A Swap Meet

Personal mail is so underrated. I love getting it and sending it. While email is great, there is something nice about opening a thoughtful surprise that arrived in the afternoon mail. And since most things in the post are junk, receiving something personal is all the more appreciated.

Enter Swap-bot. If you haven't heard of it, here's how it works: you sign up for a swap based on your interests. I'm doing a few swaps there, and it is neat to see what we can trade with others.I like the fabric swaps (of course!) and paper crafty-type ones, and some themed ones are neat, too. (We just did a theme of things relating to monkeys, which was really fun to send and receive.)
Once you get matched with a partner, you look at their profile, blog, etc, and then choose things for the exchange that would make sense to them. I love looking around our house and studio and finding something to make or share--lots of times it's something I don't use but know someone else would like. I also love to make something new to fit the partner's tastes.

Here are a few goodies I sent in the past month or so:



This was for a reusable grocery tote. I love, love loved the fabric, and I thought it would make a great bag--I think I was right! Now I'm making one for me, too.


Here's one of the needle cases I made recently: owls are a favorite of mine, and these winkers are so cute. I especially like the covered button.


I used wool felt for the pages, and included a set of needles with this one.



I made this really fun pencil wrap for another swap about monkeys. See the monkeys jumping? The ties are made from a coordinating print of bandaids.


And here's what we received for the monkey swap. Ada loves her Bento box, and she's eager to use it!



Lots more swaps to come...let me know if you're interested in doing one with me.

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Phiddling with Photoshop

Photoshop is becoming my friend--well, sort of. I need a lot more time to play around with it, which doing an alumni directory allowed me to do a bit. More on that later.
I figured the banner could use a bit more than the boiler-plate text that blogger gave me, so I present a new one, featuring our latest pet, Snaily Grey. Rescued from our front yard more than two weeks ago, Snaily Grey is still going strong. He's not lonely, either, now that Ada found him a snail companion whom she named Sarah.

Snails are surprisingly fast. Now I know what a "snail's pace" really is. Let me tell you, it is fast enough that he can get out of tupperware container and up halfway down the kitchen cabinet in less than four hours. Not speedy, but alarming enough that we got them a terrarium today. Who wants to find Snaily and Sarah kicking around in the cat's bowl, or worse, stuck on the bottom of a sandal? Not me.
Ada and Esme both take good care of the snails, and they are getting as spoiled as our rabbit, who eats a great diet of fresh food and trimmings. Now the snails have meals of fresh herbs and leaves from our garden. I think we're going to draw the line at eating the new vegetable sprouts that are finally coming up.

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