Swap Memories!

Today I have been busy making my tags for Laura Dennison's Tag Swap.  I have signed up to make two lots of tags and I am enjoying myself and remembering swaps I took part in quite a few years ago.  I believe it was when new things were starting to happen in the crafting world.  I went looking for the swap goodies I have treasured and they have helped me remember some things you may find interesting.  (I hope anyway!)

I would love to hear from anyone that happens by my Blog that was a member of the MSN Artsncrafts chat room.  It was a chat room that existed way before Blogging was invented.  We lived in Gibraltar in 2001 and the only crafting I was doing at the time was making things to decorate our home.  You know the kind of thing, making curtains and cushions, painting murals and decorating pots for the balcony.  I was quite heavily into dress making too as you may have read about already.  I remember finding the chat room by accident.  It was hosted in America and I remember thing how wonderful it was to be able to chat to crafting folk so far away.  I remember that the chat was so fast I could barely keep up.  Ladies took pity on me and slowed down to chat and to answer my questions on the new things I was hearing about.

It was about the same time I took up card making.  I made friends with one particular lady called Sweetpea.  I am sorry to say that I have lost touch with her.  We exchanged gifts and kept in touch with each other and I have looked out one of gifts which she sent to me to show you.   I asked Sweetpea about stamping into thick embossing powder.  It was really new to me and quite fascinating.  Here is a photo of the thoughtful gift that Sweetpea sent to me.  It was very artistically put together gift and was wonderful to unwrap.  It was a set of instructions, powders and examples of the technique.  I never used it as you can see.  I have looked after it though!

I can imagine the kinds of things Sweetpea might be creating today!

 The chat room organised several swaps and I took part in some of them and still have the treasures that came in the post from crafters across the water!  There was a St Patricks Day quilt square swap.  I hope someone recognises their work!

One day I will make this into a quilt!

Then there was the shrink plastic charm swap.......That was scary as it was the first time I had used the shrinky stuff with a mind of its own!  The one on the bottom right-hand corner was mine!  I was known as Busybee in the chat room.

These little charms sit in my set of printer's drawers - can you see yours?

Here are some names; Handmaiden (Pam), Carol, Sandy Pants from Kentucky, E Bears, Susieq from Portland, Short-shrimp, Craftylady from Maryland, a couple of Busybees, Busyfingers from Nevada, Frog from Indiana, Craftymom from Oregon, Fizz, Honeybee, dsthreads, Itsa, Pamela from Arkansas,  Lois from Mi and of course Sweetpea from Illinois.  If you recognise yourself or your work I would love to hear from you.

I interrupted myself to go off to see if I could find the chat room I have been Blogging about.  I think I found it.  I definitely see things familiar and names I remember. WOW!  I am not sure if it is still an active chat room so I will attach a couple more photos and then I am off to see if I can make contact with my old chat room crafting pals!

One of the print drawers with the shrink treasures.

I think I may have found this lady and I am going to email her to find out if she sent me this all those years ago.  I bet her quilts are fabulous if she is still making them today.

That's the end of that walk down crafting memory lane.  I am also off to finish one set of tags and tomorrow I will get started on the other.  I am looking forward to receiving more treasures from fellow crafters around the globe.  Thanks for popping by and please leave a comment as I love to read them.