hope037

I just discovered Swap-bot! What a wonderful, fun way to share arts-and-crafts!

I live in Southern California with my family. My husband and I have been married for over 33 years. Our kids are adults now and we care for our elderly uncle with dementia so I'm at home most of the time. I enjoy gardening, cooking, writing, reading, crafting, and learning new things from botany to languages.

A little while ago, I tried to go minimalist and I donated all of my craft supplies and books. Well, that didn't last long because I can't resist cute and beautiful crafts! Well, now the fun's back. I hope to be inspired by all the other swappers (arts-and-crafts swappers) here.

I tend to lean towards nature-inspired crafts, and on the other end of the spectrum, I can't resist kawaii culture. (It must be the Japanese in me!) I like food, mandalas, quotes, and poetry, too.

This will give me a great opportunity to create some fun crafts. I do have a few new penpals I discovered on GlobalPenFriends, and I watch a lot of crafty penpal Youtube vids for creative inspiration.

This Swap-bot is another new adventure. As a newbie, I have no ratings yet but I hope someone will take a chance on me. :)

If you have any questions about me, please feel free to contact me!

LIKES and DISLIKES I like almost everything! I'm fairly open-minded, just no gratuitous violence, porn, and racist stuff, please.

Nature Botanicals Animals Birds Chickens Pigs Butterflies Ocean Beach Water lover Metaphysical Spiritualitiy Religions, world Gems, crystals Music Art History Science Literature Poetry Colors! Multi-cultural World Yin Yang Recipes Food Cooking Gardens Seeds Disneyland Stationery Crafting supplies Stickers Washi tape Fragrance Oils Candles Creative cards Mixed media Stories and myths Tea Coffee Herbs Sweets Savories Crochet

Dislikes include fashion, religious preachiness/judgmentalism, horror, crime/murder mysteries, porn, violence, racism.

Music tastes: Very eclectic. Prefer classical, New Age, World, Jazz, pop (all eras), Motown, Instrumental, easy listening, some country, spiritual. Not so much: rap, electronica, punk.

I consider swapping like this as connecting to other real, living human beings. Exchanging a little piece of ourselves through our crafting and art. If you're looking just to get a bunch of loot, please don't swap with me. It's not that I won't mail some quality stuff because I do. But the more meaningful swap is an offering and exchange of who we are and the material items are an extension of this, not the main point.

Everyone likes to get "stuff" but you can just go to the craft store and buy what you like, right? After all, you should be spending as much as you are receiving anyway. The real fun part of this is to see what another person finds meaningful, to get to know one another.

I'm interested in pen pals for long-term snail mail relationships, too, so if message me if that is the sort of thing you like. :)

Joyfully, hope037