Have you ever heard of book thongs? They are bookmarks made out of a thin ribbon or string with beads or charms on either end. They are a pretty way to mark your spot in a book and they are easy to make!

If you want to try making a few book thongs, join this week’s featured swap: the Book Thong Swap, hosted by craftsgalore. The swap is international and open to those swappers with over a 4.8 rating. Sign up before September 10th, and then start working on your two book thongs. One will be sent to each of your two partners.

For more information on making book thongs, check out these tutorials:

• Pebbles & Poppys Book Thong Tutorial
• Romantic Book Thong Tutorial on Craftbits.com
• Crafts on a Whim Book Thong
• Beaded Book Thong Tutorial on FaveCrafts
• Auntie’s Beads Beaded Bookmark YouTube video

Happy bookmark beading!

It is rainy in my part of the world today and I am feeling the effects of the cloudy skies. Hopefully the sun will come back soon, but for now I will embrace the rain. (The adorable print above is from the biribis shop on Etsy.)

Are you feeling rainy or sunny today?

Looking through all of the available Swap-bot swaps always makes me happy. There are so many to choose from in every possible theme – I love it!

The wide range of choices also makes it hard to choose just one featured swap each week, but I managed to narrow it down to a few Dotee Doll swaps this week:

• How much is that Dog Dotee in the Window – A cute, unique, and international dotee doll swap hosted by CozetteAsahi. (Love the swap title!) Last day to sing up is today!!
• Clown Dotee – An international swap hosted by mlbstudios. Open for sign up until this Saturday, August 28th.
• Spooky Halloween Dotee – International swap also hosted by mlbstudios. Sign up before September 1st.
  • Mushroom Dotee – International and hosted by CozetteAsahi. You have until September 11th to sign up.
  • Robot Dotee – I think robot dotee dolls would be so cute! If you agree, sign up for the international swap, hosted by obliviousfire, by September 30th.</ul> All of these Dotee Doll themes sound so fun and unique – I can’t wait to see the finished products!

  If you are new to Dotee Dolls, here is a little more info:

  Dotee Dolls are small fabric dolls created by Dorothy “Dot” Christian. They are meant to spread friendship, love, and joy. For more info about Dotee Dolls, check out their creator, Dot’s, blog. You can also see lots of great photos of the dolls in the Dotee Doll Flickr group.

Just a few little links for you this week:

• For us snail mail lovers, I thought this “Love Letter” bedding was particularly appropriate (and quite pretty, too).
• Two cute new blogs I just discovered: Secretly Loves Pink and Pancakes & French Fries
• If you like design and style blogs, check out Artessen. It is an aggregator of all the top visual blogs and a one-stop-shop for daily inspiration.
• Adorable Star Wars toddler dresses!
• Glitter and shimmer Mod Podge? Yes, please!
• And, I saved the cute for last: Sweet, little bookmark printables from Wild Olive. The tiny bacon is too much!!

Have a lovely weekend!

I intended to announce this yesterday, but better late than never…

The winner of last Friday’s BlogHer random swag giveaway is lorepuckett!! Yay!

Here is her winning comment entry:

The website she suggested is Make It and Love It. Cool!

Lorepuckett’s prize pack will be mailed out asap. Thank you to everyone who entered and suggested so many awesome blogs. I love discovering new, crafty websites!

IndieBizChicks.com is a website that provides business, marketing, and publicity information to “women who’d rather work for themselves, than work for the man.” The site was launched in the summer of 2007 by Crissy Herron, a writer, teacher, and speaker with a big passion for entrepreneurship and the DIY movement. She wants to provide helpful information and assistance to people in their 20s and 30s who are looking to become self-employed. If you have a small online business, like an Etsy store or a blog, that you would like to promote, IndiBizChicks.com is a great place to learn about online marketing and business development.

I met Crissy last weekend, first at the Etsy Crafty Blogging Panel, and then we spent time hanging out at the BlogHer10 conference here in New York City. She is very knowledgeable when it comes to just about anything related to running an independent business online and she is a professional and informative speaker. I was impressed!

The Indie Biz Chicks site is a helpful, daily blog and much more! Crissy also creates instructive products, like eBooks and Podcasts, and hosts live e-classes. Some of her products are free and some are available for purchase. For example, Crissy is offering an upcoming, live Holiday Marketing Tips e-class for just $3. I am also very interested in the collection of Summer Biz Sessions podcasts. For $15 you get the podcast recordings of interviews with some amazing small business owners, like Ali Edwards and Jennifer of Naughty Secretary Club.

Even if you aren’t interested in running your own online business, Indie Biz Chicks is a great place to learn more about online social media and female-owned businesses. Definitely sign up for the free Indie Biz Chicks Newsletter. (Simply enter you email address in the Newsletter form in the upper right hand corner of the site.) Crissy sends out newsletter emails once a week with great biz tips. Today the email contained tips on how to pick the right domain name. Very helpful info if you are just starting out!

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p.s. Swap-bot was recently featured in an IndieBizChicks “Biz Profile.” Check it out if you would like to learn more about what goes on behind the scenes at the ‘bot!

I am a fan of cupcakes. I love that they are single serving and so darn cute, so I couldn’t resist signing up for this week’s featured swap: Make Cupcake Toppers for Your Partner! The international swap is hosted by thehappyhoneybee, and here are the instructions:

“You will create one set of flat cupcake toppers (not 3D so we can keep our postage down by mailing in a regular envelope) with one dozen toppers. These are profile-based cupcake toppers, so have a look through your partner’s bio and see what kinds of things he or she might enjoy. The toppers can be of your own original design or from any of the free downloadable templates floating out there, just as long as it’s something nice you’ve chosen specifically based on your partner’s likes and dislikes.”

If you aren’t sure how to get started on your toppers, here are a few helpful and inspirational links:

• Cupcake Topper Tutorial on Style Crush
• Customized Cupcake Toppers on Naughty Secretary Club
• An adorable owl cupcake topper download on Rock, Scissor, Paper
• Martha Stewart’s Cupcake Flags Craft (see above)
• Bunting style cupcake flag download on Creature Comforts
• Halloween Cupcake Topper Tutorial on Yarni Gras!
• “Cupcake Toppers” search on Etsy

That should get you going! The Make Cupcake Toppers for Your Partner swap is open for sign up through this Thursday, August 19th. Anyone with a full Swap-bot profile is welcome to join. I can’t wait to get started on my toppers! (I may need to bake some cupcakes for added inspiration…)

Travis and I were working on the Swap-bot site yesterday. You may have noticed a few glitches overnight, but things should be back to normal today.

In addition to some much-needed text editing, we released three new major changes:

• Rating Filter for Swaps – As part of our overall plan to make hosting swaps easier, we have implemented an optional rating filter for swaps. Now, when a coordinator creates a new swap, they have the option to choose an automatic rating filter. (The image above show how the new option appears on the swap creation page.) Hosts can now enter a rating limit (say, 4.8) and participants will automatically be screened according to that limit. If a user does not meet the rating requirement, they will not be able to enter the swap. Hosts can also choose whether they want to allow new users with no ratings in the swap. If the “Manual rating filter” option is picked, the swap will proceed as usual and any unsuspended user will be able to sign up. Hosts will then need to manually suspend any users who do not meet their requirements. Even if the auto rating filter is used, we still strongly suggest that hosts still check over their participant lists before assigning partner to check for profile or address issues.</li>

  • Country Standardization – We have started the process of standardizing all countries within member addresses. 90% of all users’ countries have already been standardized automatically, but you may be asked to pick a country from a drop down list when you next log into Swap-bot. The standardization of countries will allow us to start working on an automatic location filtering system for regional swaps. Look for that feature when creating swaps in the near future!

  • New User Limit Changes – We have tightened the new user swap sign up limit slightly: All new users of Swap-bot start with a swap sign up limit and can only sign up for five swaps at a time at first. This limit lasts until they have completed five swaps (i.e. marked them all as “Sent” once their packages are in the mail) and received five positive (5) ratings from their swap partners. (The ratings can be from five individual swaps or all from one swap with multiple partners.) Once a user has met these requirements, the limit is removed and they can sign up for as many as twenty swaps at a time. Previously, the five swap sign up limit only lasted until the user received three “5” ratings. We noticed that some scammers were quickly getting around the limit by signing up for one e-swap with many partners. Hopefully, this change will slow them down and give us time to catch them before damage is done. The change should not affect experienced users, except for the fact that it will help make swapping a little bit safer. </li> </ul>

    These changes are not very drastic and we have edited the FAQ and other text pages to reflect the new info. As always, let us know if you have any questions or notice any problems.

If you read my personal blog or follow my personal Twitter account, you know that I attended the BlogHer conference last weekend in New York. I was not sure what to expect, but since it was hosted near me this year I decided to give it a try. I was hoping to network and spread the good word about Swap-bot. It turns out that there weren’t a ton of art and craft bloggers there, but I did get to do plenty of networking with cool women and I attended some informative classes. Below are some of the links I collected along the way…

Crafty Blogs & Sites:

• Handmade Detroit – If you are in Michigan, this site is for you. And even if you’re not, the blog has lots of great crafty content.
• Tonya Staab – This and That – Tonya was on the Etsy blogging panel with me and she is fantastic. Her blog covers just about everything – including cupcakes!
• DIY Buiness Association – A new blog and organization from Amy Schroeder, Founder of Venus Zine and venuszine.com.
• Teen Angster – The personal blog of Allison, one of the authors of the amazing Etsy blog.
• The Creative Empire – You already know about Tara Gentile from ScoutieGirl and Megan Auman from Crafting an MBA because I link to their great sites all of the time. The Creative Empire is their new project – a community built to help web entrepreneurs.
• The Honey Pie Tree – A hand-crafted toy designer’s blog.
• The Studio Creations – A very pretty art blog by Thais, a Brazilian living in NY.
• Louise Gale – An artist who hosts the The Creative Color Challenge.
• Kipiboo – A blog of art and inspiration from a Brooklyn artist.
• Design Mom – Gabrielle is one of the founders of Kirtsy, a designer, and a mom of six.

Other Blogs:

• The Token Fat Girl – Lorrie writes about her weight loss adventures, plus lots of other stuff like fashion and recipes. I hung out with her a bit at the conference and she is really sweet and multi-talented.
• The Bloggess – This is a “famous” blog that I had read in the past, but somehow lost track of. It is super-funny.
• Pine Creek Cottage – Marcy’s sweet blog.
• Zipbag of Bones – Funny. And a little inappropriate. But mostly funny.
• Mama’s Keeper – A work at home caregiver’s journey.
• Just a Girl in the World – Adventures of a southern girl, sometimes traveling the world.
• One Bored Mommy – A mom of four blogs daily.
• Little Tech Girl – A tech geek blog written by a mom of two set of twins!
• You Can’t Call It “It” – A hip baby names blog.
• Things of Random Coolness – A blog of very cool design-y things.

Other Cool Websites:

• Indie Biz Chicks – I’ve already linked to this site a couple times, but Crissy’s website is an excellent resource for small business owners.
• Reware Vintage – a vintage clothing shop and blog.
• Food on the Table – A meal planning tool. Amanda, the rep, was super-sweet!
• Cake Lab – The most beautiful and delicious mini cupcakes. I had them at Etsy.
• Girlfriend Circles – A community that matches up online friends for real world get togethers.
• Graph Jam – A funny graph builder.

GIVEAWAY

I also picked up a bunch of free swag at the conference. In the expo area companies were handing out free product like it was candy! (And, some of it was candy.) I have a very random group of swag to GIVE AWAY to one person… The package will include a Microsoft tote bag, a Cherrios T-shirt (adult size medium), an Arm & Hammer mouse pad, a new Febreze “Set and Refresh,” a Firefox keychain, a unicorn lollipop, some Downey fabric softener, a General Mills pocket mirror, an AOL pocket notepad and pen, hand sanitizer from Yahoo!, an Etsy party favor pack with lip gloss and pins, and the BIG PRIZE: a $10 gift card to Toys R Us! To enter to win this really bizarre – but great, right? – collection of goodies, comment on this post with a link to one of your favorite craft blogs or female bloggers.

You must include your Swap-bot username in your comment. The drawing will be open for entry until Wednesday, August 18th. I will randomly select and announce the winner next Thursday.

You already know that I am a nerd, but now I REALLY live up to that reputation… I am a huge fan of Star Trek! I love the original series, the Next Generation, the new movie, all of it! The amazingly cool embroidered Lieutenant Worf that I spied on Craftzine.com this week (and shown above) inspired me to “boldly go where no one has gone before” and search out other handmade Star Trek items on Etsy. Really enjoy these intergallactic gems:

There are lots more awesome Star Trek creations out there – I even saw “Live Long & Prosper” undies! wow. So, what do you think of these picks? Are you a trekkie or a trekker?