Blacks it's quite the experience) and postcards with the Welsh Words for place names.

All the items were individually wrapped in a shiny silver wrapping paper so my partner didn't know what anything was and had to open them all to find out what they'd got, and I asked that she opened the card last with all the explanations of why I'd sent each item.  I wanted it to be a "what on earth was she thinking of" moment on some of these and the tale that threads it all together to be the final reveal.  I didn't get a full set of photos of the parcel or what was in it as I wasn't intending to blog this... but you can guarantee I did take a few of the bead so here is a nice one for you.

The bead I chose for my partner was a glittery fern in a very pretty pink colour, it took me a long time to tie the gold ribbon over the Trollbead Box but I'd been inspired by the new Steffans ribbon so I wanted it to look the part, but obviously with a gold ribbon to go with the fern!

So that was what I sent out, so what did I receive?  Well my Secret Easter Bunny lives in France and is clearly an experienced hand at packaging lots into a small parcel, I couldn't believe what kept coming out of the box she sent...  I didn't even find it all on the first attempt as when I was packing it back up I found a trollbeads jewellery cleaning cloth in the bag!

What had hit me first was the amazing smell of Jasmine when I opened the parcel, everything was beautifully wrapped and very stylish, as well as the lovely Jasmine soap, there was Perfume, a lovely smelling cushion, chocolates (which lasted 2 days), pretty notelets in their own case, trollbead mints in a snap tin and the most amazing rose petal hand cream from L'Occitane which has become a firm favourite since it arrived!  The card and message were very touching and I felt really humbled to receive such beautiful words and presents.

What was a very large surprise was that there was not 1, but 2 trollbeads in the box.  Silver Faith, Hope and Charity and a mocha brown ornament glass bead.  Well it didn't take me long to make up a bracelet with these two and my newly arrived Zodiac Birthstone Star!

So a very special Thank You to the very lovely Pat, for all the thought and love that went into this parcel.  I'm still feeling very lucky to have received such a fabulous box of treats for Easter!

And thank you to everyone for reading Curling Stones for Lego People and my 100th post, and for all my beads, extra treats, goodies and other fun things I have been sent, but thank you most of all for the friendship and lovely sense of community. 

I dedicate this post to you good folk, the lovely individuals, groups, friends, bloggers and retailers alike.

Cheers!