LittleRed

I will be avoiding much swapping with any US partners. Delivery to the US has been unreliable and ridiculously slow at times. Overseas delivery is occurring faster, and the incidence of lost mail to the US is too frequent. That, and threats of annexation have not helped either. If you are from somewhere besides the US and would like to do a private swap, just message me and I can set something up.

My husband and I retired during Covid, although I still do a little bit of contract work during water treatment season. We are both chemical engineers, having worked in industry in Northern British Columbia since 1993. I spend a good amount of time volunteering, lately at a near by seniors centre. I grew up in Northern Ontario where most of my family still remains. I moved to Northern British Columbia for work when I graduated and have been here ever since. I am currently taking part in a limited number of swaps trying to keep an eye on postage. So anything that can be mailed flat will probably catch my interest. I love thrift stores and will stop in to any I see while on vacation. You never know what you will find. I have a crazy amount of china cups and saucers, teapots cake plates etc. from thrift stores. We had a wedding at the seniors hall that wanted to use vintage china plates for desserts. I managed to pull together 125 assorted patterned china plates….definitely could have done more.

I can sew decently enough although I have not done a sewing swap in some time. I am probably better with hand sewing and embroidery. I have been meaning to do bit more of that. I will usually do a few knitted projects and some crochet through the year. Currently I am crocheting scrap yarn into little storage baskets for the seniors centre. They get a lot of acrylic yarn donations and these baskets can be sold in their annual craft fair. Knitting that I do for gifts or for myself is predominantly wool, as I am not fond of acrylic yarn. I am not really fond of crochet with yarn, but don’t mind thread crochet from time to time.
I have only recently got into junk journaling. It started with some old family photos used to journal family recipes. This all lead to a bit of genealogy investigation which was quite rewarding. I was able this year to find my grandparents on passenger lists from 1910 coming to Canada from Ukraine. I was lucky Pier 21 was able to help as I am sure I would never have found the records without the help of their volunteers. It’s quite difficult to track people when their names are Ukrainian and the English spelling is dependent on the person recording the documents and on how they interpret sounds from a different language.
I love to cook and to bake, so recipe swaps are fun for me. I will try making anything from scratch. I routinely make, sourdough, pasta, puff pastry, Karelian piirakka, ginger beer, fermented sauerkraut, saltwater dill pickles, fermented hot sauce, and all kinds of preserves and canning. I love to try new foods from other countries….this year we tried and loved Turkish Eggs and Korean Street Toast. The year before we discovered Bibimbap. Always looking for new things to try. I keep a garden every year and love seed swaps to find new things. I grow a yellow bush bean that my family has grown for over 100 years now. They were brought from Ukraine and we grow and keep seed every year. I have never seen these beans anywhere else, so we try to keep the variety alive. This year I have saved all my beans for seed to give to our local seed library so more people can grow these.

I am a huge JK Rowling fan. Definitely Harry Potter Obsessed. Also love her detective series Strike and have read them all and wait to watch the BBC series as well. I just finished reading the Silo series which was great. Anything by Liane Moriarty is great…..I have a ridiculously large cookbook collection.

TEA SWAPS… I really enjoy black teas of all flavours. I appreciate decaffeinated version sometimes as I drink way too much tea. I don’t mind some green tea. I usually have some green tea with toasted rice in the cupboard. I also love peppermint tea and grow chocolate mint most years to have for tea through the winter. Last winter killed the mint in my garden so I just had to buy a box of peppermint tea for the first time in years. I am not at all fond of fruit teas that do not taste like tea. That being said, I do find those can make lovely iced teas…..so they would not go to waste. Hibiscus tea cooled and sweetened is fantastic.

JOURNALING SWAPS.... I tend towards tea dyed pages, vintage ephemera.

RECIPE SWAPS..… There is not much I wouldn’t try. If it’s your favourite, I’d give it a try. My recipe box is the large 4X6 index card size. This my preferred format for recipes if possible.

HAPPY MAIL SWAPS…. I can always use ephemera, washi and stickers or even fussy cut images for decoration on envelops or journals. Interesting papers, vellum, shaped paper clips, bits of lace, images for fussy cutting….are all appreciated. Not really into anime or kids stickers unless I’ve signed for a swap for that. I appreciate the use of stamps on the envelope as I will either save them for collecting or crafting.

*Botanical Images.
*Birds.
*Butterflies.
*Bumble Bees.
*Baking Recipes.
*Book Pages
*Bukovina Vyshyvanka Designs.
*Cats.
*Christmas.
*Embroidery Patterns.
*Ephemera for journaling.
*Flavoured Black Teas.
*Foxes.
*Gnomes.
*Hallowe’en.
*Harry Potter.
*Matryoshka.
*Mushrooms.
*Postage Stamps.
*Tea dyed paper.
*Washi samples.
*Vellum envelopes.
*Vintage images for journaling.
*Vintage buttons.
*Vintage Handkerchief.

If you have sent a swap to me and I have not rated it yet.....feel free to contact me to check on it. I always rate, and usually within a day or two of receiving a swap. But sometimes I do forget.....so if in doubt please PM me. I will NEVER rate you down without contacting you first to sort it out. I hope for the same treatment in return. Please note that mail to and from Canada is a little slow. Mail between the US and Canada has been very slow lately. If all goes well it seems to be about two weeks but might take a month or more. Mail to Europe lately has been about two weeks. Also, if you are receiving a swap from me.....my neighbourhood post office will post mark with the date as the next working day date (not the actual mailing day) if a package is brought to them after the morning mail run. I will also mark. Swap sent when I drop it off in an outside postbox. This mail might be postmarked the next day in Prince George or it might be postmarked later in Vancouver. Regardless it may not match the day I press the sent button.

Please do not send any type of chain letter. I will not be forwarding them on.