As many of you are already aware, the Canadian postal system is currently shut down due to a strike. That means no mail is going in or out of the country. Operations officially shut down on the 14th. You can get more information about the strike here.

Obviously, if the Canadian postal system is not running, swaps cannot be sent to and from that country. Hopefully, the strike will end soon, but for now: Do not rate your partners down for late mailing caused by the strike.

Communicate with your partners if you’re swapping is affected by the strike and let me know (rachel -at- Swap-bot.com) if you have any questions or concerns.

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. </p>

We had lunch at the Macaroni Grill where a most generous someone picked up the entire check (wasn’t me!) and then went on to Hollo’s to browse through that paper crafters’ dream. After asking random strangers to take our pics all day, we drove home with more shopping on the way.

Saturday evening we had a salad bar and more desserts and traded prezzies back and forth. Without knowing we were doing that, everyone had given each other goodies. RyeRye and I had done up a little bucket with an apron, ruler, chocolate, and some little drawstring bags she found. The New Yorkers brought gorgeous packs of nice bright cardstock for all. MzPatti spoiled us all with profile themed how to books and fabric charm packs. Cat gave everyone a piece of her gorgeous artwork, and lepapillonvert brought yummy glitter-sprinkled cupcakes topped with handmade picks commemorating RyeRye’s group, the Crafting Queens. Although we did not have time for the make and take activities we had planned, everyone managed to get a little creativity going on. Lepapillon made some ATCs, RyeRye made the items for two swaps she is in, and pandessa got the journal constructed for an altered journal swap she is in.

I am charged with taking the cupcake pics made by lepapillon and turning them into a commemorative medallion for the occasion and then sending them off.

We had a blast, but the best thing was meeting the person behind the name. It has added so much more dimension to our online interactions.

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

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!

This week’s featured swap was inspired by the adorable fabric gift pouch seen above. A tutorial for the fabric pouch is featured on A Spoonful of Sugar, and swap coordinator Csquaredreations thought they would be a fun item to swap. If you agree, join the Super Cute Gift Pouch Swap.

For the international swap, you make one of the fabric gift pouches for your partner. You do not have to fill the pouch with goodies, but that would be a fun way to spoil your partner! Sign up for the swap by Friday, June 24th. New users with a filled out profile and experienced swappers with a 5.0 rating are welcome to join. Remember to read the full swap description before signing up! Happy sewing and swapping!

Yum! Food:

• The beautiful pops you see above are Lemonade Stand Popsicles from Somewhere Splendid.
• One more for my S’more addiction: No-bake S’more Bars from How Sweet It Is.
• Cute! Chocolate and sprinkle-dipped pretzels, American Flag-style, from Poca Cosa.
• Um, ok. A hot dog fairy!

Last minute Father’s Day ideas:

• Top 5 Last Minute Father’s Day Projects from Momtastic.
• Free, printable Father’s Day Cards from The Tomkat Studio.
• Cute bow tie and long tie embroidery patterns from Wild Olive.
• How to: Woven Paper Gift Topper from Minieco.co.uk.

What are you doing for Father’s Day this weekend?

I have been drinking a lot of juice lately, so I have citrus on the brain. There are lots of pretty lemon and lime colored creations on Etsy, like these cute rings by CharmingRings. Check out these other refreshing handmade picks…

What is your favorite citrus fruit?

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</a> by Sabrina Ward Harrison</li>

  • 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.</ul>

  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.)

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.

It is definitely summer time in the city!! Lots of warm weather… maybe I should go on a picnic…

• Love these <A href=http://www.thedecoratedcookieblog.com/2010/10/mason-jar-meal-my-6th-pfb-challenge.html”>Mason Jar Meals</a> on The Decorated Cookie. Such perfect proportions! (found via Craft)
  • Top 15 Tech Gifts for Father’s Day on Design*Sponge.
  • And on Craftzine.com, Great Father’s Day GIft Ideas to Make.
  • DIY Project: Make your own cloth farmer’s market bags.
  • I think I’ve already shared this, but it is cute enough to share twice: The World’s Smallest Post Service Kit.
  • Ever wondered if you have formatted international addresses correctly? Use this International Mailing Address Formats Tool to double check.
  • I’ve been dreaming about making a quilt for a long time… this Beginning Quilting Series on Diary of a Quilter will be a big help!
  • Ha ha! Corn dog cookies!</ul> How is your summer going?

I am really warming up to the idea of coral. (The color, not the sea animal/organism.) Coral nails, coral lips, coral shoes. Orange + pink = summer!

Above is “Flames to Dust” hand spun merino yarn from Funyarns.

Here are a few more handmade coral color picks from Etsy:

What is your summer color?

This week’s featured swap is unique, but oh, so practical! The Tea Wallet plus Tea swap is being hosted by snowqueen1426. For the swap you must send your partner one sewn tea wallet, two wrapped tea bags, and a short message.

For the wallet: </i>“You will sew not glue your wallet. Quality construction, made by you, that you are proud of…Use clean materials, with your choice of embellishments. The wallet should be able to store two or more packets of tea. The design, and colors will be senders choice.”</i>

This swap is regional and restricted to only those with a US address. Usually, I like to feature international swaps so that anyone can participate, but I really like the idea of tea wallets and hope this inspires similar swaps.

Sign up for the Tea Wallet plus Tea swap by June 18th. All US swappers who have completed ten Type 3 swaps and have a rating of 4.9 or higher are welcome! Read the swap description for the full details.

More info:

• The image above is from the tea wallet tutorial on Rad Linc Crafts.
• You can find another tea wallet tutorial on Christy’s Creations.
• And the photo below is from one more tutorial on Handmade Therapy.
• Find lots of tea wallet photos on Flickr!