Craft Exchange

One of my New Year’s “resolutions” was to spend more time being creative. Crafting. Making stuff with my hands. Because that’s my happy place. I got the crazy idea to ask 7 of my most inspiring crafty friends if they’d like to join me in this commitment to craft — and miraculously they said, “yes.”

Here’s how I designed it. We each came up with a project — but it was a secret. No one knew what the other members of the craft exchange were making  — in theory only, I think a couple slipped out but overall it was on the down low. We made 8 of our project which includes one for ourselves of course! We picked a date to exchange our handmade gifts and mailed off two to our out of town exchange members.

There were no restrictions on what you could make, no required materials, I just asked that they pick something that they like to make or something they’ve been wanting to make. This wasn’t an art competition – it was purely for the intent of having fun and sharing challenges, mistakes and awesome handmade gifts.

Then we got together on Wednesday night — all of us (except Brandi 🙁 ). 7 women, one man, with two of us out of town. Molly and Sarah live in Ohio, but in different cities so we got a Google hangout going, grabbed some wine, some yummy nibbles and chatted craft.

It was so much fun – like Christmas. But without the fighting relatives.

I was worried that we’d have all of one type of craft, but that’s what makes friendships so fun. The gifts, like everyone in the group, were so unique.

Take a look at these amazing talents!

Hand-carved spoons by Scott (Bianca jaw dropped and stayed that way for a full 3 minutes when she saw these). The hubs keeps trying to steal mine for his mom. Seriously. That’s wrong on so many levels.

Adorable owl heating pad (filled with rice) from absent Brandi but presented by Sabrina. You might know Brandi as Not So Average Mama or from our priceless photos by Loudmouth Photography. Princess Cupcake stole this package of cuteness upon discovery.

Ultra hip fabric coasters from Sevi. Check out her blog Vodka Makes You Happy. I so dig these!

Since we’re on the drinking theme, a couple more….

Cork trivets from Sarah – no, she didn’t drink all that wine but many were from her personal stash. I am currently obsessed with wine cork projects so this was a winner!

And to get us all ready to make our own wine cork trivets, Bianca made these glitter wine glasses. As Sevi said, “Glitter is my favorite color.” Love that. And these. Because wine is my favorite dinner. Just kidding. Okay, maybe not.

And if you need a bigger cup, these custom acrylic cups from Sabrina fit the bill. She customized each with our hobby or special interest on them. So fun. And finally I have incentive to drink my 8 glasses of water a day. Believe it or not, I’ve had 4 while writing this!

 

And Sabrina’s homemade chocolate marshmallows were gone in a nanosecond. Yum. I didn’t even show these to the hubs. If he wanted the spoons, imagine what he’d have done to these.

Molly made these gorgeous books by hand with velvet embossed covers – we each got a custom design. And I have no idea how she bound it. Crazy cool.

 

And here are some photos of my project: business card holders. I am making some more this weekend since I got 6 orders from people just seeing them on Facebook, lol, watch out Etsy here I come! There are a couple more photos at the end of this too.

And here’s the man-version for Scott – it has a buffalo coin button

Receiving a handmade gift from a friend is the most meaningful to me, and having all my crafty peeps together and opening presents was almost too much for me to handle. Here’s all of them together before I put my treasures away.

I cannot wait for our next exchange! Our mail date is June 15th… stay tuned!

Here’s our crafty club – photo taken by Princess Cupcake herself.

And a couple more taken by me

 

And lastly, a couple more photos of my handmade business card holders. I wish I had gotten photos of each collection. Next time…