Mailbox Love: Swaps and a Giveaway Win

I have been meaning to post about the RATZ Swap from May for weeks. I figure with July's swap starting soon, I should either post about it or just forget about it. I did sit out for June since I do not have a use for more magnets at this time. (If you saw our fridge, you would understand.)

May's swap was for a key fob. I had shared in a WIP Wednesday post in May what I made from the leftovers from my partner's fob. Our fobs were similar as far as fabric goes. I changed up the loop for each. It turns out that it was a direct swap between the two of us, as I had Chickenfoot and she had me.

She loves Liberty fabric so I used some scraps I had on hand to make her fob. She also loves British paraphernalia (as do I) so I did include a fat quarter of fabric to go with it. The loop on her fob is also London themed.

And this is what she made for me. I was lucky enough to get two fobs in the swap and love them both.

The swap for July is for needlebooks. There is still time to sign up if you are interested. The items are fun and small and you have the entire month to make it.

I also won a giveaway on the fabulous Sana's blog. The giveaway was for some chocolate called Knusperflocken that is an East Germany specialty. I didn't think to save the packaging to take a photo because it disappeared pretty quickly. I did let Chad try it, but he wasn't a fan. We have a pretty large German ancestry population here so I will be keeping my eyes open for it to have again.

Sana also sent a long a key fob made with some Berlin skyline fabric. I love travel and architecture so this is another great addition to my small handmade key fob collection.

And finally, I took part in another swap online. This time it was a handprinted fabric swap organized by Leslie Keating of Maze & Vale. I have done printmaking before but not on fabrics. It is something I want to explore so this swap is a great opportunity to jump in.

We were split up into groups of five and were to make a fat quarter for each of our partners. The only direction we were given from each person was preferred colors (ink and/or fabric base). I printed mine on the PDF Essex linen that I have on hand and went for colors requested by each.

The materials I used for printing were a piece of corrugated cardboard and a toilet paper tube. I thought about carving a stamp or making a stencil, but in the end, I wanted to try out printing with found objects.

I am pretty pleased with the results and just know that it will only get better as I keep doing it.

I have received one fat quarter so far and will hold off on sharing those until I get all of them. One member of my group lives in Australia and the rest in the United States, so I am going to be patient as they come my way.

I'm going to try to get my WIP Wednesday post up before going in to work tomorrow. So, I will be back with that tomorrow!