akwiinas: October 2013

Questions and answers

I am just about to send out the last letters with partner info to Secret Santa [decor] swap and and I thought it would be nice to put together all the info and answer to your questions one more time. If you can't find answer to your question, feel free to ask! :)

* What kind of swap this is?
This is Secret Swap, so the person to whom you are sending a package is NOT the same who will send a package to you. Try to keep it a secret, who you are and don't reveal yourself too easy so that your partner has a surprise when receiving the package!
*What should I include in package?
You should send to your partner Christmas decors, decorations - garlands, Christmas tree toppers, stockings, and so on. In my email you will get the info your partner has provided about likes/dislikes, so keep that in mind while letting your creativity flow... This swap is about sending something nice, so put a package like you would like to receive yourself (that means - find a balance between quality and quantity ).
At the end - don't forget to add a note about yourself and your email. I am sure your partner would like to say Thanks to you :)
*Should I take a photo of my swap package?
It would be really great if you could share a photo in your blog or Facebook or just send it to my email, so that other swap participants can see it too! It is not obligatory, but would be really nice! :)
If you use Instagram, add a hashtag #SecretSantaSwap.
*One more time - when is the deadline?
The deadline for sending out your package is 24th of November. You have 4 weeks to make a package and send it out. Try not to be too late as before Christmas packages can get slow and some of us already can't wait to start decorating for Christmas

Have fun while putting together a package and afterwards - receiving yours!

My dear friends,
Sign-up for Secret Santa [decor] swap is closed now! In two days I will send out partner info, so that you can start prepare your packages! Till that you can look for inspiration in Pinterest board: Secret Santa [decor] swap !

Have a great week!

Christmas is coming to the town!

Oh, you will say - not yet? I don't agree :) Christmas will arrive even faster than you think, so it's just about the time to start prepare yourself for all decorating and gift wrapping works! But it's ok, I will share some of my favorite ideas about Christmas decors!

Jingle bell garland

Gingerbread men ornaments

Cork knitted Christmas trees

Clay star

Eatable ornaments

Stick star

Look for other ideas here: akwiinas/secret-santa-decor-swap

Pss.. Form for application is here: FORM

Secret Santa [decor] swap

It's time to announce my very first hosted swap - Secret Santa [decor] swap! It is all about Christmas decors and decorations - garlands, Christmas tree toppers, ornaments, banners, stockings and more. Most important - have fun putting together a package for your Secret partner!

Secret Santa [decor] swap is all kind of Christmas decoration swap. Feel free to make something in your favorite craft technique. This swap does not limit your creative ideas - use paper, clay, metal, wood, recycled items or knit, crochet, felt, and so on. As long as things you create and send to your partner is usable to decor a Christmas tree or house, it counts in! Just be sure to make something you would like to receive yourself...

This is a secret swap, so the person to whom you are sending a package is not the same person who is sending a package to you. In application form each participant is asked to fill a form with his(her) contact data and links to their social networks. You will get those links so that you could get to know your partner better.

Time after time I will share some ideas or tutorials for making some Christmas decorations here in my blog, Facebook page and Pinterest board Secret Santa [decor] swap.. Meanwhile you are welcome to pin and share your finds on Pinterest using hashtag #SecretSantaSwap.

More about deadlines:

1) Applying is open till 27th of October;

2) Pair information is sent out till 30th of October;

3) Packages should be sent out till 24th of November.

***Application form is HERE***

Button swap was great!

A month ago I received message that Olga from Wassupbrothers organizes pretty new (to me) swap -a button swap!
Next moment I was sending email that I want to take a part and after a while I got contacts of my partner - Elisse from bij gebrek ann beter !
She is such a creative person, you have to check out her blog for sure!
So I made a package with buttons. We had a rule to send 10 buttons. I sent her 10 or little bit more :) After reading her blogposts I just couldn't resist to add some more stuff to her mail.
What I received:

Such a thoughtful package! A little bag with wonderful buttons! I am not very button-person, but there is a rumor that I was clapping my hands like a child while checking out each button...

As you can see, Elisse is paper-person. She loves letters, paper and scrap-booking. She sent me a wonderful letter-card with collage. It goes to my "Top favorite letters" lists!

I am not sure for what exactly these paper pieces are meant to be, but I see six beautiful bookmarks. Each paper has different pattern and I always need some 4 bookmarks to use them in all books I am reading...

Postcards. Crazily creative/funny/nice postcards! As I am truly postcard sender/receiver, I really love each of these! Hope to use them soon (or maybe I should better leave all these goodies in my postcard collection?)

Finally I have my own cherry stamp! It is so wonderful! Elisse makes great stamps and she inspired me to start to curve my stamps as well. I am just learning yet, but I already like the result I get. Let's hope I could make a cherry stamp some day too!

Here you can see my work place. A while ago I put these wonderful lights on walls and now Elisse sent me paper garland. I had no doubt where I'm gonna put it! Next to some of my photos and postcards, mixing with light blue lights, this bluish-pinkish garland looks very good!

What I sent her:

When I was in my favorite fabric store, I saw this super-cute-funny lace I couldn't resist to buy. I am sure there is no sewing project where I could use this, but for scrap-booking it is more friendly so Elisse got it as a stash for Valentine's day letters :)

I knew that Elisse like floral prints so I added some buttons I ordered from ebay a while ago (actually, I love these buttons so much that I didn't wanted to waste them, but now was the right time to share some with Elisse)

If you checked out Elisses blog, you probably saw how much owls she has there. I decided to sent her some more. This is bookmark with owl, leather, leave and red bead.

After a long-long time I took a look at my jewelry making stash and made this necklace with owl. Making it reminded me how much time I have spent making earrings and necklaces and other things years ago :)

And finally - buttons! Elisse wrote me that she approves recycled idea and old buttons are ok for her so for the first (but not the last) time I went to local charity shop and picked a lot of great buttons. I couldn't leave a lot of really beautiful buttons there, so I came out of shop with happy face and a lot of new buttons :) I added some buttons from my mum's stash and some of them left at home (no one wants to receive too used buttons, right?).

Autumn time here in my country is called Golden time because we have a lot of trees with yellow leaves. While I was writing a letter and preparing a package, I couldn't find yellow leaves, so I used those green-yellow and some of red leaves and added a golden touch by my gold marker :) I needed to send a little piece of Latvia's gold!

This is how my package looked like at the end. I enjoyed all this preparing like I haven't for a long time!

Thanks to Elisse for being such a great swap partner and thanks to Olga for making this pair :)

Mentor month in September

I thought this would be the best moment to tell you what I was busy with last month. This September was filled with different works and jobs because for the first time I took a part in Etsy activity called "Mentor Month". I have a lot of work ahead of me in my shop and it was so great that my teammate Linda from shop retrospectrovintage helped me the whole month to get my shop in order. Thanks a lot to her! This September I had 2 sales with short time between both, which makes me really happy :)
We were a pretty big group of mentors and mentees and today I would like to show their great items in my social networks, so don't be afraid of the spam which will continue all of Friday :) Let's start with some picks which I like most:

from above, left: 1. Girl Hand Knitted Slouch from SweetMeadowSweet

2. Grey necklace from ColoursAndThings

3. Grey felted mittens from HandmadeByDorothea

4. Christmas decoration from KuKuHome

5. Fabric rosette necklace from Valerunka

6. Round copper pedant from WindCityTreasures

7. Bolero sweeter from SandrasMagic

8. Knit cowl from WoollyFamily

9. Knitted dress from Gitasknitwear

10. Eiffel tower earrings from sweet4flower

11. Boy felted bow ties from Rozinite

12. Crocheted girls hat from dejuscraft

13. Tarot bag from Karytaga

14. Women crochet hat from ievasshopcrochet

15. Cotton handbag from Vivicreative

16. Linen scarf from AriZaDesign

These finds and more you can find here in Etsy or in my Pinterest board Etsy finds

Feel free to check out Etsy team Latvia Pinterest boards as well www.pinterest.com/etsyteamlatvia/!

My Autumn time

One of my wishes for the New Year was to find more time for photography. I have found it since good friend of mine started to learn about photo, so she encourage me make photos again (that means - if I start to post too many photos, please tell her to stop me ;) ).
At the moment here at my country is time when all nature changes with days. Weather changes from rain to bright sun in only 5 minutes. This morning I heard that first snowflakes has been seen this night. I will show you, how winter comes to Latvia, but before, I would like to show you autumn is coming to the town.
I added some more photos to my Flickr page here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/93770672@N05/ You are more than welcome to check it out!