For those of us in the USA, our Thanksgiving holiday is right around the corner. It is the busy holiday season already and the craft blogs are full of holiday ideas and projects. Here are a few that caught my eye:

• First, I must promote myself a little bit… I recently wrote an article for CraftCritique.com about Kata Golda’s Hand-Stitched Felt book. I had fun working on two felt projects for the review. Above is a photo of the supplies I used to make a cute coffee mug cozy.
• Need some ideas for holiday gifts you can make yourself? Check out Cathe Holden’s Gift Making Guide. It is a round-up of Holden’s forty-two different craft tutorials!
• Fantastic Toys has a downloadable pattern and instructions for how to make adorable, vintage-style, felt ornaments.
• If you want to make a funkier felt ornament, try Mariska’s elephant angel ornament tutorial.
• Ohamanda.com has a round-up of ten amazing advent calendar ideas.
• This fabric peppermint garland is beautiful. (Found via CraftyPod on Twitter.)
• If you need a quick card to include with you holiday gifts, why not download Creature Comforts free cupcake and teacup flat cards.
• This one is just for fun… Have you been to CakeSpy.com? It is an adorable blog all about desserts! Yum!
• For any NYC-area swappers, there are three big holiday craft fairs coming up in two weeks that I will be attending and you might want to visit them, too. They are the Holiday Handmade Cavalcade (Dec. 5th), the Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia’s Holiday Craft Sale (Dec. 5th), and the BUST Holiday Craftacular (Dec. 6th).

Happy Friday the 13th! These links don’t have anything to do with the auspicious date, but they are cool just the same. Enjoy!

• I know, some say it is too early to start thinking about the holidays… but if you are hand-making things for the season, I don’t think it is ever too early to get started. Felt-O-Rama has a really cute and simple idea for making felt tree decorations (seen above).
• A great gift idea or just something handy for all of the holiday travel, Skip To My Lou has a tutorial for making pretty fabric luggage tags.
• You know that I am always raving about the blog, Blah to TADA! Lately, it has featured all sorts of handmade gift ideas. My current favorite is the Chocolate Spoons tutorial. Who wouldn’t love getting a bundle of those? Maybe paired with a bag of coffee… a great gift idea!
• CraftyPod has a great “upcycle” tutorial for turning empty cardboard food boxes into cool, little notepads. Clever!
• And, I found this next link via Sister Diane of Crafty Pod on Twitter: Robert Sabuda pop-up greeting card tutorials complete with PDF templates.
• Have you heard of The Toy Society? It is a growing street art project that started in Australia. The participants make handmade toys and leave them in public places to be discovered and adopted by strangers. From the site description: “The Toy Society spreads the love throughout the streets of the world. Nothing to it really just a bunch of handmade toys looking for a nice home.” Sweet!

It is holiday giveaway time! I have three awesome Martha Stewart Crafts Holiday Glitter sets to send to three lucky winners. I love Martha’s glitter (find out how much here) and these sets have a great variety of normal super-fine glitter, tinsel glitter, and glass microbead glitter - all in beautiful holiday colors. So sparkly!

So, how do you win one of these fab glitter sets? It is easy. Simply, spread the word about all of the winter and holiday swaps taking place on Swap-bot right now. Post on your blog or twitter account about a swap that you are participating in (or just one that you think others might be interested in), then make a comment on this post that includes your Swap-bot username and a link to your tweet or post about Swap-bot. Your comment here will enter you in the random drawing for one of the glitter sets.

Feel free to link to my new international swap, the Holiday Fun Matchbox Swap, in your post or tweet. I want it to be a super-huge swap, so invite all of your friends! However, technically you do not need to post about a holiday swap to enter this drawing - any post about Swap-bot will do. Make sure to link back to Swap-bot in some way in your post. We want attract more quality swappers who may not know about Swap-bot or have been reluctant to try out swapping on our site.

More quality swappers = more swapping fun!

Giveaways Rules: Make sure to include your Swap-bot username and a link to your post about Swap-bot in your comment or your entry will not be counted. Each person can only enter this giveaway drawing one time. The deadline for entering this giveaway is Saturday, November 28th. The winners will be randomly drawn and announced on Sunday, November 29th. If you have trouble commenting on the blog, you can send me an email with your entry to rachel [at] swap-bot.com. Good luck!

UPDATE: If you do not have a Twitter account, website, or blog, you can enter the drawing by telling us one way you have spread the word about Swap-bot, whether in person or via email, facebook, etc… I want everyone to have a chance to enter this fun giveaway! We rely on our great members to promote Swap-bot to other fun, crafty peeps. We don’t have much money for marketing, so we really appreciate it any time you tell a friend about swapping on the ‘bot. Thank you!

Swap-bot user Polymath is hosting a great swap in honor of World AIDS Day on December 1st. This international mail swap brings attention to the cause of AIDS research by combining a craft component with a charitable donation component. Each participant in the swap will send a handmade craft (a greeting card, ATC, bookmark, matchbox, etc) in the theme of the AIDS awareness red ribbon to their one partner. They will each also make a donation of any amount to amFAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research. The swap elebrates love, generosity, and fellowship while bringing awareness to an important cause.

The sign up deadline for the World AIDS Day Swap has been extended, but it is still VERY SOON on November 17th, so go sign up now and show your support for this important cause.

Wow. It is November. Are you ready for the holiday season to start? I’m not, so for this week I have NON-holiday links for you. Please add links to any of your own fun, crafty finds in the comments section. Happy weekend!

• Do you still have candy left over from Halloween? CraftGossip.com has a Round Up of Leftover Halloween Candy Ideas.
• Have you seen the Craft In America television program on PBS? I have watched a few episodes and I think it is amazing! It is so refreshing to see people who are so dedicated to their craft and who are making beautiful things. You can watch full episode online here.
• Creature Comforts (such a pretty blog!) has a new PROJECTS & FREEBIES section with lots of free tutorials and printables.
• Check out this detailed video tutorial for how to make glass tile pendants and rings using your own artwork on CraftStylish.com.
• My most important link: Swap-bot user Polymath is hosting a great swap in honor of World AIDS Day on December 1st. The swap elebrates love, generosity, and fellowship while bringing awareness to the important cause of AIDS research. The sign up deadline for the World AIDS Day Swap is VERY SOON on November 10th, so go sign up now and support this important cause.

**UPDATE:** coolbaker5 has now created an International version of the Winter Holiday Card swap. Yippee!!

Swap-bot is an international site so I know that not everyone celebrates Halloween, but to those who do: Have a fun and spooky weekend!!

Happy Halloween!!

(p.s. If you want to see the amazing variety of fabulous Halloween crafts made for Swap-bot swaps, click here.)

As part of a trade with Wishpot.com, I wrote a guest article for their Indie Blog featuring items handmade by Swap-bot users. (Above is felt cake by lisajhoney, polymer cupcake charms by craftaddict02, and kawaii dessert rings by musicoffandon.) The article shows off a bunch of Swap-bot user’s Etsy stores, and the Swap-bot Wishpot wish list has even more amazing items handmade by your fellow ‘bot enthusiasts. Check it out!