So i'm just gonna take a minute, sit right there, tell you all about how I became the prince of bel-air. Just kidding, but I am going to tell you about how much I loved my cross stitch santa! So, one of the things I mentioned in my info to my santa was that, well, to be honest, I had never before done any sort of cross stitching and embroidery and when I started looking at patterns and kits, I realized that I actually am more attracted to embroidery art over traditional cross stitch. My santa was an ABSOLUTE gem and humored my preference. First, I received this great book of somewhat irreverent embroidery patterns, which let me tell you is MY CUP OF TEA, fam. Not only that, but the steps for each type of stitch were very clearly explained and shown with labels and everything - I was able to pick it up, and very quickly. My santa also sent me a fantastic embroidery kit that was on my wish list!! But because it wasn't scheduled to arrived until about a week after the book, I was WAY TOO EXCITED to start learning so I took myself down to a little store called Michael's and gorged myself on the appropriate supplies to start using the book. I made the cute candy heart pattern but modified it using the "satin stitching" that the book taught me about! Then I went "off book" for the second one I did, and made my own pattern using song lyrics and tracing the daisy from a stock photo. Just in time for me to need a new project, the embroidery kit from my santa arrived! I'm starting that kit tonight, so no pics of it yet, but I will include a stock photo so you guys can appreciate how AWESOME it'll look when it's finished. For real, my santa did AWESOME and I'm so glad I was lucky enough to score them in this exchange. I hope whoever their santa was did just as amazing of a job!!