WoodlandBanshee

*****Tuesday July 4th******

I am so bummed to have been rated a 1 for a beauty package that I sent out and was not received yet. I have put a lot of time and effort into the swaps I choose to join, and I take these swaps seriously. It's super disheartening to be unable to join swaps I am interested in because of this rating. I am hoping that the communities I am in which require 5.0 ratings will allow me some time to get back to a 5.0. I am hoping the package has just been misplaced and will arrive shortly. Cheers!

******JULY 25********

@NICOLA4720 who rated me a 1 has numerous 1's on her profile. If anyone knows how to remove a 1 from a person who is partially suspended, I would love to know. Thanks!

So disheartening - I think I am a generous and serious swapper (a "newbie') that has to now work with a crappy rating for a generous beauty package that was sent on time.

I am hugely introverted, musical, and creative. I love art/craft exchanges and am stoked to find this community.

I love photography, especially photos from the first half of the 1900s. I greatly appreciate things from the past. They have stories. In my crafts, I also include things that look vintage, even if they are not from a long time ago. It adds to the story I am sharing within my own art. There is something nostalgic about vintage craft making. Perhaps it reminds me of my own history and memories of my grandmothers and great grandma and aunts.

I currently mostly enjoy making mixed media pieces; larger pieces often take me weeks. Sometimes I turn larger pieces that I've done on cardboard into atcs, postcards, or inchies, or sometimes I will include it onto a larger piece I am making on canvas as I love layering and incorporating many smaller crafts onto bigger pieces. I used to host casual craft groups in my living room, mostly for card making, and sometimes for atc making and swapping, but it's absolutely exhausting for an introvert and now, with kids, I just don't have the energy! I love mixing paint, paper, photography, and stamps. I find it really satisfying to create texture and make layers. I have a lot of paper products; sometimes I spend more time just looking at the paper and organizing it in colour combinations than I do actually making something! I also have a few pen-pals, some that I have had for well over 15 years through livejournal and other online communities, although over the years, some of them have drifted away as they do! Ultimately, I'd love to connect with like minded crafty folks who enjoy letter writing.

I garden everyday, and we have urban chickens. I have kids and a wonderful partner. I love camping and exploring with my family. I wish that I cycled to work, but it is just too far. I work with people living with Dementia at a day program where we do crafts and dance together. I love every minute of it.

My daughter is 7. She is highly creative. She loves turquoise and purple, but not together. She is really into Pokemon, and enjoys reading comic books and books about animals or interesting and weird facts. For the last 2 years she has stated that she wants to be a veterinarian when she grows up.

She cycles to school with her Dad everyday. She is in karate, swimming, and piano. She likes to take art and drama classes over the summer months. She LOVES making crafts with me. She has an ATC collection of her own cards, but would love to swap atcs and other artsy things with other kids and their Moms or Grandmas. I have promised to split some my swaps with her if she adds something that she has made into some of the swaps. I will attempt to find swaps specifically for her on here, but will likely include extra crafty somethings from her in some of my swaps.

Some crafty things that I would love include strips of lace, metal charms, brads of all shapes and sizes, leaf skeletons, old keys or key images, textured papers, anything vintage looking, nature themes and fairies, gnomes, fantasy forest creatures, handmade paper, rubber stamped paper in all above themes, photography/imagery and of course anything handmade, especially by you :)

I am not a big fan of using stickers in my crafts unless they are like the Tom Holtz Ideology "Paperie Salvage Stickers", or more high end mixed media use stickers.

No Thanks! Here is a list of things I am not looking for in swaps.

**I do not use those foam shapes in my crafts.

**I am not interested in city or flower postcards (

**dollar store stickers (unless as an extra for my daughter.)

** NO CHRISTMAS OR RELIGIOUS ANYTHING (unless I have specifically joined a swap for it)

love rich colours, deep dark reds, rich browns, oranges, blues, and greens. I prefer nature themes and woodland animals. Mossy and inviting. While I like both in my crafts, I prefer silver colours over gold, and coppery colours are particularly wonderful!

Please, if we do a swap and you like to write or keep penfriends, include a letter and I will likely write you back. I am particularly looking for penfriends that like to include crafts and papers with their letters. It's so exciting to get a letter along with some creative inspiration as well as make lovely little packages for penfriends!