If you search for “heart” on Etsy right now, you will find more Valentine goodness than you could ever possibly browse… but I tried my best! I managed to choose a few of my favorite handmade heart items, like the cute burlap banner seen above from SewBarefoot.

Do you get into the Valentine’s Day spirit? Are you crafting any heart-filled items for your sweetheart?

In the US, Women’s History Month is observed in March each year. This year, why not mark the occasion by joining the Celebrating Women’s History Swap?!

The USA-only swap is being hosted by extremely experienced swapper, Artistic — she has completed over 1000 swaps! — and it is open to swappers with over a 4.8 rating. From the swap description:

For this swap, send your one partner three items celebrating women in American history. The items could be brochures, something from a tourist or historical site where you live or have visited, newspaper or magazine articles, or any other relevant item, etc. You could also create one of the items, i.e., an ATC or bookmark.

Sign up for Celebrating Women’s History Swap by February 28th!

Travis and I are working on a few small site tweaks today, one of which is the new forum feature: My Discussions.

You’ll find the “My Discussions” link in the Forums drop down menu at the top of the page. The My Discussions page will list all of the forum threads that you have ever started in order of most recent activity. Both your group and public forum threads will be listed. (If you are no longer in a group in which you previously created a forum thread, you will still see the thread listed on your My Discussions page, but won’t be able to click through to read it.)

I know that there are many things that need to change on Swap-bot that may be higher priorities, and we are working hard on them, but this was one feature that we could easily implement at this time. I thought it would be very helpful (for me and hopefully others) to find our past threads and see what activity we may have missed. (The feature is not perfect and there are some issues with users who have changed their usernames, but it is a start.)

Let me know if you notice any glitches…

I’m having a fun Friday catching up on email (a constant activity) and crafting a few Valentines. I made the card seen above for my Handmade Valentine Postcard Swap and put it in the mail today! What are you working on today?

If you have some time, check out these fun links:

• I love these Love Struck Pencils from The Crafts Dept. They look like vintage arrows.
• It is the year of the dragon! Don’t you want to know how to crochet your own adorable amigurumi dragon to celebrate?! Learn how on All About Ami.
• And for Valentine’s Day, make a DIY Kitschy Wreath like Heidi from My Paper Crane.
• A cool craft and project blog: ReveDreams.
• Yum. No Bake Nutella Cheesecake.
• Another dessert recipe: Cupid’s Arrow Cupcakes on Bakerella.

And have a great weekend! I hear there is a football game on…

Aren’t these stamps from Finland cool?! I received them on the Chocomania swap package from my partner, sanna. I have really been enjoying international swaps lately and I have been saving all of the stamps for my collection. Do you keep the stamps you get on packages?

This week, I have another wide variety of links for you. Enjoy:

• Have you seen the Random Tutorial Generator? It pops out a new, random craft project with each click.
• Need a fun, candy-less Valentine for the kiddos? Check out this free, downloadable Valentine Crown from Skip to my Lou.
• One of my new favorite craft blogs: A Girl Who Makes.
• Cool. How to make glowing jars.
• Also, how to make your own bouncy balls.
• This is just fun and cute: The Anatomy of a Cupcake Infographic.
• This recipe looks a little complicated, but man, do I ever want to make these Mini Chocolate Oreo Cakes from Bakers Royale!
• Love to knit? Make a scarf for a very good cause: 2012 Special Olympics USA Scarf Project.
• Another way to do good and feel good? Send a letter to the troops via Operation Write Home.
• And, if you love making ATCs or Zines, consider joining Kiwivandal’s swap and donating one to a kids art workshop.

As always, feel free to share your favorite links in the comments!

Swap-bot user, kiwivandal, needs your help! She is teaching a Guerilla Art for Kids workshop at a Youth Town Meeting in her area in April. (The group that puts on Youth Town Meeting is called The Youth Advisory Council of Caledonia & Southern Essex, in Vermont.)

Kiwivandal wants to collect examples of Artist Trading Cards and mini-zines to give to each of her workshop participants:

“I would love it if anyone could send a mini-zine or ATC (or both) geared toward 6th to 8th graders. Meaning appropriate themes, public awareness, inspirational. Anything really.

The conference is the first week of April, so I have 3 months to collect anything I can.”

If you’d like to help, you can donate directly to Kiwivandal — her address and additional info is listed in this forum thread — or you can join the special swap she has set up for the donation drive. For the swap, you send your ATC or zine to Kiwivandal and then send a photo of what you donated to your swap partner. Your partner will give you a nice rating for donating and you will earn yourself some Swap-bot swag! I am sending a big bunch of Swap-bot buttons, stickers, and postcards to Kiwivandal to mail out to everyone who participates in the swap.

Donate an ATC or zine to kids = get Swap-bot swag!

The forum thread with more info.
The special ATC & zine swap.

Did you know that 2012 is a leap year?! Celebrate Leap Day on February 29th by sending a postcard for the Leap Day Postcard Swap. The international swap is being hosted by hereiam and is open to all swappers. The only requirement is that you mail your naked (not in an envelope), store bought postcard on Leap Day, February 29th, 2012. What an easy and fun way to mark this rare holiday!

It is Day 2 of the Alt Summit, a design and blogging conference in Salt Lake City. It is a somewhat overwhelming experience, but I’m having fun, meeting new people, and learning a lot about online business.

There are so many cool blogs and websites out there! Here are a just few that I have discovered (or rediscovered) so far at Alt:

Very Awesome Blogs:

• Mighty Girl – the original.
• Making it lovely – one of my all-time faves!
• Design Crush
• Oh Happy Day! – party planning projects.
• I Still Love You
• Make Something Happy
• Draw Pilgrim!
• Freckle Wonder
• Note to Self
• Katie’s Pencil Box
• Crafterhours
• The Jealous Curator
• May, June & July
• The Cuisinerd
• Cake

Other cool sites:

• Tin Eye – a service that helps you track done your images online.
• Link with Love – a reminder to always link to the orginal source when you share something.
• Kinfolk magazine
• Epiphanie Bags – very cool, fashionable camera bags.

Too much to share! Conferences always cause information overload… but it is good to discover new things. (If you are curious about the Alt Summit conference, I also posted a quick update over on Ace.)

FaveCrafts.com (a giant site full of all types of craft tutorials) is hosting their second annual Valentines Day Card Swap on the ‘bot and you are invited! It is an easy, international swap. Just create one Valentine’s Day card for your one partner and mail it before February 11th. Sign up before the 1st and join us in sending and receiving heart day greetings!

Friday the 13th. Spooky!! But so far I am having a pretty good day. How about you? Make it even better by checking out a few of these fun links…

I love Valentine’s Day themes, so you know I have some “heart day” links for you:

• DIY Chalkboard Valentine Hearts tutorial on papernstitch.
• Look at this adorable Valentine Snow Globe on Whipperberry.
• Check out these two free Valentine downloads: Pizzazzerie’s Valentine’s Day art prints and Skip To My Lou’s Valentine Party Circles.
• LOLz. A mitten for two: Valentine’s Day Heart Shaped Smitten.

Non-Valentine Links:

• Ten Ways to Make Garland.
• Literary website, The Rumpus, just announced a snail mail subscription service called Letters in the Mail. Subscribe for $5 a month and get a letter a week written by a popular author. Interesting!
• There is still time to join the Second Annual Craft Social Mug Rug Swap!
• Your S’more of the week: The Art & Science of S’mores infographic.

Happy weekend!!