For the Birds...

I have been busy swappin' again, and this time it was for a Lucky Parcel. For those of you that are not familiar with Lucky Parcels, they are a selection of items gathered together with a particular them, and are place in a container of some sort that also depicts the theme. The theme for this particular Lucky Parcel was birdies. I made my partner a little birds nest necklace with come copper wire and freshwater pearls, and then  I stamped a little muslin bag with a birdcage to keep the necklace in. I included a package of Prima birdies for her own crafty projects, a cute little notebook with birdies on it, and some Heidi Swapp bird stickers. I needed something cute to package it all up in, and just couldn't find the right thing, so I decided to whip a little something up. I took a brown bag, cut the top off, inked it up a bit, added some Tattered Angels sprays, a couple of die cut birds, a seam binding handle, and some trim scraps, and Voila! A few minutes and I had a one of a kind package for a "tweet" friend. (Sorry I couldn't resist) Oh, and what does that G have to do with birds? Absolutely nothing, it is the initial of her first name :o)

Swap-Bot........Have you heard of it?

About 8 months ago, I was noticing some odd requests from some of my customers. They would purchase something and I would get a request like " please enclose a note that says from your swap-bot partner xyz, or from your etsy favorites on swap-bot" I finally asked one of my customers what the heck this swap-bot thing was. She directed me to the site http://www.swap-bot.com/ and a new addiction was born. When I first joined I was amazed at all of the cool swaps you could join and I crazily jumped in with both feet. After getting a few swaps under my belt and figuring out what swaps really interested me, I started joining some groups. Groups are generally set up on a theme or common interest and group memebers can participate in swaps for that group. Two of my favorite groups are Cotton Candy and Glitter, which is a group of gals who love shabby chic, vintages style, and the other one is Somerset Style, and is a group who appreciate the style of the Somerset magazine family. I joined a swap in the Somerset Style group where we took one of the templates that Somerset posts, and make it for our partner. My partner liked vintage, crazy quilts and steam punk. I had some scraps from a fantastic old crazy quilt, and I decided to us the shoe template and make a pair of fabulous slippers that my partner would love. She did too! I made the shoes from cream cardstock, I stamped vintage script on the insoles and inked the edges. I covered the toes with vintage crazy quilt pieces, trimmed them with black baby pom pom trim, black seambinding ribbons and some "steam punk" embellishments. I wrapped some extra surprises with black tulle and tucked them into the toes so the edges poked out. This was a really fun challenge. I would have probably not attempted it on my own, but in the swap I got to try something new and have fun with it. In doing so I discovered something that I really like. I already have ideas of more "shoes" I want to make. I even joined a new shoe swap, this time with a Marie Antoinette them. I am having dreams of brocade, and lush velvet ribbons and fancy millinery flowers. I can't wait to get started!