Dec 1st 2011 12:20:16 pm

If you celebrate Christmas, you will love this fun project organized by the Dutch Swappers Group…

The Dutch Swappers put together a 24 day blog hop advent calendar. You can see the advent calendar below and even share it on your own site if you’d like.

Each day around noon, a new box filled with a creative tutorial, a giveaway, or a free printable will be revealed. Each member of the group is providing one of the days’ posts and each day is a new craft surprise!

(Most of the blog posts are in Dutch, but if you use Google Chrome, you can translate the pages easily. Thanks to kimminita for letting me know about this fun project.)

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No Comments » Categories: craftiness, Swapper Report

Oct 25th 2011 11:42:25 am

On October 8th 2011, four Swap-Bot members — AndrewLips, Kessie, kittenred, and paperbutterflywings — met up in Newcastle, England.

AndrewLips (seen to the right playing guitar) hosted the event and sent this report:

“We all met at my house around midday. Everyone who came got 3 goodie bags each from each member, including Swap-Bot postcards, buttons and stickers kindly provided by racheljohnson.

If you would like to attend or organise a UK meet up, please join this swap-bot group: UK meet ups!“

I love the screen printed Ernie items they made!! It sounds like a fun and very creative day. Remember, I’d love to share photos and reports from any and all Swap-bot user meetups. Email me anytime at rachel -at- swap-bot.com.

6 Comments » Categories: Meetup, Swapper Report

Aug 1st 2011 10:18:04 am

This report is coming a little late as I had a very busy last two weeks at jury duty…

A group of awesome Swap-botters met up on July 15th in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada to chat, craft, and have some fun.

(In the photo above are… Standing from left to right: PJ, Dulcimer, CindyAC, friend of CindyAC, Lepapillonvert, Masterbard, friend of CindyAC, TeePeemaiden, Lostdawill, and kneeling from left to right: TerryF, Toupti, and Heavenscreations.)

The event was organized by Lepapillonvert and TeePeemaiden. The two are seen above with the amazing cupcakes they served at the event.

In addition to an in-person swap, PJ (seen to the left above crafting with heavenscreations and TeePeemaiden) wrote this recap of the event:

“We made beautiful cards designed and supplied by TeePeeMaiden. Masterbard showed us how to make awesome steampunk ATC’s and shared lots of Korean paper goodies with us. lepaillonvert showed us how to make a folder envie with an old calendar page. We had more yummy snacks than we could eat. We all brought gifty goodies for each other – some people brought a lot of goodies and really wowed us. A little bit of shopping was done.”

Attendees camee from all over Ontario. Travel companions seen above are heavenscreations, dulcimer, TerryF, and toupti.

Read lots more about the meet up in the official forum thread. It sounds like everyone had a great time! View more photos in Toupti’s Flickr set and Heavenscreations’ Flickr set.

Look at those awesome goodies bags! And some Swap-bot stickers, too! Awesome.

If you were at the Ontario meet up, please feel free to add more details and links to photos in the comments…

6 Comments » Categories: Meetup, Swapper Report

Jul 19th 2011 07:22:44 am

Last Saturday, July 16th, a group of six UK swap-botters (seen above: denimblu14, kittenred, AndrewLips, Carolinev237, AnnMarie, hippysherree, and reauk) met in Sheffield for some in-person swapping and crafting. The event was organized by AndrewLips and he sent this report:

“We met on wet a Saturday morning in a lovely pub called The Cutler in Sheffield. A small but awesome group of members came, mostly made up of Northern based swappers. When we got there, we put together some tables and everyone put on the table the items they had brought for the goodiebags (each person who came got a goodiebag). People brought so many amazing lovely handmade crafts. The goodiebags were stuffed with treats. It felt like Christmas! Even mum2boys82 who could not make the swap sent treats, which was greatly appreciated by the group.

Shortly after we had our ice breaker where people showed some of their favourite swaps they had received on Swap-bot. After this kittenred did her Woolly Dolly workshop which was lots of fun as well as very simple and easy to do. [Denimblu14 is seen to the left with her Woolly Dolly.]

After this a few people had to leave. The rest of us stayed and had lunch together at the pub and then walked around looking at the city of Sheffield. It was so nice to meet everyone who came. We all really enjoyed ourselves. It was clear to see how much Swap-Bot means to all of us, how big a part of our lives it is. It was really nice to see the offline community it has created and put a face to the names. When it was time to leave the sun had come out which was a shame, as we did plan a picnic… Maybe next time!”

It sounds like it was a lovely afternoon! The group says that they are already planning future events. If you are a UK swapper and interested in meeting other Swap-bot members, join the UK meet up group!

Also, if you are planning a group meet-up with other Swap-bot members, please let me know in advance! (contact rachel -at- Swap-bot.com) I will send along some Swap-bot goodies.

3 Comments » Categories: Meetup, Swapper Report

Jun 22nd 2011 08:59:17 am

Last weekend, a group of Swap-bot friends gathered in Ohio for a fun in-person meet-up. The occasion of the gathering was a visit from RyeRye, who lives in Florida and is the founder of the Crafting Queens group.

Swap-botters came from far and wide, including lepapillonvert who came down from Canada, dkay and pandessa who drove ten hours from New York state to get there, and MzPatti, izohgore, and Chavve from Ohio. The two-day event was hosted by lilspotteddog. (RyeRye and lilspotteddog are together in the photo above – love that hat!)

Here is the official fun times report from lilspotteddog:

People came on Friday evening and we ate BBQ pulled pork sammies, nachos, cheesecake, artery-clogging brownies made by RyeRye and topped with everything but the kichen sink, then we trundled down to my basement craft area to share things we had made and to play a little before piling into the beds around 4:00 AM. We were back up around 9:00 AM to hit the road headed off near the Cleveland/Akron area to meet up with izohgore and Chavve.

Thanks to SB and you Rachel, for the enrichment this site has given to my life.

It sounds like almost too much fun was had! What a great meet-up! You can read more about the fun in this forum thread. Also, to all the attendees: please add more details in the comments! I’d love to put usernames with faces in the group photos above.

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Like always, I LOVE to hear about Swap-bot gatherings. Please let me know about any that are happening and take photos to share on the blog!

10 Comments » Categories: Meetup, Swapper Report, Swappy Goodness

Jun 14th 2011 11:47:29 am

Do you keep a journal or diary? How about a visual diary or altered journal? Art journaling is an art form that incorporates writing, drawing, painting, collage, and scrapbooking within a bound book of some type. It is a way of expressing yourself freely and experimenting with different techniques. You can find some amazing examples of art journaling on Pinterest and Flickr.

User spinjenny (whose journal pages are seen above) describes visual journaling like this:

Looking at other people’s pages shows what a wide range of journals people keep. For some people, it is a diary, a notebook, a record of their experiments, a resource for later reference, or somewhere to let out their deepest feelings. Some are really sketchbooks with a few more words than usual. Some are mainly words with some decoration – painted backgrounds, doodles, cartoons or more realistic sketches. Some are multi-layered mixed media art. Anything goes! There are no rights or wrongs in journalling, just what works best for you. I’m still in the experimenting stage – looking at a lot of other people’s work, and trying out styles and materials.

The topic of art journaling was recently brought up in the Swap-bot forums by mrsdutton and many helpful users responded with some great tips and links. Check out a few of them to learn more about art journaling and be inspired!

Blogs:

• Artists Journal Workshop – A varied group blog for contributors to the book of the same name.
• The Sketchbook Challenge – Another group blog, with a monthly theme challenge, but very informative even if you don’t want to do the challenge.
• Green Isles Crafts – Lots of prompts along with descriptions of how she made her own pages, sometimes with videos too.
• Journal Artista – Paula has a lot of videos on YouTube and Ustream.
• Roz Wound Up – Roz is a workshop tutor.
• Diana Trout – Diana wrote Journal Spilling, an intro to art journalling.
• Fearless Art Journaling Series – on Handmade by Jessica (aka bluemonkeymama).
• D’Blogala – This is Dawn DeVries Sokol’s blog. She’s the author of 1000 Artist Journal Pages, which is a great book for inspiration!
• Journal Girl – Samantha Kira Harding’s blog shows her pages, some of her process and other tidbits.
• Journal Junk – Another blog with lots of photos and some video.

Workshops:

• Glimmerllama recommends the Strathmore Visual Journal Online Workshop – There are written instructions, video lessons, and discussion boards where people share their journals. She found that Workshop 3 was the easiest to start with.

Books:

• 1,000 Artist Journal Pages: Personal Pages and Inspirations
• Journal Spilling
• The True and the Questions: A Journal by Sabrina Ward Harrison
• The Art Journal Workshop: Break Through, Explore, and Make it Your Own
• Wreck This Journal by Keri Smith
• Art Journaling magazine by Stampington & Co. has lots of beautiful photos, ideas, tip and tricks.

Swap-bot users swap completed journals, shared group journals (in round robin journal swaps, the journals travel and each person works on a few pages), and loose journal pages. Search the “Journals” category to find all the current journal swaps. Here are a few swaps that are currently open for sign up:

• The Shared Journal Experiment #5 – sign up by June 16th
• Get Started Junque Journal – sign up by June 17th
• Visual Journal Swap – sign up by December 31st

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So, what do you think? Are you inspired to start your own art journal?

(Thanks to spinjenny and bluemonkeymama for most of the links! If you have more art journaling links, please add them in the comments.)

9 Comments » Categories: craftiness, Swapper Report, Tuesday Tip

Jun 13th 2011 11:36:51 am

You may remember that last week I posted a profile of the Dutch Swappers Group. Well, the group continues to be extremely active and over the weekend 20 members of the group got together in person!

This was the third official meet up of the group. They met in in Boekel, a southern town in the Netherlands. Attendees included IlonaH, Kimminita, littleZ, Kyroushka, and 8r1id, who hosted the event at her home.

Everyone brought something to eat or drink, they played a “Pass the Parcel” swap game, and Kimminita gave a workshop in drawing mandalas. Some of the attendees stayed overnight, and went to the gardens of Appeltern the next day. It looks like it was a lot of fun and great weather, too!

Read more about the event on littleZ’s blog and view more photos from the day here.

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Are you hosting or attending an in-person Swap-bot event? Please take photos! I’d love to share them here, on the blog. Email me at rachel -at- swap-bot.com.

1 Comment » Categories: Swapper Report, Swappy Goodness

May 19th 2011 09:14:02 am

ATCs (Artist Trading Cards) are one of the most popular items swapped on Swap-bot. They are small works of art the size of a traditional baseball or trading card, and they can be created either to match a specific swap theme or just to represent your individual artistic style. You can find more info about ATCs here. (Above you see three ATCs by Swap-bot user, CSNYfan. You can view more of her beautiful creations in her Flickr stream.)

There are many ATC groups on Swap-bot, but CSNYfan recently made me aware of the “Artist Trading Cards – Swap your Art” group. The group was founded back in 2009 and is unique in that it is juried – meaning that all those interested in joining must submit images of their past ATC work in order to be considered for admission. Restricting membership in that way may seem intense, but it ensures that the group is comprised of serious ATC lovers who are interested in high quality ATC swaps. People who are comfortable doing some hand drawn work and don’t rely too heavily on scrapbook elements to complete ATCs would be a great fit for the “Artist Trading Cards – Swap your Art” group.

Here is a bit more info about the group from its description:

“This is a group for people who want to ensure that they are going to be delighted with their ATC packages. You don’t need to be an expert artist to join, but you must put 100% effort and dedicate time to your ATCs, both of which will be obvious in your work no matter what level of artist you are. These requirements may seem intimidating – we are just a group of people who like to try new things, add some hand-drawn/handpainted elements and work to create things that will always delight our partners!”

The group has hosted a wide variety of ATC swaps, including copper repousse and art metal embossing, as well as ATCs made with gesso, markers, watercolor, colored pencils, weaving and collage. If you are fairly confident in your ATC making skills but still like to learn and experiment with new things, the “Artist Trading Cards – Swap your Art” group may be the perfect group for you!

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Do you belong to an awesome Swap-bot group? Have you had in-person meet-ups or do you have unique swaps to share? Please let me know! Email me at rachel [at] Swap-bot.com with all the details and I may feature your group on the blog.

4 Comments » Categories: Group Profile, Swapper Report

May 18th 2011 01:25:54 pm

I came across this lovely I LOVE SWAP-BOT forum thread and it just made my day! I especially loved this Top Ten list from user, LINDA50:

I love Swap-bot! Let me count the ways….. Top ten reasons:

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I love it and want to thank all the awesome users who continually inspire Travis and me to keep on working to improve Swap-bot. Thank you!!

4 Comments » Categories: General, Swapper Report

May 11th 2011 11:25:21 am

Swap-bot users create such wonderful, creative groups. There are over 1200 groups to choose from on the ‘bot, so I am happy that user, CarrieZee, brought one of the many great groups to my attention for this week’s group profile.

Let me introduce you to Somerset Style! The group hosts craft swaps inspired by the style popularized by the Stampington Publications, like Somerset Life, Belle Amoire, Apprentice, Green Craft, etc. The group was founded in October 2009 by YooperHill and homeandheart.

Somerset Style swaps are of an exceptionally high quality. All group members must have completed at least ten craft swaps before joining the group, as well as have no 1 or recent 3 ratings. The swaps are all craft-related and often feature embellished paper crafts. Below is an upcycled wall pocket made by CarrieZee for a Somerset Style swap:

Upcoming Somerset Style swaps include Pretty Postcard Presentation and Somerset Green: Gift Card Holder. If those swaps sound fun to you and you meet the group requirements, request to join!

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Do you belong to an awesome Swap-bot group? Have you had in-person meet-ups or do you have unique swaps to share? Please let me know! Email me at rachel [at] Swap-bot.com with all the details and I may feature your group on the blog.

7 Comments » Categories: Group Profile, Swapper Report