lovelygangster

June 09:Taking a break from swaps for my exams. Will still be responding to emails/PMs. See ya in July!! ^_^

ATTENTION SWAP PARTNERS!!!! THERE MAY BE SPOLIERS ON MY FLICKR SO IF YOU LIKE SURPRISES, DON'T LOOK!!!!

I'm 19 years old and live in Melbourne Australia. My Dad was born in Kleve, Germany and my Mum was born in Australia from an Irish mother (raised in Blackrock) and an Australian father. I am currently in my first year at University of Melbourne studying Bachelor of Optometry which is a 5 year degree. I have 3 older brothers (one of whom still lives at home) and a twin sister, who is also on swapbot @astarael .

I love travelling overseas and also within Australia. In 2006 I spent 9 weeks living in Hamburg, Germany and a week visiting my family near Düsseldorf. At the start of 2008 I spend 5 weeks travelling through Thailand, Laos, Burma and Cambodia. It was amazing, and the main purpose of the trip was to see a library that my friends and I raised $10,000 to build for a Lao school in 2006.

I have been learning German ever since I was about 3 years old, and my language skills are still rudimentary at best. I would love to speak just about every language on the planet (and perhaps off the planet - we'll see), but particularly Japanese, Scandinavian languages, Gaelic and Swahili or Zulu. As soon as I get the money, which will probably never happen - sigh, I want to buy everything in South Korea and Japan!!

I enjoy Sushi, Gelati, Meringues, most sweet things, Hello Kitty (and other Sanrio characters), origami (A recently required Hello Kitty origami gift book has allowed me to combine 2 hobbys and amplify the pre existing explosion of coolness and cuteness), punk and classical music, many movies (especially german and other foregin ones), craft, poetry and obviously books. I am an avid Irish Breakfast Tea fan and hate the sight of an empty tea cup, much the same as with Diet Vanilla Coke although I don't mind an empty glass as much because making tea takes effort(!!). I also enjoy hearing cute stories about animals eg a giant tortoise having adopted an orphaned hippo as its own child and the birth of 12 baby turtles at Melbourne Zoo. The baby turtles weighed 3 grams each!!! This news made me feel like I was going to 'blow up'.

I like to craft, read and drink tea. I'm into Hello Kitty, Reading, Classical music, Punk music, some German music, Movies, Lady Grey & Irish Breakfast Tea, Diet Vanilla Coke and Origami. I also enjoy crafts such as cross stitch, kanzashi, bookbinding and knitting. I like collecting ephemera and nice papers too - read: I hoard a lot of useless crap.

I collect things with strawberries on them, cute stickers, interesting swing tags (from clothing), cute keyrings, notebooks that are too nice to write in, things to make my desk look nice and cluttered and lots of other completely useless junk.

Feel free to add me on msn: hello_ kitty_ says_ hi @hotmail com

Epoxies, Pixies, Social Distortion, Buzzcocks, Ramones, Groovie Ghoulies, a lot of classical stuff too.

Amelie, Goodbye Lenin, American Beauty, The Chumscrubber, Butterfly Effect, heaps more but I always forget.

Gilmore Girls, How I Met Your Mother, Spicks & Specks, The Chaser, Family Guy, Black Books, Little Britain, Freaks & Geeks, Desperate Housewives

Knitting, Bookbinding, Origami, Kanzashi (japanese fabric folded flowers), making cute little things like shrines and stuff.

Sorry! But there's not heaps of them...

Grapes, Zucchini, Cottage Cheese, army green, i don't like things that have lots of random buttons all over them either. non-functional buttons especially in large quantities really irk me for some reason. One more thing: ABSOLUTELY NO SPIDER OR COCKROACH RELATED ITEMS - sorry but I'm terrified of both. thanks!!

Please don't send me bath products - I don't use them (obviously I use soap, but i'm not into all of the scented stuff). No makeup please either - i pretty much just wear foundation to even out my skin tone.

Please don't send me crappy dollar store items either - no problems if things are inexpensive, I just don't want to receive useless rubbish.

Also - I have pierced ears but only ever wear studs or very small dangly earrings. I sometimes wear simple necklaces but never wear bracelets or rings.

I'm also not a fan of dotee dolls and I wouldn't have a place to put them, so please don't send those either.

I'm not religious. I like iconography (ie Guadelupe icons, Hindu deity icons, Buddha icons etc, but other than that, no religious stuff please).

No patriotic American stuff either - I'm not American.

Some of my favourite things are:

• Maps (especially old ones)
• Cuckoo clocks
• Anything folk european
• Owls, Turtles
• Vanilla and Chocolate
• Aprons and baking
• Coffee
• Tea, Teapots and Teacups
• Tulips
• Orangutans
• Mexico
• Japan
• Kawaii (especially Hello Kitty, Deery Lou, Pandapple, Cram Cream etc NOT into EGL)
• Africa
• Germany
• Warm fuzzy stuff
• Good books
• Yarn (prefer handspun, NO FUN FUR OR FEATHER, FLUTTER, OR ANY FUZZY YARN PLEASE)
• Ribbons
• Ephemera
• Stamps
• Foreign language text (especially in other scripts)
• Queen Elizabeth
• Mexicana, Day of the Dead, folk South American crafts
• Retro
• Kitsch
• Mushrooms
• Gnomes
• Forests
• Old School tattoo flash
• Bollywood!!! and anything indian (sari fabric, sanskrit writing etc)
• Anything on the theme of a midlle eastern/moroccan bazaar
• Just nice things in general

Characters i REALLY like include: Elmer the Elephant, Miffy, Paddington bear, Babar, Afro Ken, Chococat, Dancho, Le Petit Prince, Diddl, Nici animals etc

My wists are also quite indicative of my tastes. http://www.wists.com/lovely_gangster

Eep i know this list probably looks intimidating, but it's just to give people lots of ideas.

• Vintage things (ie trinkets, little boxes or tins, ephemera)

• Stamps (for scrapbooking), not really kitschy ones, mainly ones with a kind of Victorian or old-timey feel in general (contact me about this one) or letters

• Postage stamps from countries other than Australia

• Nice Ribbons

• Old playing cards

• ANY cool ephemera

• Nice papers

• Origami paper

• A CD in a language other than English

• Candy/Chocolate

• Tea (mostly chai but NO GREEN TEA)

• Souvenir tea towels

• Kitschy souvenirs from your country (esp keyrings) (contact me first about this one)

• Old or new postcards (with writing is OK, especially old postcards)

• Nice Yarn, especially handspun

• Japanese craft books

• Cute fabric

• ANYTHING FOLK RELATED

• ANYTHING LE PETIT PRINCE OR ELMER THE ELEPHANT

• CRAM CREAM OR SANRIO GOODIES

• Tokidoki or other cute le sportsac items

• Nice Stationary

• Anything Queen Elizabeth related

• KAWAII fabric, stationary or stickers, plushies

• Käthe Wohlfahrt stuff

• Polaroids

Here is a more comprehensive list I have used on other swapping sites:

1. Germany or german speaking countries - goodies from Diddl, Nici or Ohne Dich ist Alles Doof, folk-y type fabrics, Käthe Wohlfahrt things, German wool/yarn, anything folk, oktoberfest goodies, kitschy black forest-y bavarian type trinkets, anything DDR related (i know this can be hard to get out of the country), anything vintage, know this is a big ask but clothing with german writing on it (like i saw some really cute tshirts with glückspilze on them in hamburg), anything sandmännchen, milka/ritter sport

2. Japan - sanrio goodies, kimono fabric, candy, origami paper, just cute things in general, craft magazines/patterns esp for felt plush things, stationary

3. France - anything le petit prince, anything vintage, especially old tins (doesn't necessarily have to be authentic vintage), old postcards, a really nice scarf would also be cool PM me, nice yarn or ribbons, nice fabric (with a vintage feel), anything elmer the elephant

4. Britain - kitschy souvenirs related to big ben, telephone booths, double decker buses etc, tea related stuff, old postcards, anything retro, candy, anything victorian-y, anything cottage garden-y/royal dalton china-y (obviosuly not actual china, but stuff with that kind of feel, if that makes sense), wool/yarn, vintage fabric/ribbons, anything kitschy queen elizabeth, old playing cards/board game cards or bits and pieces

5. Netherlands - anything clogs or anything miffy!!! vintage things, kitschy Dutch souvenirs, nice fabric or wool if you can get it, delft blue things, windmill related goodies, anything tulip themed

6. Russia/other eastern bloc countries - anything babushka related, anything USSR related (i studied the russian revolution and LOVED it!!!), anything with Russian writing on it, vintage things

7. Scandinavia - folk things, cool fabric, ephemera, anything vintage, fabric from ikea, other cool scandinavian designed things, viking related goodies

8. U.S. - altoid tins, shrinky dinks, vintage looking scrap booking supplies, ephemera, vintage things, Amy Butler fabric, michael miller fabric, freespirit fabric, henry alexander fabric, any fabric like the type of stuff you can get on reprot depot

Purple, teal, aqua, pink, green, chocolate & cream, brown and pink, brown and aqua.

I like most colours really, except I'm not a fan of really obnoxious neon colours.

Please remember I live in the Southern hemisphere, so postage can sometimes take 2 weeks (or more, but rarely more). Please contact me if a package doesn't arrive in a fortnight and I will happily resend. Please email before rating poorly, and I will do the same for you.

Also, when necessary, please value the contents of your package as NCV or No Commercial Value otherwise I can potentially be charged to receive them.

My superstar swappers section:

@eiko - an A+++ swap host

@Crinolinelady - totally spoiled me

@gogoringo - rad-tacular group founder

People who have flaked on me!!! (i really didn't want to have one of these naming and shaming lists, but i've now been flaked on by 3 people out of only about 16 swaps, and it's getting really disappointing)

@atariisoda for pink & brown swap

@AlexandBeckysMom1 for polaroid street art and graffiti swap

@iqeal for deco tape 24 swap

@ratbaby for coins from my country vii (envelope arrived empty, declined to resend)

@andrealove for polaroid street art and graffiti swap

@iqeal (again) for generic kawaii is cute too international - angelled by @MrsMJ THANK YOU!!!!

Please note: about re-gifting if I receive an item from you that I already have one of it, or I don't have a use for it, I will regift it onto someone who will love it. I am conscious of how much stuff gets wasted the way the world is at the moment, and I don't want anything you put thought into sending me to go unused. I will not throw stuff into the rubbish, I will find it a loving home. ^_^