Mousetail

UPDATE 15 Jun 12: Indefinitely away due to the second baby coming soon! I hope I will be able to come back once life settles a little, but not until after Christmas 2012.

UPDATE 7 Mar 11: I will be taking some time off Swap-Bot due to personal circumstances, but I will first make sure all of my outstanding swaps are received and rated. Even while away, I will still be easily available by messages sent through here. I guess 'away' just means I won't be joining any new swaps for a while :) But please don't boot me out of the groups for non-participation (if possible)! I fully intend to be back in a couple of months.

I'm currently a stay-at-home mom to a special needs adorable toddler girl and a part-time student of Child Psychology. My hobbies include snail mail in all shapes and forms, knitting, crocheting, scrapbooking, cardmaking, organizing (our house is in constant need :)), origami, beadwork. I'm an avid reader, love my garden (although I don't quite have a green thumb), and collect and adore everything Japanese. I also study Japanese language, progressing quite slowly yet moving along. My biggest hobby at the moment is ball-jointed dolls, I have 12 in various sizes.

Besides BJDs, I have only one special collection going - I collect everything koala-themed for my daughter (seriously, any item with koalas is great as are, of course, toy and figurine koalas), but I also hoard craft supplies and anything/everything Japanese.

I've been swapping postcards and tea for a while now, my other favorite items to swap are yarn, polimer clay, hand-made items, toddler toys and clothes, blank greeting cards, bookmarks.

I have a lot of Moo cards for exchange.

Etsy Wishlist - clickable

There are a lot of patterns that are marked as sold, but if you check out the seller's shop, there is about 99.9% chance you will find the same pattern for sale again - and they are always welcome by me, plus they don't cost a lot! Those I already have I promptly remove from the list ;)

Interested to swap: postcards, tea, Moo cards, craft supplies, journals, bookmarks, baby/toddler-related items, stationery, letter sets, pens, yarn, Zentangles on everything.

General wishes: anything yoga-related, stuff for my daughter, for my collections (see above), Bible study materials, inspirational reading (Chicken Soup series, for example), craft patterns and magazines, yarn, fabric scraps, jewelry with Christian symbols or inspirational words, bento supplies, origami paper.

For my baby girl: Waldorf-type toys, hand-made chewable loveys, anything bunny-themed, squeaky toys, toys with unusual texture, oriental style clothes, baby hair accessories, Sunday school songs, baby music, warm socks. She's 3 but she's small, so still wears 24mo size.

Knitting, crocheting, scrapbooking, sewing toys, stamping, cardmaking, polymer clay (mostly jewelry), beading (also mostly jewelry). At the beginner skill level in all of the above except for scrapbooking and cardmaking. Oh and I started doing Zentangles since I joined swap-bot and I love it! I next want to try dotees.

I'm a huge BJD fan (I have 12, in various sizes) and right now all my craft activities are geared towards them... Or my daughter :)

Music: Sunday Shoes, Paul Wilbur, Casting Crowns, Era, Vacuum, Nightwish, Blind Guardian, Metallica, Blackmore's Night, Kitaro. Also various Christian and Russian rock music.

TV: Lost, Desperate Housewives, House, Army Wives, Seinfeld, Friends, Suze Orman Snow, Lie to Me, Ugly Betty, The Good Wife.

Books: hardly read any fiction these days, but hope to change that around :), so I'm open for suggestions. I read a lot of Christian non-fiction; Joyce Meyer is one of my favorite authors.

Movies: What Dreams May Come is my all-time favorite. Other than that, I tend to like all of Tim Barton's work, love most musicals and watch way much more Pixar than an adult should ;)

Anime: X, Slayers, anything by Miyazaki.

Food: I have a huge sweet tooth and no allergies. Among types of chocolate, I prefer milk over dark, but will eat anything. I love unusual flavours, like chocolate with spices of cappuccino taste.. Among non-sweet things, I enjoy black olives from a tin, any kind of bread, anything potato.

Drinks: I love hot drinks and even like my Coke warm :) I prefer tea to coffee, although I'll often have a capuccino or a latte. My favorite flavors of tea include: plain black, black with chai spice, roiboos, white tea, green with honey, green with mint. I'm not a fan of fruit teas but I won't turn them down either.

Colors: pink and brown, separately and especially in combination, especially for baby items. Deep red (wine color). Generally autumn palette. White/blue combination (like on Dutch ceramics). Oriental patterns than are not heavy on red and gold. Biege, lime green, peach, lilac.

Scents: anything that's not too fruity.

I have a US postal address, but it is physically located on American military installation in Germany. This doesn't affect postage for sending things to me, or from me to the States, so I will join domestic swaps as well as international. However, it does affect the speed of mail sometimes. On average it takes about 10 days for a package to travel from here to the US (and vice versa). I will try to ship my swaps early not to let this affect my parentners but I cannot always guarantee that. Please keep that in mind.