“Cafe Handmade is like a traditional craft show, but better. You can now attend a craft show at your leisure, as often as you would like, and have the same experience as a traditional craft show with featured artist interviews, artist demonstrations, giveaways, and more.”

There are a lot of craft websites out in the vast internet universe – more than most folks can keep up with – which is why a “one-stop shop” site like Cafe Handmade is so handy and fun! Cafe Handmade was created in November of 2008 by husband and wife team, Len and Kerri Testa. Their original goal was to create “a place where crafters and artists could show off their creations” and to promote buying handmade.

Cafe Handmade is more than just “a weekly virtual craft show.” There are also feature articles with interviews from artists and mommaprenuers, weekly giveaways, the Lounge (a social network just for handmade aficionados), artist demos, and a marketplace where you can purchase handmade goods. The Virtual Craft Show displays the work of dozens of artists and crafters with lots of lovely photos of their products. The wares range from jewelry and clothing to bakery treats and bath items. The Cafe Handmade craft show is a great place to find new-to-you artists and unique handmade products.

This week’s featured swap, Fill an Envelope Full of Crafty Supplies, was chosen in honor of Earth Day. The swap, hosted by cittylou , is quite simple – fill an envelope full of crafty odds & ends for your partner – but it helps us give new life to craft supplies and doodads that might otherwise be languishing in our craft stash. Now is the time to recycle and use all of our crafty resources efficiently!!

The swap details: You must fill an A5-size envelope (21cm x 15cm or 9.5 by 6 inches) with at least five different types of craft items. Items can include yarns, ribbons, buttons, embroidery thread, felt, fabrics, patterned papers, stickers, embellishments, etc… From the swap description: “The package should be of a reasonable size and filled full of craft goodies, and above all must contain a high quality selection of goodies. It would be worth reading people’s wishlists to try and give them some things they would really like.” The swap is international and does not accept new users.

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For more crafty Earth Day projects and inspiration, check out the Craft Critique Earth Day Celebration & Earth Day Celebration Part 2!

Poor, poor Swap-bot blog – neglected for over two weeks, but I think some fun friday link love can bring it back to life!! Enjoy!

• While searching around the Martha Stewart website I found the collection of their Best Clip Art Crafts . There is some really great stuff on the list – and all free to download and print!!
• Modish is hosting an amazing Earth Day Giveaway featuring over $1375 worth of prizes! Follow the instructions on the Modish blog to enter the drawing before April 26th.
• Speaking of Earth Day, Crafting Green World has tons of great earth-friendly projects, including ideas for reusing old sewing patterns.
• For all of you crafty entrepreneurs, Indie CEO is a smart blog with lots of great tips for running an indie business.
  • Do you love making and swapping matchboxes? My “matchboxes are the best” group is hosting a new Summer Matchbox Swap . Come join us! </ul> Have a lovely spring weekend! xoxo

Better late than never, here are the three randomly chosen winners of the March/April Giveaway for Swap-bot t-shirts and other goodies:

Christine Makai aka mystic69: “I heard about swapbot from an email buddy…. I just did two swaps (still waiting for my candy bar!) and am finding the experience awesome!”

Ellen aka ellie1200: “Ooh! I love to share the story of how I found swap-bot! I’d been searching the web for a crochet pattern. Someone had asked me about making them some “soakers” for cloth diapers (I didn’t even know what those were till I started looking around!). Anyway, somehow I ended up at a swap-bot member’s blog, momwithahook. She didn’t have a soaker pattern, but she did have some pictures of absolutely adorable crocheted stuffies that she’d made for a swap-bot swap. I just had to see what that cuteness was about, clicked a link, and I was hooked!”

Robin Rodgers aka biasbabe: “Wow, were to begin. I ran into the site of Swap-bot over two years ago on doing a search for swaps. The word swaps will take you to alot of places not just here if you know what I mean LoL. I clicked on the site link which had brought me to the main site, and just by seeing all the neat projects that everyone had completed was enough for me to venture on in. That was the first thing that peeked my senses. Then when it said it was a free membership then that really was awesome. I figured if I didn’t like it I would drop out gracefully. Well as you might have guessed it, that was all it took for me to get hooked on this site. many awesome projects and the next best thing to having a real family and a family of wonderful swappers to share my love of crafting, swapping and sewing. What more could I ask for, nothing absolutely nothing.”

Congratulations to the winners!! I will be contacting you to get your t-shirt sizes and then I hope to have your prizes mailed out by the end of the week.

Hello! The last two weeks have been a very tough time for Swap-bot as we moved the offices across the country. We had very limited access to the internet while we were traveling and getting settled, which prevented me from doing anything beyond very basic admin duties. Obviously, that was not the original plan, but we did our best with what we had… and now Travis, Crusher, and I are settled in New York City and I am back in action on Swap-bot! Woot! I hope to announce the winners of the most recent Swap-bot swag giveaway later today, so stay tuned. I am also working my way through back-logged email and I thank you for your patience with my response time. My goal is to get totally caught up and become a highly efficient Admin machine by the end of the week! xoxo, Rachel

Hello swappers! We just wanted to let everyone know that Swap-bot headquarters are (right now, as we speak) moving to New York City. Your friendly admin, Travis & Rachel (plus the site mascot, Crusher), are currently traveling across the country and will soon be settling in Brooklyn. Swap-bot email support may be a little delayed during the next two weeks, but we do plan to keep on working on site throughout the move.

If you want to follow along on our adventure, check out Rachel’s personal website: r. l. j. art. </ul>

I just discovered this beautiful little blog that I must share: simplesong. It doesn’t really have much to do with crafts, but it does cover style and design… and it is just so lovely and simple! I love the collection of gorgeous images featured on the site by its author, Susan Song. Susan started her blog in October of 2007, and she also has a letterpress store and is an editor on kirtsy.com. Tons of inspiration! </u>

UPDATE: The deadline to enter this giveaway has been extended to Friday, April 3rd!

This month we have a fun selection of Swap-bot swag to give away to three lucky winners. Each winner will be sent a Swap-bot T-shirt (choice of adult sizes S-XL) plus one of the leftover goodie bags from the recent Swap-bot member event in Eugene, Oregon. The goodie bags contain promo items from Swap-bot advertisers as well as some Swap-bot buttons and postcards.

To enter the drawing for the Swap-bot swag, simply answer the following question in the comments section of this blog post:

How did you first hear about or find Swap-bot.com?

Each person can only enter this giveaway once. You must have a Swap-bot account in good standing (not suspended) with a valid mailing address to enter. You must include your Swap-bot username somewhere in your comment. You must comment on or before Friday, April 3rd , to be entered in the drawing. The winner will be randomly drawn on Saturday, April 4th. If you have trouble commenting on the blog, you can send me an email at rachel [at] swap-bot.com. Good luck!

For today, the first day of spring, I am trying to put a little pep in my step. I think these links will help:

• Lovely inspiration in the Best of Spring Flickr pool.
• Kindred is a new website from the creators of decor8 and Creature Comforts which features free downloads of beautiful desktop wallpapers and printable greeting cards. Really gorgeous stuff going on over there!
• Red Velvet Art is a wacky, new online store from designer Elsie Flannigan. Elsie used to design the Love, Elsie scrapbooking line for KI Memories and I really loved its doodle-y style. Red Velvet Art is maybe just a tad over-the-top in the hipster department, but still tons of fun!
• Speaking of hipsters, Something’s Hiding In Here is a too-cool blog from designers, Shauna and Stephen. The pair’s loft apartment was recently featured on Etsy’s “Get The Look: Home Decor Edition” and on the “There’s No Place Like Here” video series.
• Not-so-good news: The US Postal Service is increasing their rates on May 11th. Go here for the complete new price list.

Craft Critique is the type of website that every crafter needs to know about! The site publishes unbiased reviews of craft tools, supplies, and books – like Consumer Reports just for crafty stuff! Started in January of 2007 by Sarah Moore , the site describes itself as “a collective of experienced crafters (some professional, most not) with strong opinions to share on the craft supplies you want to learn more about.” The large team of volunteer reporters write about a wide variety of products, most recently covering </i> Crafty Chica’s Guide to Artful Sewing </i> book, the [

Craft Critique is the type of website that every crafter needs to know about! The site publishes unbiased reviews of craft tools, supplies, and books – like Consumer Reports just for crafty stuff! Started in January of 2007 by Sarah Moore , the site describes itself as “a collective of experienced crafters (some professional, most not) with strong opinions to share on the craft supplies you want to learn more about.” The large team of volunteer reporters write about a wide variety of products, most recently covering </i> Crafty Chica’s Guide to Artful Sewing </i> book, the](http://www.craftcritique.com/2009/03/craft-fair-collection-by-american.html) , and Martha Stewart craft punches . All of the reviews are extremely thorough with a handy list of pros and cons at the end for quick browsing. Try searching the site for a review before making your next craft supply purchase – during these tough economic times it can’t hurt to be a smarter crafty consumer!!

Craft Critique is updated daily with a new craft product review, so I suggest checking the site often or subscribing to their Twitter feed to get the latest updates.