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Swaps By Steph Schirmer

 We all join swaps for all different reasons.  The amount of swaps we join vary too.  They appeal to us for many reasons like images, color, cards, tags, ephemera and the list is endless.  Everyone's taste does not match our own.  The questions I poised this month is what do you do with your swaps.  Do you keep them all, pass them along what???  There were a lot of suggestions as to what you can do with them.  So think about it before you just toss them.

Display:

Wendy Kerr says, “All the cards I receive from swaps and raks are put onto a display board located over my dining room buffet table.  Here is a picture of what it looks like only mine is twice that size http://tinyurl.com/bl37a  .  This is a great way to able to look at some great art cards and share them with visitors.  It is the favorite focal point for my class students too.”

Leigh our Domino Queen says, “For the general stamping swaps, I keep my favorites in a binder as a source of inspiration.”  With the dominos I receive in swaps from my Domino Art group Leigh says, “I keep my favorites in my printers trays.  I package up the rest to distribute among newbie domino alterers and as prizes for the Domino Art Birthday Celebration.”

Boo Martin says, “When I first do swaps I try to display all them.  Then when I get too many I put them in a huge old hat box”.  

Robin Orewiler says, “I have cards sitting among my stamps on shelves, but there isn’t enough room for all of them.  For the ones I dearly love I should be putting them in my glue book or a book specifically dedicated to cards I received.”

Katherine Sullivan says, “Some stamp art decorates a room divider in my den.  Some cards are given to a stamp store for displaying on the walls of the store.”

Candice Windham says, “ I pulled out a paper bag book I have made from large grocery bags.  That is my new all time favorite swap card file.  The only problem is I need to make a hundred more.  The good news is they stand upright on book shelves and don’t take up a lot of space.”

Distributing cards from swaps:

This is where people had some great suggestions for what to do with them.  There are some very inventive ideas here.

Cindy Trobaugh says, “About a year ago I started giving my cards from swaps to senior citizens.  They really liked them because they didn’t have to buy them.  Also they didn’t really need envelopes because they like to carry them when they visit the sick and hospitalized.  I never part with my Altered Trading Cards and I tend to keep my postcard they tend to become bookmarks.”

Katherine Sullivan says, “Some mailing tags were mailed to a stamper on the other side of the United States.  She wanted members of her stamp club to see examples of it so they might get excited about trying it.”

Betty says, “If I can recycle them I will, I might donate them or use them myself.”

Cheryl says, “I haven’t had much time for swaps, but I usually keep mine.  There’s always an idea or something I can get from them.”

Boo Martin says, “I’ve decided that I’m going to start recycle them.  Some I’ll send to others, some I will take apart to make something new.  Others will go in my glue book or an altered book.  If I get organized I will separate them into categories and then if I am in a hurry I will have a card at a moments notice.  I also have a basket in my shop full of cards I have made and gotten in swaps.  This month I’ve been giving a free card to those who come in my shop.  New stampers love it, they love to have the new ideas.”

Susan McHenry says, “This summer I took all my swap cards and cut the fronts off.  I made them into kits for my first grade class to make birthday cards for their parents when the occasion arrives.”

Leigh the Domino Queen says, “I make up batches of items and pass them on to my Mom and sister for their inspiration or onto newbie stampers.  Sometimes I might recycle a few like remove cool embellishment for future use or remove the back of cards and use that cardstock to punch out shapes etc.”

Wendy Kerr says, “With the old cards, I either keep them for reference and ideas or donate them.   They go to either my grandmother’s nursing home or to

http://www.anysoldier.com “

Jane of our design team says, “If the cards are blank on the inside I use them.  No sense in hoarding all that beautiful work.  I send them to people who appreciate the work but don’t do the crafts themselves.  I like to scan them so I have a record of what I have received.  The unusual ones I can’t part with they get put into a reference book with notes on how to do whatever techniques is on the card.  There have been swaps I have participated in where we swapped embellishments or backgrounds.  These are great because I can incorporate them into my own creations.  People aren’t offended by this because this was the whole purpose of the swap, but always give credit where credit is due. As a second lease on life those cards that get damaged or were damaged in route get altered into a tag for future cards or for use on top of a package again giving credit where credit is due.”

As you can see some great ideas, remember these and others you have heard about with your swap items.  Always remember someone took the time to make it appreciate it and enjoy it or pass it along.

As always this column couldn’t get written without everyone's help.  I would like to thank the following

StampersMall design team members:

Wendy Kerr, Jane, Betty, Cheryl, and Leigh the Sharpie Domino Queen

And

My fellow Tennessee Stampers:

Susan McHenry, Boo Martin of StampBootique, Katherine Sullivan, Cindy Trobaugh, Robin Orewiler and Candice Windham

If you have an idea you would like to talk about let me know and I will put the question out there.

Steph Schirmer

sschirmer@stampersmall.com