Another 60th Birthday gift!

Today (Monday) I had lunch with an ex-blogger friend, whom some of you may remember - Val. We don't live far from each other, and we've kept in touch since she 'retired' from blogging. We've gone on walks, had coffee at the Eltham Library, she's visited me and now I've visited her! Her hubby cooked the most delicious pizza for lunch, and after that Val and I walked to a lovely park nearby, sat in the sun and did some sketching. As a challenge, we started off by sketching some of the playground equipment, which gave our skills in perspective and shading a work-out. Then we sketched each other - most difficult while we tried to control our grins!

Val was unable to come to my 60th birthday blog friends lunch, but today she made up for missing out with a lovely gift. She loves working with paper - origami, making journals and books, etc. and she made me this beautiful origami box. No glue, sticky tape or staples - just folded!



Inside the bottom half.

Inside the top half.

Isn't that exquisite? She offered to show me how it is done, but I don't know...I'm hopeless at just folding paper napkins nicely!
But that wasn't all. Inside the box, Val had tucked two lovely doilies that she had found when she was staying in a country town. You can see those on my linens blog here.