I’ve been so caught up with Christmas and new year that I just realised that I hadn’t yet posted my unboxing for the December Fairyloot! It arrived on Christmas eve, but no I didn’t wait until Christmas day to open it as Little Miss Playground was home from school and if I didn’t open it, she would have! Keeping it simple, the theme last month was Dragons!

The first item out of the box was a gorgeous dragon necklace by Fairyloot – this necklace is stunning and the wings apparently glow in the dark! I’ve yet to try it out as it’s so gloomy that I’ve not had a chance to give it a charge, but it’s a really decent size with gorgeous detailing. December was also the start of their exclusive tarot cards featuring the characters from ACOTAR, this month we got Cassian and Amren – these cards are huge and will look great as a completed set. There was an art print included this month, it’s double sided with Manon and Abraxos from Throne of Glass on one side and Toothless from How to Train your Dragon on the other – I’ve gone with Manon for the pic as I love her and Abraxos is one of my favourite bookish creatures (as an aside I got a Thestral in my Harry Potter funko advent calendar, which 100% will be used as Abraxos in a bookstagram soon.) The final item in this first pic is a pin flag, I’ve had a few of these now but the lovely Author M.A. Phipps said about using it for iron on patches, which I think is a great idea (I just have to buy an iron first….)

Last month I got doubly excited as we got 2 books! I’ll get to the featured book in a bit, but the second book was an Arc! I love getting physical copies of Arcs, I’ve been blessed to get so many in a digital format, but having a physical one just feels a little bit extra special. The Arc provided is The Storm Crow by Kalyn Josephson which isn’t due for release until July, I’ll have to make sure to squeeze it in before then. It’s also time for another of their twice yearly reading journal, I started off with such good intentions with the last one but it kind of faded, I really need to make better use of journals this year as I see so many that just look amazing when filled out.  I also need to get some flags so I can mark quotes that I like – as I never remember to mark them at the time. This fairyloot journal has some really gorgeous artwork by Blanca Montiel at the start of each month as well. Before I get on to the book and my favourite item from the box, there was sadly an item missing from the December box (it will be sent out with the January boxes) and it does prove that things do indeed come in three’s.  This will make the 3rd time in 2018 that they’ve had to send out items late and whilst this was a packing mishap rather than a misprint issue, it’s still a real disappointment. Hopefully though there have been enough learning points that 2019’s boxes will all be perfect! So next month I’ll also be featuring a Mother of Dragons themed magnetic bookmark set, which sounds amazing!

My favourite item by an absolute mile in December was a booksleeve by Sweet Sequels, it’s probably the best book sleeve I have ever seen and features wonderful original art of the dragon escape from Gringott’s from Harry Potter.  It’s a full sized booksleeve too which means even a hefty hardback will fit in there.  I now have one for my bag and one to keep my at home reads in (alas it arrived to late to save my copy of Ruin and Rising from getting, well, ruined.) The book in December was Fire and Heist by Sarah Beth Durst and I do love a good heist! I’m already about 1/3 way through and it’s quite different as I wasn’t expecting low fantasy, but it’s pretty enjoyable so far.