The recession is hitting everyone hard these days and sometimes crafting and swapping is especially hard to fit into our budgets. But, wait a minute! There are some great ways that we can support our crafty habits even during a recession. Following are my top five tips for recession-proof crafting:

So, those are my top five tips for staying crafty during the recession. What are your tips?

The week’s featured swap is the <a href=”http://www.swap-bo Revive Her Drive t.com/swap/show/29897″>Easter Egg Eggstavaganza</a> hosted by biasbabe . Whether you celebrate Easter (which is on April 12th this year) or just want to do something fun for spring, this fun, creative, international swap promises to be a good time.

For the swap, you send your one partner a carton of one dozen plastic eggs. Each egg will contain a little surprise, like candy, charms, a little note from you, small note pads, ribbons, buttons, thimbles, lip gloss, magnets, etc… You can also decorate each egg and the carton if you like. Your package must be mailed by March 20th to ensure that each person receives their eggs by April 1st. They then open one egg a day up until Easter.

The swap is open to new users with a full profile and you must sign up before March 16th. Make sure to read the full swap description before signing up. There is also a USA/Canada-only Easter Egg Eggstavaganza. Happy spring & happy swapping!

More: Revive Her Drive

A winner has been randomly chosen in the February Giveaway for the Doodlebug True Love Essentials Kit. The winner is mommy2dylan !! The Valentine’s Day scrapbook kit will be mailed to her on Monday.

Here is her answer to the question, What is your favorite handmade valentine memory, given or received?

Mekel Carrier on 03 Feb 2009: In Elementry School I loved makeing/decorating my own Valentine’s Day Box to put on my desk for all my classmates to put their Valentine’s to me in. I couldn’t wait to get home and look at all of them! Now I love making Valentine’s Day cards to send to my girlfriends and making something special for dinner and dessert for my hubby and I. I can’t wait until my kids are old enough to get to make the Valentine’s Day boxes again! (My swap-bot name is mommy2dylan.)

Congrats, mommy2dylanl! Thank you to everyone for entering. There will be a new giveaway announced shortly. xoxo

Travis and I (your Swap-bot site admins) were traveling all last week, and unfortunately, our email was not always cooperating. I am behind on answering support email, but I will be trying to get caught up today. I am sorry for any inconvenience or delay. </strong>

Artist Trading Cards (ATCs) are still one of the most popular swap categories on Swap-bot, and there are always new themes popping up. This week we are featuring the Steampunk ATCs swap hosted by KatarinaNavane. But, what is steampunk?

“Think of what someone in the Victorian era would’ve thought the future would be like–airship filled skies, fantastic gagets running on steam and clockwork…. So a Steampunk ATC might have some Victorian elements, some more modern ones, some technological. Have fun with this. People define “steampunk” for themselves to a certain extent, so don’t get too nitpicky about it. Take the aesthetic and run with it!”

To get a better idea of what steampunk is, check out these links:

• Steampunk Wikipedia entry
• Steampunk Lab
• Steampunk Laptop conversion
• Steampunk Treehouse
• How to draw steampunk machines
• Brass Goggles </em> </ul>

To join the Steampunk ATCs swap you must have a 4.5 rating, or higher, with explanations for any 1 ratings. New users with full profiles are welcome. For the swap you send one ATC to each of your two partners for a total of two ATCs. The sign up deadline for the swap is February 28th. Make sure to read the full swap description before signing up.

Happy Valentine’s Day, swap friends! I hope you have a lovely Saturday.

– Remember, you have one week left to enter for the February Giveaway for the Doodlebug scrapbook supplies . The winner will be randomly chosen on Saturday, February 21st.

– For those of you in the US Pacific Northwest, plans for the Swap-bot Member Appreciation Event are coming along nicely. The event will be held on Sunday, March 1st, from 12 – 3 pm at the Lamb Cottage in Skinner’s Butter Park (<a href=http://maps.google.com/maps?client=safari&rls=en-us&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=155+High+St+Eugene+OR&fb=1&split=1&gl=us&cid=0,0,7849176457938046652&ei=1teVSZSjEIKOsQP75ZGjBw&sa=X&oi=local_result&resnum=1&ct=image”>101 Cheshire Ave, Eugene, OR 97401</a>). All area Swap-bot members are invited. The event promises to be a lot of fun. Snacks and drinks will be provided – including cupcakes! There will be a few activities, including an ATC trade, but also plenty of time for socializing and chatting. Plus, we will be giving away lots of amazing door prizes! I am looking forward to it!

– Any crafty bloggers out there? Swap-bot is looking for help with the Swap-bot blog! We would love to publish your original article or craft tutorial. All guest posts would link back to the author’s personal blog or website. Let me know if you are interested in contributing. Email: rachel [at] swap-bot.com </strong> </div>

Lots of love and big-hearted goodness this week:

• Valentine’s Day is tomorrow. Make this cute Love Bird for your sweetie.
• Also, Whip Up has a great list of free, downloadable Valentines for those of us who leave things until the last second.
• Handmade Help is a site created to help those affected by the fires in Victoria, Australia. The site lists tons of big and small ways to get involved and help, like by buying handmade items with the proceeds going to charities, or donating your own handmade items that will go to the victims of the fires. You can even help by sending surplus craft supplies to crafters who lost everything in the fires – that is definitely something I can do!
• For those of you in Washington state, Flowering Tree Botanicals is hosting a fundraising craft fair for an animal sanctuary on May 2nd near Seattle. They are still looking for vendors and if you think you might be interested email layla [at] floweringtreebotanicals.com asap for an application.

If you have a link or story you would like to see on the Swap-bot blog, send it to rachel [at] swap-bot.com.

The news just broke today that Craft: magazine will no longer be printed. Issue 10 is their last printed issue, and they will focus entirely on the Craftzine.com website going forward. I am a little sad because I have subscribed to Craft: magazine since its beginning and I always secretly wished I had been the person who created it. However, I think moving exclusively to the web is very smart and perfectly in line with the indie craft community.

In the past the Craft: blog mostly re-posted tons and tons of craft stories from around the web (including a little Swap-bot press here and here). It was difficult to keep up with it all and it reinforced the craft-o-sphere internet echo chamber. With the print magazine’s closure, Craft has the opportunity to improve their web presence, and they plan to do just that. Senior editor, Natalie Zee Drieu, and her team plan to publish more, higher quality, original tutorials and articles on the website – bringing the magazine content and style to the internet. I am excited to see how the Craftzine.com evolves! I think it will become an even greater resource for indie crafters.

(You can read more thoughts and info about Craft: magazine’s closure on CraftyPod and Design*Sponge.)

I have never featured a whimsy jar swap, and I thought it was about time! Whimsy jars are clean, decorated jars filled with a variety of cute little odds and ends, like candy, small toys, coins, stickers, buttons, jewelry, atcs, brads, rubber stamps, beads, glitter, sequins, ribbons, charms, embellishments, chipboard, matchboxes, felties, leprechauns, papers, fabric squares, buttons, vintage images. You can see examples on Flickr here .

For this week’s featured swap, the St. Patrick’s Day Whimsy Jar Swap hosted by sylviasushi27, you must send your one partner a St. Patrick’s Day-themed, medium-sized (at least 5 inches tall), whimsy jar filled with St. Patrick’s Day-themed goodies. You could include items with shamrocks, leprechauns, gold, rainbows, etc – anything that is related to St. Patrick’s Day!

The sign up deadline for the St. Patrick’s Day Whimsy Jar Swap is February 20th, and your swap package must be sent by March 1st. The swap is USA-inly and you must have a 4.9 rating, or higher, to participate. There are more swap requirements and details on the swap’s main page, so make sure to read it carefully before signing up.

Valentine’s day is fast approaching, but there is still time to make or buy a special gift or plan a fun, lovey-dovey activity. Hopefully, the following links will help:

• Purple, Pink, and Orange has a lovely Valentine’s Day Gift Guide with lots of sponsored discounts and coupons from the retailers.
• The Etsy Storque has spotlighted a few different Valentine’s-themed selections over the last few days. Check out the Sweeten Up Your Romance and Dedicated to the One I Love selections.
• Download the free kitting pattern for the Smitten from Cocoknits. It is a two-handed mitten that you can share with your sweetie. A little wacky – a lot sweet.
• Check out the latest issue of Kids Craft Weekly for a bunch of fun Valentine’s Day projects you can do with your little ones.
• I just discovered the open source sewing pattern site, Burda Style, recently via the Craft: blog. They have a Valentine’s Project feature which includes a cool tutorial on how to make pretty ribbon roses.
• One of my favorite crafty peeps has created a bunch of sweet Valentine’s goodies. Read about the Piddleloop Valentine’s Etsy store update here.
• One more: A free amigurumi heart crochet pattern from Roxycraft.