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Merry Christmas, to all who celebrate – and a wonderful time to absolutely everyone!!!

I haven’t posted much lately – I’m very busy with science. This is a good thing, of course. Still, I really regret not showing you all the woooonderful things I’ve received during the Advent time. I had three Advent calendars this year (from smilestack, linaly, and Sam_Linnifer) and also received some lovely unrelated Christmas mail… So, this is going to be a picspam post – you have been warned. (Pictures are behind the cut.)

I can’t show everything I received, although all my gifts were awesome: there was a lot of fanart involving my own characters (YAY!!!), tea (I’m drowning in tea!), chocolate, other fascinating foodstuff, a virtual museum tour of a mineralogical exhibition, conducted by my own characters (double YAY!!!), and art and craft supplies to last me a lifetime. :D Also, I made some stuff for other people, but that will have to go into a separate post. This one is just for awesome handmade things I received!

Sooo - these craft projects were all made by other people for me; I’m giving the appropriate credits, of course… And I’m amazed (and, in some cases, shocked) how well people know me, my taste, and my occasionally odd preferences.

Let’s start with some sundials! People know how much I love sundials (and, obviously, ATCs), so – interestingly – I received two fully functional sundial ATCs on the same day!

This one, by linaly, shows a Hamburg scene on the front and unfolds to a sundial which is calibrated to, unsurprisingly, Hamburg. XD

And this one, by Sam_Linnifer, is ALSO calibrated so it works in Hamburg!

Aren’t these wonderful pieces of art? :D I had to laugh soooo much when I unpacked them, because the artists made them independently of each other and put them into the same day of their respective Advent calendars. XD They say they didn’t talk to each other beforehand. But then – I’m known to be weird about sundials, so maybe it was just the obvious choice?!?

Speaking of unusual and very crafty ATCs, here’s another one by Sam_Linnifer. Yes, that’s a fully functional magnetic chess set. It involves magnetic foil and rhinestones with the piece symbols painted on! This is now officially one of the glitteriest chess sets I own, YAY!!!

Staying true to the chess theme, I also received this lovely chess-themed pencil wrap for my art supplies! It's a collaboration: Wendolin sewed it, and Sam_Linnifer painted the pieces on. :D

And another chess-themed item is this lovely cross-stitch bookmark by

yhlee which I’m already using in one of my chess books… (Where else? XD) A beautiful chess queen in galaxy colors! YAY! It’s perfect!!!

Oh, and linaly hand-carved (!!!) a full set of chess stamps for me! (This is super impressive. I’ve tried carving this rubbery stuff for stamps, but, let’s say, my results weren’t nearly as neat.) I can’t wait to make something with them! :D

People know me… They know me soooooo well. XD

After chess comes… tea! :D Sam_Linnifer had two sets of matching hand-painted china for me, one in white and one in black. :) With very appropriate tea-swans for actually making the tea!

And let’s not forget fashion! I received wonderful self-made hair clips with minerals from smilestack!

Also by smilestack are these lovely hand-bound sketchbooks with decorated covers:

The themes are, of course, things I’m extremely nerdy about. XD The little bat has its own little cartoon, by the way: “What to do with a giant crystal?" :D (In case you didn’t know I’m a bit of a bat nerd: I posted about bat rescue in Northern Germany some time ago…)

When it comes to crystals: look at this awesome (and very meta) little sculpture by linaly: stones painted on stones! Exactly the kind of art that makes me very happy!