Originally posted here, the following was written on 22nd February, 2007:
Once upon a time, approximately three hundred years ago (or back in November) in a land far, far away (or the Etsy forums) a lovely woman called Heather (also known as DecadenceDesigns) suggested the idea of a "Themed Swap". After many suggestions and ideas it was decided that the theme of the swap would be colour, and eventually it was decided that said colour would be blue. Then another lovely woman, Angi (also known as Luna2005) volunteered to organise it all and so Etsy's first (I think) colour-themed swap began.
The rules were simple: each of us taking part were to send 10 blue items to Angi who would then sort them all out and send us ten blue items in return. Having just organised a business card swap for some of the UK Etsy people, I can imagine what she went through for this! I sent in a combination of earrings and cufflinks, of which I took some not-very-good photos:
Angi did a terrific job and early one morning at the beginning of January the doorbell rang while I was lying in bed waffling nonsense down the phone to my beloved. The poor boy was then subjected to at least ten minutes of my oohing and ahhing at the packaged from Angi full of blue goodies. The first thing that struck me was the wonderful smell – I could have eaten it. It smelled AMAZING thanks to the most gorgeous blueberry exfoliating bar from Spoiled Rotten Bath & Body Boutique:
I had a quick peek at everything and then took pity on my poor boy who was listening very patiently to all my excited eeeeeing – I put the package away and returned my attention to him...only mentioning the package of blue fabulousness about every few minutes for the next couple of hours.
Eventually we hung up and I examined all the wondrous blueness...
As well as the yummy smelling exfoliating bar, I received:
Scrummy blueberry & mulberry lotion from the absolutely fabulous Bradli at Indulging Scentsations. Yum-meeeeee.
A gorgeous blue flower pin from PopularStranger
So, so, so cute badge and necklace from the wonderful Kerrie of Kezzaroo (and my sincere apologies to Kerrie for totally spazzing out when we spoke of the blue swap a while after and not realising I’d received such fabulousness from her – while I went through everything the very morning I got it, it took me a while to take the photos and check out what was from who and stalk their shops...as you might have guessed from the start of this post).
Oh-so-sweet mini blue flower badge from HandMadeWithTLC
Super-cute hand made patches from Mummus. Now I just need to fall down more often so I wind up with holes in my jeans and the perfect excuse to decorate my favourite items of clothing with patches! Or maybe I should just decorate anyway and save myself some bruises...
An adorable pendant from BlockPartyPress.
Fabulous fishy badge and bonus badges from FaffCreations.
Teeny tiny and absolutely stunning earrings from GlazedAndConfuzed
Last but by no means least, this gorgeous flower sequined crafter’s bag from CraftersBag…which Angi had thoughtfully tucked all the other goodies in to.
Phew! So that was my blue swap stash! This was my first swap and it certainly gave me the taste for it. It was so much fun to do, fabulous to receive and introduced me to a whole new bunch of sellers that I might never have stumbled across otherwise. I’ve already been shopping with Bradli since the swap, and I have my eye on several other goodies from the others I received fabulous blueness from!
