Do you have a cat? Do you love Want Gf Back cats? Then, I’ve got a great featured swap for you this week: Craft a Craft for your Cat!! The international swap is being hosted by MrsRemingtion and is open to all cat lovers (as long as you don’t have any 1 or 3 ratings).

From the swap description:

“This swap is for crafters who are owned by cats and love it! Pretty simple instructions. Make a nice craft for your partner’s cat (or cats). If you don’t own a cat, you can still join and craft. How you ask? Well, the craft you receive from your partner could go to a friend’s cat or one of your area’s local cat shelters…. Put some love and attention in your cat craft, please. Make it a craft your cat would love to play with and wouldn’t mind sending it off to another cat. Also, please tell your partner something about your cat or cats in a little note.”

You could make any sort of cat toy! Here are a few cat toy tutorials I quickly found online:

• Cat Toy Critters Tutorial on Fantastic Toys
• Crochet Cat Toy Pattern on Craftzine.com
• Five Handmade Cat Toys on Crafting a Green World
• Handmade Catnip Toys on Craft Tutorials

There are tons of ideas out there! Make sure to sign up for Craft a Craft for your Cat by June 8th and then you have until the end of the month to send along your kitty creation!

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p.s. the silly photo is of my family’s cat, Marvin, when he was a kitten about 17 years ago. He didn’t really like being dressed in doll clothes, but he was a good sport. He has since passed on, but I love looking at the old photos of him.

Want Gf Back

It is Sunday, a little late for the usual “Friday Link Love,” but I couldn’t skip sharing all these great links with you this week….

• Decor8 has a detailed tutorial for making the pretty flower napkin ring seen above. Also, check out the site’s lovely spring garland tutorial.
• I want to make these refrigerator dill pickles from One Perfect Bite. Such a good summer snack!
• Check out the city of Philadelphia’s public Mural Arts Program. I wish every city had public art projects like it.
• Have you heard of Craftgawker? It’s a photo gallery site that allows you to visually search and discover handmade arts and crafts to inspire your own projects. They publish lots of new images every weekday from the top art and craft blogs. Very addicting!
• A cool Fabric Necklace Tutorial on A Beautiful Mess.
• 50 Summer Crafts for Kids on The Long Thread.
• This is just cute: Geronimo Balloon Company.
• Have you seen this new “lady website” co-created by actress and musician, Zooey Deschanel, called Hello Giggles. Admittedly, the name is a little corny, and I’m not sure what to think about their 12-year-old contributing author, but I’ll stay tuned.
• Want to learn a little more about Swap-bot? Simone Collins interviewed me about Swap-bot for a post Friday on Craft Critique as part of their Crafty Business Week.
• One more little self-promotion-type item: I am doing a “Diary Challenge” until the end of June. I was inspired by this post about the benefits of keeping a work diary. Do you have a blog, journal, or diary? Join me in the Challenge and write in it everyday for the next month! Leave a link to your site in the comments, so that I can follow along with your daily writings.

Are you doing anything fun for the long weekend? Any big craft projects? I am going to play with my new Teresa Collins Stampmaker!

Since learning about the passing of 104-year-old NYC heiress Huguette Clark on Tuesday, I have been fascinated by the story of her life. (That is her on the right with her sister and father in 1917.) She is the last surviving heir of a gilded age copper baron and she left a fortune of billions with no descendants. She lived as a recluse and loved collecting dolls. She had three mansions, but hadn’t visited two of them in decades. So intriguing!!

Inspired by Huguette’s strange and incredible life, I picked some gilded-age-style vintage and handmade items from Etsy that I think she may have liked…

Did you hear about Huguette’s passing? Were you as intrigued as I was about her one-of-a-kind life?

Etsy is hosting a global Craft Party on Friday, June 10th, and you can be a part of it! You can join a party in your town or host your own:

“Last year, over 5,000 people participated in over 500 meetups from Dallas to Romania, and this year our goal is for over 15,000 people to share in the spirit of Craft Party. Since we can’t do this without you, we’re calling on your help to mobilize in your local community. To participate, either as a local Craft Party organizer or party-goer, head on over to Meetup Everywhere.”

Etsy Craft Party is a global initiative to energize local communities, make art together, and throw parties to celebrate creativity in cities and towns across the whole world. Everyone is invited to participate and Etsy will provide downloadable party kits for all of the Craft Party hosts. Get more info here.

Etsy Craft Party 2011 from Etsy on Vimeo.

Attending or hosting an Etsy Craft Party could be a fun way to network with other makers and crafters… Do you plan to participate?

Why have I not featured these swaps in the past?! Swap-bot member, Lexidh, hosts lots and lots of of her signature QUICK swaps. They are fast and usually easy to compile swaps.

She just recently created a bunch more, all with a May 27th sign up deadline. The swaps are for experienced swappers with a 4.97 or higher rating, and the turn around time is only three days.

If you want to send and receive something FAST, sign up for one of these QUICK swaps:

• QUICK 5 postcard swap
• QUICK Ribbon swap
• QUICK ATC swap
• QUICK 50 sticker swap

• QUICK paper craft swap and my favorite:

• QUICK 5 Somethings

If you love these QUICK style swaps, request to join Lexidh’s QUICK swaps info group. There she will announce the new QUICK swaps (which are public) and provide other relevant info.

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.

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:</p>

1. Making friends
2. Making Friends
3. learning to finish projects
4. Doing new crafts.
5. Getting nice feedback from my partners.
6. Getting cute things to display around the house.
7. Motivating.
8. Has helped me with my depression issues.
9. Meeting people with common interests.
10. Last but definately not least Rachel and Travis! And Crusher too!

</i>

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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!!

I forgot how much I love whimsy jar swaps! The photo above is of a jar I made for a whimsy jar swap way back in 2009!

So, this week I chose the Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Baby Jar Of Whimsy as the featured swap. The swap is hosted by TECHGIRL10 and it is international. (But she is also hosting a USA-only version.)

Whimsy jars are little glass jars full of tiny trinkets and craft supplies. You can see some examples here and TECHGIRL10 has some amazing ones in her Flickr stream. For this swap you can use a baby food jar (approximately 2.5 ozs.) and fill full of fun tidbits. The swap is sender’s choice so you can create your jar around any theme, but the jar must be decorated and filled to the top. Keep in mind that a lot of tiny items can fit even in a small jar, so be prepared to include dozens of items.

All participants must have a rating of 4.8 or above, with no unexplained 1’s or 3’s. The swap is not open to new users because you must have at least ten type 3 swaps. Be sure to read the full swap description before signing up.

• Yum! Another delicious recipe from Bakers Royale: Strawberry Shortcake Popsicles (seen above).
• Did you hear? Sister Diane of CraftyPod is the new Editor-in-chief of Craftzine.com!
• Adorable printable paper button embellishments from Creature Comforts.
• Love these by Lucy Knisley: Harry Potter books in comic form.
• I just discovered THXTHXTHX, a blog that shares a thank you note every day.
• Need to find even more cool blogs? Check out Dollar Store Crafts’ list of 65 Craft Blogs We Love.
• A little summer fun reading from the Etsy blog: The Origin of the Bathing Suit.

Have a great weekend! And, as always, leave more cool links in the comments…

Welcome back to the handmade marketplace feature! I have missed picking my faves from Etsy!

Tonight, I’m going to my first ever Yankees game, so I thought that it would be fun to search for handmade baseball items. The necklace seen above from the qacreate shop is made with a real baseball- cool!

Baseball makes it feel like summer! Plus, if your dad likes baseball, some of these items might make a good Father’s Day gift! The holiday is coming up on June 19th for those of us in the US, Canada, and the UK.

Are you a baseball fan?