Basilika

I prefer angles to curves, salty to sweet, the details to the overall impression. That sentence was one of the first things I wrote to describe myself when I joined this site in febuary 2007, and I’ve really enjoyed how some senders have interpreted it (and it’s still true). I’m a shy, fairly stubborn human who likes mail a lot. I like getting messages from people about their lives or what they’re thinking about at the moment. I love mail art, both sending and receiving it. I want to see what you made and I want to show you what I made.

I’m pretty close with my immediate family because they’re good people. I believe the fact that people are different from each other is more often than not for good. I don't take the least bit offense to swearing, nudity and other so-called vulgarities (quite the opposite), but respect that others might. I’m completely comfortable with being an atheist, but that doesn’t mean that I want you to censor yourself from writing about your faith or incorporating spirituality into your artwork. If something is important to you I want to know about it because I’m interested in you, I’m just not interested in being taught how to believe like you do.

I collect ATCs, My Little Ponies made in the 1980’s and keychains from all the states in the US. I like flea markets and second-hand shops because I like preloved and genuinely old things. I like DIY and handmade things (the handmader the better, to quote another swap-botter), and I like to reuse and repurpose. I can do things either fast or well, not both.

I like dealing with shapes and colours and how to best combine them, and I like making things with my hands that require concentration, so doing crafts and making art makes me happy. I like a lot of bright colour, vibrant candy colours, intense jewel tones, light happy pastels that make you think of the 80’s or the 50’s. Some favourites are fire truck red, peach and candycorn orange, any grey, the aqua-teal-turquoise spectrum, dark chocolate brown and warm purples, but mostly I just like all colourfulness.

I like making things with paper, like notecards and envelopes, origami and other kinds of folding. I like embroidering, mostly cross stitch or on paper, and I often incorporate stitching into collages. Collaging and drawing is what I do the most. I like to draw with coloured pencils, gel pens or paint markers. I paint patterns on things to decorate them, but I don’t make paintings. I make a lot of ATCs and mail art things like handmade postcards and decorating envelopes any way I can think of, and I enjoy occasional bouts of art journalling. I have rudimentary knitting and crocheting skills that I rarely use. I want to be good at making temari but I never get around to practising.

Pretty much everything makes me think about music, I always have one tune or another sort of playing in the back of my mind. My tastes are a bit all over the place, if it’s good then it’s good regardless of genre, but my go-to music for when I want to cheer myself up or am feeling extra happy is either older-sounding punk music or christmas music performed in a Bing Crosby-Doris Day-Frankie Avalon-style. A list of artists I like would include:
Kimya Dawson. Pansy Division. Wendy McNeill. Little Richard. LeTigre. The Hidden Cameras. Mattias Alkberg. Red Hot Chili Peppers. Kaki King. De Lyckliga Kompisarna. Willy Mason. Stiff Little Fingers. Nina Simone. The Cure. Randy. Doktor Kosmos. Joanna Newsom. Sleater-Kinney. Regina Spektor. Ramones. Sahara Hotnights. The Handsome Family. Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Jens Lekman. The Isley Brothers. Brandi Carlile.

Random themes, styles and things that appeal to me:
Images and ephemera having to do with travel, public transport or mail, for example maps, used tickets, airmail labels, pictures of old buses. Chiyogami/yuzen paper and traditional kimono patterns. Graph/grid paper. Art deco and bauhaus style. Mucha, Klee, Rothko, the Memphis group. Saint Basil’s cathedral. Graffiti and street art, Juxtapox magazine. Studio Ghibli films and the Cardcaptor Sakura anime. Emotive robots, Princess Peach, kawaii, ugly-cute things, odd/weird things. Small tins and boxes. Rainbows, snow, sunset clouds. Shiny, metallic, iridescent things. Images of red fruits and berries. Logic/math/visual problems and puzzles. Feminism, GLBTQ positive attitudes. Insects, hedgehogs, magpies, badgers, seahorses. Christmas any time of the year. When things are bigger or smaller than they’d normally be (like clown combs). Cabinet cards.

For when it's needed, here’s a straightforward wishlist of items I would be thrilled to receive. Please don’t feel limited by this, surprise me and I’ll be just as thrilled.
* Aida or evenweave fabric. I use mostly small pieces, about postcard size. Other colours than white would be especially fantastic as it’s almost impossible to get here.
* Any embroidery thread, but especially pearl cotton.
* Other crafting materials like paper, buttons, sequins, craft wire, ribbon etc. Feel free to send me little bits from your stash or left-overs from your latest project.
* An ATC made by you.
* A mix cd/tape of music you think I should know about.
* Anything to enable my addiction for wrapping gifts in unnecessarily elaborate ways.
* White chocolate or peppermint flavoured hot cocoa sachets.
* Reese’s pieces.
* I’ve recently started a collection of souvenir keychains from every US state. I’m looking for ones with the name of the state somewhere on it. If you want to do a private swap for this please message me. So far I have or will soon have: Georgia, Indiana, New York, Ohio and Washington.

I'm sensitive to smells so I can't really use anything with an artificial fragrance, like scented papers. I don't handle cigarette smoke or incense burning very well in person, but can usually air out swaps that carry the smell without trouble.
I dislike the colours yellow ochre, army green, maroon and khaki.
I don’t wear make-up or jewelry and am generally not very girly. I mean, I’m not exactly a tomboy and I don’t hate pink or anything, but I’m not going to bother with performing femininity if it will take effort, and I find that mostly it does. I’m also not a goddess or diva or the princess of anything (not that there's anything wrong with that), and I’m not a huge fan of glitter.
I don’t like eating coconut flakes or anything artificially banana-flavoured, but I have no food allergies.
I don’t like going out, it’s too big and there’s people there.

I always send my swaps. If you’re expecting something from me and it doesn’t get there or arrives damaged or doesn’t match what you thought you were getting, please let me know.
If you remember to add your swap-bot alias and the name of the swap or tag to what you're sending, that will really help me out. If you live far away from me, please don’t feel stressed to send as quickly as possible in fear of getting a bad rating, I know international mail can take time. If something unexpected happens and you need to send a swap late, I’ll appreciate it if you send me a message to let me know as soon as you can.
I will never rate you a 1 or 3 without contacting you first, unless you seem to be completely inactive. For me, an extra special swap is one that makes me extra happy for any reason, not necessarily one that includes extra items. If I send some extra thing in a swap it’s because I saw something on your profile that made me think it would make you happy, I won’t try to demand that you give me a heart for it.

"Mere colour, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways." - Oscar Wilde.