Wednesday, September 27, 2023

 A sample sticker bag for those who may want one. This envelope measures about 5x3 which is as large as I would go, preferably slightly smaller. This is just an example of the rules. You can make your rules slightly different such as ‘take 2, add 4’ or ‘take 3, add 6’. One bag I saw recently had the rule ‘take as many as you want, add in same amount plus 1’ which I thought was pretty cool. I really strongly dislike rules such as ‘take 0, add x amount’. To me that isn’t playing fair and I will not play those bags and I will always ask who I am sending to if they will take it or not and if not, then it can sit a good long while. I also am not a fan of specific bags such as ‘birds only’ or ‘cats only’ because they exclude players along the way. Labels are added if you would like the person the bag was for to make you a sticker bag to send out when theirs returns home. The bags themselves can be as decorative as you wish or just plain. For me, part of the fun is seeing the creativity people have in making the bags. I have seen bags in envelopes such as this one, handmade envelopes as well as small plastic bags. With the plastic bag ones, people have created a sturdy paper slip in with all the rules etc on. I dislike plastic so I use paper envelopes. I have also seen where the owner of the bag will send the person who returns the bag home something in the mail such as a few stickers or something else from that person’s profile. Sticker bags and such can be fun but fair warning, they can take a long time to travel. The more signers you leave room for, the longer your bag will be in circulation. Also, lots never return home sadly, so be prepared for that possibility. 




These same examples also apply to stamp bags. I am not familiar with other bags such as memo bags and such so I cannot comment on those but I assume they are similar. 

 Another swap I am hosting on Swapbot is for scrappy segmented snippet rolls. It seemed like a perfect opportunity to use some often discarded old cash register/adding machine tapes. Each roll is 2.25 inches wide. I figured if we each make two lengths of snippet roll about 8.5 inches long and leave 1.5 inches on the right end blank,  (for gluing to the other lengths received in the swaps) we could eventually end up with a cool snippet roll added to by many people. Here are the two lengths I created over the last couple of days for mailing out today. 



 I had this idea of altering a bank book (the type used to keep track of deposits, etc) into a small traveling journal. The size is perfect for keeping it manageable and light. Round one is on now with 5 of us taking part, so here’s hoping no journals get lost in the system! I decided to give the choice of three different prompts for this first round and suggested we each do at least one page (I did 2) in our booklets.


 





Here is mine before it heads out to my first partner. 

Welcome to my blog! I live in central British Columbia, Canada with my husband. We are surrounded by gorgeous nature and we do try to get out to enjoy it as often as possible. We love going for day trips where we pack a lunch and some snacks and hit the road, sometimes for several hours, and take photos along the way. Our most recent day trips were northward, one of which we went on a circle tour to Chetwynd, Hudson Hope, Fort St. John, Dawson Creek and back to Chetwynd and home. That trip took us about 13 hours. Another after that, we went to Bijoux Falls to simply eat lunch and enjoy hand feeding and photographing the beautiful Stellar’s Jays that are there. 

My hopes for this is to add some of my own art plus some of the great art I receive via swaps on Swapbot and from other places as well. 

I will also be sharing photos from my latest attempt at a 365 day photo project. My last two attempts both resulted in failure due to me simply forgetting to take a photo one day. How does that even happen?! Let me just say how utterly disappointed I was in both instances. The first time I was a mere 2 weeks from the finish line and the second time (very recently) I was approximately 2/3 of the way in. I am, however, determined. Lol! 

Shall we see where this leads?