paflip25

If possible, PLEASE use interesting stamps on your mail to me and don't overlap them. Thanks! :)

I attended medical school in Cleveland, Ohio until I got pregnant with my first son in February 2004 (which was planned). I was only going to take a 1 year leave of absence but then couldn't bring myself to leave my son and go back. I lived in Maine nearly my whole life (except for a year in Vermont and a year in Texas) until moving to beautiful Southwestern Florida in 2008. I love the warm weather, palm trees and gorgeous beaches, but do miss seeing snow on Christmas. My favorite temperature is a dry 90 degree Texas evening. I love flip flops and would wear them all year round if it stayed warm enough. I wear a size 11 shoe, 12 pants and L tops (but shirts need to be long, as I am almost 6' tall.)

My favorite color is PINK! My favorite color combo is pink and gray. My least favorite colors are yellow and orange.

My hobbies are reading, crafts, playing games on my iPad (esp. Covet, Hay Day, Smurfs' Village, the Sims, etc.), swimming, biking, kayaking, geocaching, hiking at state parks, and collecting. I collect pressed pennies, stamps, postcards, kawaii stickers/stationary, trading cards, used phone cards and gift cards.

I have a great love of being in nature and seeing the beauty of it all around me. I also love to travel. I have been to 29/50 US states, Canada, Germany and Russia. I have always dreamed of living abroad for a year. I LOVE inspirational quotes, cherry blossoms, anything Asian, USA/patriotic, French, hearts, sweets (cupcakes, donuts, etc.), kittens, dolphins, ballet, butterflies, flowers and other girly things. :) I HATE polka dots, retro, Alice in Wonderland, Winnie the Pooh, ALL Tim Burton films, owls, skulls, snakes, clowns, Goth, and anything strange, morbid or grotesque.

Pets: I am a bit of a bleeding heart when it comes to pets needing to be adopted. I currently have 2 cats, a rabbit and a bird. I love cats most of all.

KAWAII: I love Sanrio/San-X/Q-Lia/Mindwave/Fortissimo/Kamio Japan. I'm not a big fan of Crux, although some of it is okay. My favorites are Hello Kitty, My Melody, Chococat, Little Twin Stars, Mamegoma, Kutusita Nyanko, Clover Town, Sakura, Happy Colors, ANY of the sweets/food with faces (especially the ones with real photos of food. This is my #1 love.) and in general I like most cats and bears. I do NOT like Sentimental Circus or skulls. My favorite kawaii items are letter sets, envelopes, deco tape, stickers (especially sheets and plexiglass flakes), memos of all sizes (especially die-cut!), Iwako erasers (new only), mechanical pencils (used is fine), unsharpened wooden pencils, and stackable drawers. I also love Princess White from Orange Story and Disney, especially Mickey, but don't want to receive it in a kawaii swap, nor any non-Japanese items (from Target, dollar store, etc) most of it is not cute to me, especially the "fake" Hello Kitty things.

For swaps involving sticker flakes: I would greatly appreciate receiving the complete set from the sack, instead of a bunch of loose random ones, as it is easier to add to my album this way. The same goes for memo sheets, as well.

Stamps: I prefer commemorative stamps that were issued within the last 10 years. I collect stamps from all countries but prefer USA, Finland and Japan. I also like ones from the UK, Germany, Canada, Israel, and Australia. My favorite stamps are ones that are colorful, look like a photo of a place or are of a popular cartoon character. I do not like canceled to order (CTO) stamps or vintage. I collect used stamps, first day covers, new plate blocks and mini souvenir sheets. Please no torn, folded or thin stamps. I recently started a stamp blog to show off the stamps I receive on my mail. You can see it here: my stamp collection and my stamp wishlist

My favorite types of postcards are:

• Map cards showing the whole country/state/island with cities marked

• Large city views

• Collage

• Lenticular (moving picture 3D)

• Shaped/diecut

• Geisha/maiko

• Hello Kitty/Sanrio

• Kawaii smiling food!

• Disney

• Thomas Kinkade

• Waterfalls

• Bridges

• Fountain statues

• Capitol buildings

• Temples/cathedrals

• Castles

• Lighthouses

• Famous landmarks

• Fairmail (www.fairmail.info)

• Nouvelles Images multiples

• Recipes

• Photo postcards of FOOD, especially cupcakes, candy and ice cream

• Cute cats/kittens (photo only please)

• Stamp image postcards (i.e. USPS)

• Maxi cards with matching stamp

• License plates

• USA patriotic/military (esp. Army)

• Football stadiums

• Large letter state names with pictures inside the letters

• any from my postcard wishlist.

I dislike old/vintage looking, black & white, strange and handmade postcards. Please no stained/damaged postcards and NO ZAZZLE! They are not even correct postcard size.

Here are the ones I already have: My USA postcard collection AND My INTERNATIONAL postcard collection ALSO My FOOD postcard collection AND My ART postcard collection

Danielle Steel, Nicholas Sparks, Jenna Petersen, Heather Gudenkauf, Philippa Gregory, Pat Conroy, Beverly Lewis, romance novels, especially historical (1800's) romance, and anything on Asian culture and paper crafts. I'm very intrigued by the 1800's when life was simple, proper and so many things were secret and taboo.

I do not like anything involving horror. I'm also not a fan of science fiction or fantasy.

I love magazines. My favorites are travel, crafts, cooking, and womens. I would be happy to receive any of these types of magazines. They do not need to be new or recent issues.

Transformers, Pirates of the Caribbean, Pearl Harbor, Memoirs of a Geisha, Armageddon, Cars, Toy Story, Kung Fu Panda, 10 Things I Hate About You, Titanic, Cutting Edge, Dirty Dancing, and Jeff Foxworthy: Totally Committed. (Of course, I already own all these DVDs.) I don't watch much TV but I do like Survivor.

My favorite singer is Kelly Clarkson. I also like The Eagles, Van Halen (with Sammy Hagar), Blessid Union of Souls, the Goo-Goo Dolls, P!nk, Rascal Flatts, Lonestar, Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, 80s rock and country music.

I learned to knit last summer and LOVE it! So far I have knit a hat, scarf, felted purse, at least a dozen dishcloths and an afghan. I love working with circular needles and soft yarns the best.

I also love making earrings, felt food, yo-yo's, hair accessories, counted cross stitch, painting (on slate, ceramic, etc.), scrapbooking, envelope making and other paper crafts. I love paper crafts in general and could never have enough paper! I love matchboxes, ATCs and inchies. I started making all 3 shortly after I found this website and I'm really pleased with the results. :) Lately making glass marble magnets, fabric covered buttons and notebooks with my book binder are my biggest obsessions. I have a weakness for handmade note cards and tags. I've never made any of my own but love buying them. I hope to try making my own soon. I got a sewing machine for my 30th birthday, so I'm learning how to machine sew. Right now I am making a ton of reusable sandwich bags. Any easy sewing patterns or knitting patterns for useful items would be very much appreciated.

I have been crafting since I was a little girl and have tried just about every craft at least once at some point in my life. Everyone in my family is very crafty. I have taken several Art classes in high school and in college. Two of my 11 x 14 pencil drawings were chosen to be displayed in art shows 2 years in a row. (But it has been more than 10 years since I last drew anything.) I also won the contest at my high school and got to paint my mural on the wall (which was about 6' x 8'). Although, I don't consider myself to be "artsy", as it doesn't come easy to me. It takes me many, many hours to complete one drawing. I admit that I am very much a perfectionist.

My 17 year old (Ethan) loves watching Anime, playing the guitar, violin and keyboard, reading books, and playing video games. He is a junior in high school but is in the IB program taking college classes this year. He wants to be a chemical engineer. He is gifted in math but loves chemistry (science) the most. He wants to move to Japan after graduating from college.

My 15 year old (Evan) loves football, weightlifting and wrestling. He is a Sophomore in high school and was defensive MVP this year. He has been playing football for 9 years and hopes to play in the NFL one day. Sports is the most important thing in his life but he is also very interested in health and enjoys playing video games in his free time.

• I'd love to have a few new penpals from Japan or South Korea!

• Anything from my Etsy favorites

• Bento box accessories! - cutters, punches, dividers, sauce containers, food picks, anything!

• Rement or doll house minatures - used is fine!

• Kinder egg toys. (It's too hot here even in the winter for the chocolate to survive but I'm addicted to the cute toys.)

• Kawaii anything!

• Pressed coins (Pennies/Quarters/Euros/etc.) *For pennies - pre-82 only, please.

• Foreign coins/banknotes

• Postcards - see interests above

• Chinese red envelopes or other Chinese New Year items. (I was born in the year of the sheep.)

• Stickers (no teacher/reward ones, please) - I especially like dimensional stickers, Sticko, Lisa Frank, Rachael Hale, holiday, and Shady Lion modules.

• Cute mechanical or unused wooden pencils

• Bookmarks - store-bought or beautiful free ones are great too!

• Cereal box or kids meal toys/books (McDonald's, Burger King, Chick-Fil-A, etc.) Especially these

• NFL football items (such as Panini sticker trading cards or Teenymates figures from blind packs, or gumball machines items) - we collect all the teams but are favorites are the Panthers and Cowboys.

• Dan-o-nino magnets - the ones that come free inside the Dannon yogurt packs.

• Playing cards - even just one from a deck would be great, as I collect individual cards.

• Return address labels

• Handmade note cards

• ATCs/Inchies

• Handmade amigurumi, stuffies or felt food (or patterns to make these)

• Bottlecaps - new or already altered

• Paper scraps

• Rub-ons

• Fabric with tiny prints - 1" (3cm) or smaller. I especially love Japanese import, Hello Kitty, children's, holiday, and marbled. I also like TINY polka dot and gingham cotton fabrics. (I can use pieces as small as 2"). No fabrics you can see through, please! (i.e. with holes between the threads)

• Grosgrain ribbon - I can use pieces as small as 7".

• Jewlery findings & charms (preferably in sets of 2 of the same for making earrings.)

• Wool felt scraps, roving or balls

• Sculpey/Fimo embellishments

• Buttons - especially tiny 5 mm ones with holes, shaped ones, and any with a shank.

• Brads

• Ephemera – especially dictionary pages, and anything in a language other than English.

• Used card fronts (and the little pictures that are sometimes on the back) - I reuse them in craft projects.

• Small collage images (around 1/2 inch)

• Trading cards - any

• Used gift cards (although, I wouldn't be opposed to one with a balance on it. XD Especially to Amazon, iTunes, Target, Walmart or Publix.)

• Used phone cards

• Postage stamps - new/used/FDC (see interests above)

• Box Tops/Campbell’s Labels For Education

• Any COUPONS you won't use. The most I've ever used in a week is $100. My biggest savings ever was 85% (which is pretty good since none of the stores here double coupons)! My favorites are: Food (especially cereal, cheese, coffee, crackers, gluten-free, ice cream, Motts, Prego, Ragu, soup), dry cat food, body wash/bar soap, disposable razors, Pure Silk shaving cream, Reach floss, Puffs, ALL, and Fantastik. I can use internet printed coupons but no store specific ones please.

• Profanity (even when abbreviated)

• Pleople who try to convert me to their religion.

• Anything promoting/referencing alcohol or drinking.

• Poorly done handmade items! (If the swap is for 1 item) I would much rather receive one well done item than 4 that are sloppy looking and were thrown together really fast. I spend a lot of time and take pride in what I send, and it is such a disappointment to receive something crappy in return.

• Strong scents (such as lilacs), scented dryer sheets AND cigarette smoke. (I have migraines and these things trigger them.)

• I can't say this enough becaue I keep getting them - NO VINTAGE POSTCARDS, please! And NO ZAZZLE!

Private Swap for $25 of NEW stuff by Midnight

Quick --Unused-- Postcard Swap by Aerochik Angelled by vyl87

Newbie Homemade Envelope International swap by Zelphia - Angelled by MissU

50pc EMBELLISHMENTS 5 by Echo7071

Forum tag for a paper crimper on 5/15/08 by Junkdrawercreations

"I Collect..." Forum tag on 5/18/08 by Bontkwagga - Angelled by Coolbaker5

20 Used Stamps IV by Bontkwagga - Angelled by ArtsyJana

Photographic Postcards ~ Open Theme by Kristininflorida

Just Craft Stuff - US/Canada Only by Garagebandfan Angelled by vyl87

Newspaper ATC swap by Bonafyde

Matchbox (32 ct) STICKER CRAM! by Sagobrandt - Angelled by Rainbowdaze!

Take-Out Menu Swap International by Spundekas - Angelled by TryshaH81

Ty Beanie Baby Swap :) by MichellyBelle

Postcard WTA #3 - Souvenir Lovers Group by Edesaforslin

Love Poem Postcards! by yriako

QUICK I need coupons! by ribbitribbit26 Angelled by crochetjunkie

YEARNING for YOYO’s Mini Mania by angelslater

Envelope covered with stamps +3 pc swap #2 by Rere1405