PrincessLeia

Feb 10th 2024, is the beginning of Chinese New Year. It is the year of the dragon- my sign! I am hoping to find lots of paper items with dragons on them. If you come across any flat dragon stuff I could use in my journals and crafting, please keep me in mind. I am hoping that a lot of places might have paper bags or food wrappers especially for the dragon year. If you are able to send me any, that would be fantastic!! Wishing you all a GREAT YEAR! 🐲🐉🐲🐉🐲🐉🐲🐉🐲🐉🐲🐉

If you have me for a partner, please try to use real postage stamps when you post. I like to collect them or use them in projects!

Also, I always wrap my swaps in a little plastic bag inside the envelope to protect them from getting wet, except for naked postcards. Its not that I don't love the earth, but I would hate for my partner to be disappointed by a ruined wet swap!

If a swap requires a postcard to be sent naked, I AM ALWAYS HAPPY FOR IT TO BE SENT IN AN ENVELOPE especially if it is handmade. I will never rate down for an envelope being used! I have had too many damaged PCs - even plain flat shop bought ones!

Also, I have to APOLOGISE in advance for taping up envelopes. I place tape where anything is sticking up a bit as I have found that these are the places that get caught and torn - from the sorting machines I guess. Most of the times you can still slide a letter opener into the bottom of the envelope to open it.

WHATS MY WORD:

For 2024, my word is DRAGON - it is my sign and it encompasses so many different qualities!

For 2023, my AMA What’s your word was SUPERNATURAL.

For 2022, my WHAT’S YOUR WORD was “Reincarnation”

My AMA: WHATS YOUR WORD for 2021 was “Turtle”

I love crafting with textiles - mainly with paper and fabric. I am a workshop junkie!

My favourite colour is ORANGE and I use it a lot in my craftwork. When I make things for others I like to use colours they like, but I usually put in a little bit of orange somewhere - like a “signature”!

I work in a vet clinic but I am semiretired - cos I need more time for crafting!

Update JAN 2024 - if you are looking for something to send me in a Swap, I really like Halloween stuff, so if you come across any post halloween sales keep me in mind,, especially any paper or crafting stuff. We don’t get a lot of craft halloween stuff in Australia.

RE VINTAGE FAIRYTALE GROUP SWAPS - I like everything, and DRAGONS are my fave! The fairytales from my childhood are: Snowwhite & the 7 dwarves; little red riding hood; hansel & gretel; cinderella; the snow queen; peterpan & tinkerbell; rapunzel; sleeping beauty, Alice in Wonderland, etc

RE PAGAN SWAPS - I consider myself a green witch. I love animals and nature. I like to work with herbs and essential oils and use them to influence my daily life. I have no dislikes of any group of gods. I particularly like norse and ancient egyptian culture and have so much to learn about them - i am in no way an “expert” on anything. I appreciate anything that teaches me about all aspects of paganism. I love tarot cards, mainly for the beautiful artwork they usually have. I like to receive recipes for potions and spells. I like flat papery things cos they are easier to store. I am not into black magic.

RE COLLABORATIVE SWAPS - I love to contribute to all of these. I seem to have collected more than I send, so I love to receive last signers and get them home, then I can get one from my stash moving in the next round!

UPDATE June 2021 - I have had a few swaps returned to me by our postal service. They have told me i can only send “documents” as letters, which means only paper stuff. I had two returned because I had put in a teabag, even though they were still really flat and one because I had put some ribbon and braid in it. Ive been told no metal or fabric either. This is making it very challenging when making crafty items as I cant use fabric, ribbons or cords.

My favourite movie series is STARWARS. I love them all. The MANDALORIAN is awesome! Thankyou Disney! My favonurite characters are the child (Grogu) and BB8 (cos he’s cute and ORANGE!) i also like Yoda, Chewbacca, the Ewoks, C3PO, R2D2 and Mando. Feb 2024 -now watching AHSOKA.

I enjoy action movies with lots of speed, guns and explosions. I especially like it when good wins, even if they have to bend the law to do it. Loved the Dirty Harry movies. I like movies that have a lot of sequels, cos I like to see what happens next in the lives of the characters. My other favourite movie series are lethal weapon, mad max, fast and furious, twilight, alien, kill bill, Bosch, Love any movies with The Rock or Sean Connery Don’t like scary movies. I loved the twilight movies - still haven’t finished reading the books - I’m more of a movie watcher than a book reader - except for craft books of course! I quite liked the two guardian of the galaxy movies and the Star Trek movies. I liked the terminator movies. My favourite all time actor is Sean Connery (RIP). I love action heroes : The Rock - he’s so cool and funny! Clint Eastwood - the rebellious hero type. Daniel Craig - another guy who bends the rules for justice. John Wayne - the ultimate cowboy. Jason Statham - driver extraordinaire! Vin Diesel- - Fast and Furious! More to come... Jean Claude Van Damme, Steven Seagal, Jackie Chan, Jet Li..........I’m still thinking

OK, UPDATE FEB 2024 Since ive discovered streaming, i dont watch free to air TV anymore. I love to binge watch series - dont enjoy waiting for one episode a week!

Just watched TRUE DETECTIVE season 4 with Jodie Foster. Absolutely LOVED it! Didnt really enjoy the first three seasons that much - thry did too much time jumping and were really hard to follow!

I love Disney+ for all the starwars stuff - the Mandalorian is my favourite - who can resist Grogu!! And I love rewatching GOT and the House of Dragon. Im a dragon, so 2024 is my chinese horoscope year and im hoping for a great one!

Vikings was a favourite for the first few seasons, but I didnt enjoy it so much after Ragnar died.

Jan 2024 - just watched another miniseries with Travis in it - “boy swallows universe” - it is great. It was on netflix or prime.

Travis Fimmel (aka Ragnar Lothbrok) has just released his own beer in Australia, called TRAVLA, and the label is orange - i predict its going to be very popular!

I like country and pop music. I like music where you can understand the words. My record collection Is mainly from my teenage years and includes: Slim Dusty, Kenny Rogers, ABBA, ONJ, ELO, Sherbet, Leif Garret, Cold chisel, Chad Morgan (the sheik from scrubby creek) Grease soundtrack, Xanadu soundtrack, Meatloaf Then we changed to CDs and I have boxes of them. I am slowly putting them onto my computer so I can give away the CDs and have more room for craft stuff!

I’m not into music that you can’t Understand the words.

I really like Adele’s voice.

My favourite books are my art journals and craft books. The last set of novels i read were the twilight series, and I didn’t finish them!. I’m not really a fiction book fan. I have a big book collection, but they are mainly information type books. Every now and then I’ll get a small book, often about “life improvement”. Just getting back into Wicca - have to see if I can find my old books! 20 may 2021 Just got three new books by Arin Murphy-Hiscock - they had quite a collection at the bookshop!🧙

I love Sewing, scrapbooking (also known as “chat booking” when you are at a retreat!) art journalling, making “off the page” stuff with fabric and paper and loads of embellishments. I like to sew small projects that I can get finished. I have a lot of UFO (unfinished objects) quilting things. I prefer to use the quilting techniques and make them into bags! I have too many bags! But really, can a person have too many bags?

I like making my own postcard sized pieces more so than ATCs because i can fit more on them, but i still make ATCs because they come up more in swaps, and i belong to an Aussie ATC swap group. I have just got a memory dex And am looking forward to embellishing the cards. I love experimenting with pop ups in my journals and off the page 3D stuff, but am restricted to flatmailfor international swaps. Ive become a swapbot addict - It’s really good fun making things for others and then receiving surprises in the mail! I belong to four local crafty groups and we meet weekly to monthly. I like to mix up my crafts - which is probably why I love art journalling so much. I like the freedom of using loose pages and then binding them when I have enough to make a book.. It also means I can use lots of wet product because the back sides of the pages are not seen, so it doesn’t matter that stuff leaks Through to the other side.

2023 - im just getting into zines and am looking forward to making collaborative zines - ones that get sent to diff partners for their contribution. Im in one at the moment, but post is slow so would like to have more on the go! Feb 2024 - so I have discovered that collaboratives zibes, decos and mini albums are my thing!

I love CHIHUAHUAS and TURTLES (especially those with feet /claws. At the moment I have two chis and 3 Northern Yellow faced turtles, yellow rainbow fish, long armed Shrimp, some redclawed yabbies, guppies and a couple of red scats. My big news of Jan 2021 is that we have quite a few hatchlings - the turtle eggs have been hatching!! May 2021 - 4 baby turtles have survived! The adult turtles were all rescues - a side effect of the job! This year is the first successful breeding. In 2022 and 2023, we had a lot more hatchlings and now have around 50 turtles! So for we havent had any for this latest season, which is unusual, we had some extra hot weather end if 2023 and im wondering if the eggs got overheated or something.

I am a bit obsessed about BEES! Actually a lot obsessed about them - we need them to survive! I like ASIAN DRAGONS - they don’t have wings. I like GARDENING when the weather permits! My favourite colour is ORANGE!! I’m often called “orange Julie”. I Really like STEAMPUNK And I try it but I’m not so good at getting the effect I want. My stuff just looks too clean and I want the grungy look.

I am a BIG COLLINGWOOD MAGPIES fan! They are an AFL team (australian football league). It isnt soccer - you have to look it up on the internet to see. The Australian MAGPIE is also my favourite bird!!

So as I have been doing a lot more swaps and I’m wanting to know what kinds of things to send, I have found ABC/wish lists very useful, so I thought I would start one.

A - autumn stuff and autumn colours, animals

B- BEES- I LOVE bees

C- CHIHUAHUAS my favourite breed of dog.

Culture - I like learning about other cultures, especially old/ancient cultures.

THE CHILD from the mandalorian, now we know his name is GROGU - papers, stickers washi. Anything flat.

Christmas - any kind of flat or paper items.

Chameleons - love all the bright colours they come in!

Cryptids - since finding out what they are through swapbot swaps, i am quite addicted to them and have been collecting quite a few books. Id love anything flattish - papers, stickers, cloth badges, postcards, postage stamps, stamped images.

D- dragons (Asian type, game of thrones dragons, Eragon, & how to train your dragons type - now that I’ve reread that, I’d say I like dragons with names!)

Diecuts

E- ephemera (old fashioned things, travel, Christmas, Halloween)

 Egyptian things (Ancient)

F- frogs,

Fabric

G- gardening - anything I can use in paper crafting

H- HALLOWEEN - love anything Halloween but we can’t get much in australia!

HANDMADE - I LOVE nicely handmade items.

I- Indian art (the Native American kind) visited the museum in DC and just about wanted everything in the shop!

J-JAPAN, flat Japanese craft materials, ephemera, historical or cultural stuff.

K-

L- lizards, lycans

M- MANDALORIAN (especially Mando and the child, Grogu)

MAGPIES - the bird and the AFL team.

Mushrooms - paper, stickers, postcards, anything flattish

N-Napkins - the paper type. Love ones with cool pictures on them - anything from my profile. I use them in my papercrafting. NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS- anything flat that I can put into junk journals.

O- ORANGE. stuff - my favourite colour!

Ocean floor - things that are found on the ocean floor, either natural or manmade (creatures or shipwrecks)

P- postcards,

postage stamps on swap envelopes - I’m a collector.

Papers for all sorts of papercraft

Pomeranians - coming in a very close second for favourite breed.

Pagan

Pumpkins

Q-

R- religious stuff - I like to learn about the different religions of the world.

S- STARWARS (very big fan - only movie that I have had to line up around the block for back in 1977)

stickers

Sea animals

STEAMPUNK

SAMURAI - old prints, cards, anything flat or paperish

SUPERNATURAL stuff - the meaning of the word and the TV series

T- TURTLES (with claws or feet, Northern Yellow faced turtles are my fave)

TAROT CARDS - I am building up quite a collection. I cant read them yet, but the artwork on them is pretty awesome!

U-

V- Vikings, Vampires

W- water animals (ocean and freshwater), werewolves

WITCHCRAFT/WICCA

X-

Y-

Z- zines, especially collaborative ones!

I’m willing to try any tea. I DO NOT drink coffee - it makes me feel nauseous.

I really like T2 teas. My favourite ones are creme brûlée and pumping pomegranite. I have large tins of these, so please dont send them to me. I like to make up big jugs of iced tea as I live in a very hot place!

If we are swapping tea, I would appreciate fruity teas or chai latte - wherever I travel, I like to try new flavours.

I have just found out that we can’t send any foodstuffs from australia to overseas, in letters so I will have to look for local tea swaps! May 2021 - Update! We can send tea/food but it has to go as a parcel and that starts at $21 for postage, so sadly, that excludes me from international tea swaps. Before i found out, i popped some into envies, but some were returned and that’s when i found out they had to go as parcels. Its all so confusing as the website still says no foodstuffs!

I like all kinds of postcards, EXCEPT those that are offensive or with nude/scantily clad people.

I would love any postcards related to anything I’ve mentioned in my profile. I especially would like ones that we don’t get in australia.

I like any kinds of vehicles ( air, land, sea or space)

animals (especially from your country)

maps, bridges, lighthouses, old buildings

cultural or religious (especially with a little story about the pic)

touristy (from other countries)

movie stars (especially the ones I’ve mentioned in my profile).

Chihuahuas, pomeranians, turtles, dragons or bees

STARWARS.

Any shape or size is OK. Would love to get unusually shaped ones.

Event postcards - we can’t get them in australia - Halloween, Christmas, st Patrick’s day, Easter, and any other holidays or celebrations, even events that are local to your area.

Bookish or historical postcards

My favourite colour is orange - if you find any nice orange postcards, I’d love to receive them!