Handmade Felt Food

PLEASE read this entire description before signing up for this swap!

You will hand make a felt food item to be exchanged. Please do not send something like 1 single strawberry or something small. If you plan on making something small please include several of them.

Everything must be handmade please do not send store bought felt food.

Please remember that children will be playing with the food so do not just glue the pieces together. Either hand sewing or machine sewing is acceptable. Also single pieces of felt cut into the shape of food is NOT acceptable, that would be good for a felt board swap but not for this swap.

You will have up to 8 partners for this swap. You will create 9 items, one for each of your partners and one for you to keep.

IMPORTANT: AFTER THIS SWAP REACHES 8 PARTICIPANTS NO MORE WILL BE ALLOWED TO JOIN THIS SWAP. A NEW SWAP WILL HAVE TO BE CREATED. This is to allow everybody to send and receive items from everybody in the group.

Here are some photos of felt food items that our members previously swapped. https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=oa.318854701510773&type=1

There are tons of free felt food patterns and tutorials online. Here are a couple of links to tutorials: http://craftystaci.com/2011/10/07/friday-favoritesfelt-food/ http://belladia.typepad.com/photos/feltfoodtutorials/index.html

Here is the link to my own Felt Pinterest page for lots of inspiration: http://pinterest.com/melissaspeegle/felt/

Please note that this is swap is open to United States & Canada so be prepared in case you get partners who are not in your country.

Everyone in the group will trade with everyone else. With that in mind, we will not know the total number of people in the group until it closes on August 9th and partners are assigned. You will need to mail out your busy bags to your group members NO LATER than September 1st. Your group members will give you a rating based upon your meeting this deadline.

A note on ratings:

Please rate a "5" if you received your item on time. You may give "hearts" to any swapper who you felt went above and beyond your expectations or included extra goodies in their packages.

Please rate a "3" if they sent the item but sent it late. Or if they did not follow any of the requirements in this swap as stated above.

Please rate a "1" if you never received an item at all. *Swap-bot DOES allow you to change a rating so if you do receive the item from a swapper later on please change the rating to a "3". If someone gets too many 1 ratings, Swap Bot will automatically suspend their account.

If you are going to be late on the swap but still intend to send the item please COMMUNICATE with your partners. This can help nip ill feelings in the bud. Notifying your partners does not necessarily mean they will give you a "5" rating for contacting them. Most likely you will receive a "3" rating for being late but it is courteous to let your partners know that they will receive an item.

DO NOT give a bad rating for something that you do not like or for quality that is not up to your personal standards. Everybody has a different level of skill and as long as they made the effort to make an item please give them a good rating.

On the other hand please DO check out the pictures of previous swaps to see the quality of items that are being swapped. If you do not feel you can meet this quality right now please practice on your own and join another month. We would hate for somebody to receive an item for their child only to have it fall apart on them!

Please do not sign up for swaps this month if you were not able to meet the deadline last month. Instead, use this month go get ahead.

If you are new to the swaps, please do not sign up for more than ONE swap your first month. It is always a good idea to keep Post Office receipts to prove that you mailed your packages on time. Taking photos of your busy bags and posting them on the group FB page is also encouraged.

Think carefully about the amount of time that you have to dedicate to busy bag swapping this month BEFORE you sign up - once you are signed up, Swap Bot WILL NOT allow you to back out past the sign up date. Plan ahead! Try to mail your busy bags out a week before they are due in case an unforseen family emergency, sickness, loss of job, etc. happens. Please consider how much it will cost to mail out your busy bags BEFORE you sign up. Figure approximately $2 per bag US and $3 per bag Canada per package. Estimate at least 5 people that you are mailing to. You should budget $10-15 PER GROUP for POSTAGE ONLY (not supplies) when you sign up. The most popular activities that our group members have made have not been the most expensive ones, but the ones that people take time on and make look really nice. Please take a look at the FB group's photo albums for ideas of what members have been making. THANK YOU!

If you have any questions at all feel free to ask! I know almost everybody who joins this swap will be new to swap-bot so this will be a learning experience for most of you.

Please feel free to use the fb group to bounce around ideas, positive chat, and share pictures! We want it to be a fun place!