Thoughtful Thursday -BookSwapping Adventures and Blog Award

Tonja Lenderman of Tonja's Polyclay Corner and Tonja's Treasures has chosen my blog for the Sunshine Award. I am thankful to get this from such an distinguished colleague. I am happy to know that others like my writing as it is my favorite thing to do besides my art. Thank you Tonja!

The rules say that I need to pass this award along to 12 other blogs, I’ll do my best.

Here are the rules, so please pass this award along….
The rules for accepting the Sunshine Award are:
- Put the logo on your blog or within your post.
- Pass the award onto 12 bloggers.
- Link the nominees within your post.
- Let the nominees know they have received this award by commenting on their blog.
- Share the love and link to the person from whom you received this award.

Here are a few of the blogs I find inspiring, some I have been following for awhile others are newly discovered, some through the One World One Heart Event -

1. The Art and Musings of Shelley Rae Wood -Fiber and Mixed Media artist, you'll find some great fiber/quilt eye candy there! I love all the vintage crazy quilts she has on there right now.
   
2. The Magic Onions - Donni shares her life of crafting, children and the Waldorf lifestyle with many tutorials, recipes and family pictures.
3. Going Green Crafters and Artists - Defiantly a 'Green' blog something close to my heart, hopefully yours too!
4. The Letter Project - Hand writing is almost becoming obsolete. Danit has started this project to help keep it alive.
5. Holly's Folly Bead and Jewelry Blog - A great entertaining writer and Bead maker, a must to check out and follow!
6. Rusted Wings Gallery - mixed media art by a mother of 6 artistic daughters.
7. Debi Scott - Newly discovered, Virtual PC guild
8. Polymer Clay Beads - Ponsawan Sila's bead blog, a must see
9. Jennifer Jangles - colorful Bead and Jewelry maker, Fun, Bright and whimsical!
10. Smashing Color -Color Diva Maggie Maggio explores color in ways you can't imagine!
11. Treasures Found- Inspiration is Everywhere - Blog of Jewelry maker Extraordinaire Erin Praise- Hintz and wonderful blogger!
12. The Beading Gem's Journal - Great Jewelry tips and tutorials, always something to learn on there.

UPDATE ON BOOK-SWAPPING (and CD's & DVD's)

Hey all ! I wanted to update you on my Book Swapping adventures. Remember me telling you about this two weeks ago on this Edition of Thoughtful Thursday? I joined one of the three Book Swap groups that I told you about, SwapTree two weeks ago today. I've only listed a few books I had hanging around which was not much to choose from (I wish I'd know about this before I gave away, literally boxes and boxes of books!). I listed some hardbacks, some paperbacks, in total 18 books and one CD. On my want list I had about the same amount. In that short time I have made three trades for books, one for a DVD and one just today for a CD. So with my limited trading library I think I did pretty good so far.

I haven't watched my DVD yet but it is still in it's factory wrapper. I've received two of the three books so far and they are in great shape and came quickly. And right now I am waiting for my offer to trade for my CD to be accepted.

Here's what I've found out by belonging this short time:

1. It's easy to join
2. You can print out postage to immediately ready your trade for mailing with out a trip to the Post Office, They do charge a small fee for this but unless you are purposely going to the PO you will spend more in gas alone to do so.
3. You get billed to your credit card on file at the end of the month for all postage printed out from them. (they have already figured out the weight of the book plus wrapping and allow for safe wrapping of the books. The charge is media mail.
4. There is a feedback system which helps you to trade wisely.
5. Even if you don't find an immediate trade, one to one, Swaptree will search it's data base for you and look for a three way trade. All the ones I've been in are three ways, that is how I got a DVD for a book.
   
6. I have received offers as soon as they find them, but you must be quick to accept, make sure the email address you use is one you check daily. I have initiated offers (2) and had them accepted within the 48 hour period required.
7. One thing to be cautious of, make sure you are willing to trade what you have for anything on your want list. Even if you have a $50 cocktail table book that weights 5 lbs you can be asked to trade that for a paperback, they view all books as 'equal value' no matter what they cost you or what they weight. AND if you turn down too many trades your account can be suspended.
   
8. You can 'Pause' your account which means to halt all incoming trades so you don't loose your privileges when going on vacation or wanting to not be bothered with swaps for awhile which is a great feature, especially when just beginning and listing many books. You may get offers each day and just not have the time to devote to all the swapping so you can put your account in this mode.
   

So far my experience has been very positive, I have gotten a new movie to watch, I (hopefully) have a movie soundtrack coming that I've been looking for, and have two books so far that when priced in the bookstore would have cost close to $20 new and another on the way. One other thing I forgot to mention is that Swaptree keeps track of the money you save. I think they use a pricing range that second hand books, DVD's and CD's would fall under but still, right now I have saved over $24 and reduced my Carbon Footprint by 28 POUNDS! That is great to me and makes me feel even better about this service.

So Now I can give an informed (albeit new) recommendation to this service and urge you to give it a try.

One thing I did find is that there aren't too many Craft/art/jewelry books on there, at least what I'm looking for or to trade and I've looked for other services that might specialize in that genre but haven't found any so far, maybe I should start one myself? Hmm...............

Don't forget Mystery Monday take a guess for a chance at a surprise goodie bag!

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Saturday Summary

Happy Sabbath to you all, hope you are having a great rest from all the busyness of the past week. In case you missed any of what's been going on here this past week I've made a summary for you so you won't miss a thing!

Monday - We returned to Mystery Monday after a one week break for the One World One Heart tour I was taking. This weeks photo I've had some great guesses on and even some things I didn't think of but no correct answers yet! So put your artists berets on and get thinking and send me your guess. Click on the link to mystery Monday above to get full details and to view the photo.

On Monday I also announced my nine winners in my OWOH giveaway in a different post, so if you missed that, please check it out here.

Tuesday ~ We returned with Team T International Member feature with Catherine Reese of Village Clayworks who paints her clay pieces like a canvas with pen drawings filled in with brilliant color and her subject are tiny creatures like ladybugs, dragonflies and little sweet birdies. Check out the feature here.

Wednesday ~ Was What's new and there was lots to share, First about my debut as a blogger for ABS Blog Carnival. And to tie in the theme with the ABS challenge of the month I presented my entry of Luna Park. I've also given an insight to my design process of this piece and there is a great aerial photo of Coney Island Merry go Rounds that fit with the theme and the artist is offering a discount for my readers. To read about all this please click here.

Thursday ~ I gave you some specials in the art/craft stores this week including a great deal on polymer clay and jewelry gems and components. I also alerted you to Lark call for submissions on rings, a new giveaway from Elliot Lucca and Harper books and introduced you to Bookswapping, where you can trade your used/read books, CD's and even DVD's for those you haven't read or listened to or read yet. In fact I already joined one on the spur of the moment Thursday night and already have over 9,000 books, dvd's and cd's I can trade my unwanted books for. I purposely put in an eclectic mix just to see if it would work with anything not just popular items and was pleasantly surprised! So go have a read at Thoughtful Thursday's post and see if this isn't for you and your family!

Friday ~ I introduced you to the article on Pablo Picasso's Daughter Paloma as well as Macy's Spring Look Book which also includes the trends to be seen this Spring in clothing and accessories, as well as the color palettes which some are taken from Master Artists like Van Gogh and Picasso. I also introduced you to a 'Take a break' past time that will hopefully give your mind a break in the day and focus your creativeness for later projects with JigZone. And I finished off the week with a photo of perfect relaxation. If you missed this post, you won't want to miss it again, so click here to go check out all these things from Feed Your Creativity Friday.

Well that's it dear readers for this week. I will see you on Monday when I announce the winner of the Mystery Monday photo. If you haven't gotten in your guess yet, do so now!

Have a wonderful weekend, relax, revive, rejuvenate!

Until then.......................... I'm off to do some bookswapping!

Thoughtful Thursday

Welcome to Thoughtful Thursday. I hope I have some things that will make your life easier, save you some time and money and bring something to your attention that you didn't know about but are happy to discover!

Of interest to Jewelry Makers And PC & PMC Artists

Michael's sales this week include Premo! Sculpey and Fimo Polymer Clay 4 for $5!!!!! Stock up now Clayers, that's a great deal. Also 40% off Gold, Silver, Platinum and Rose Gold findings for all your fine Jewelry creations. And 30% off big selection of Bead Gallery Collection and Natural Elegance components.

Hobby Lobby has Liquitex Acrylic tube paints and mediums 30% off. I use these myself as they bond with the polymer clay very well and their mediums can be used for all types of art applications. Also Artists, pencils, pens and markers 30% off.

And Jewelry makers, for you, Traditions, Explorer and Natural Gallery Jewelry components, 50% off! there's lots more jewelry components too including Czech Beads and Swavroski Crystals.
Jen Judds is having a giveaway to celebrate the ABS Blogging Carnival I talked to you about yesterday. She has some awesome Lampwork Beads from Lisa New as well as some other great bead artists. Just visit her blog on this post and leave a comment including your favorite Bead Artists (I won't mind if you name drop StudioARTBEAD ;) )

Lark Books (I'm sure you have at least one if not more of their books, I have 3 of these 4 myself) is looking for submissions for 30 minute rings. Yes that's right, from start to finish, only 30 minutes.

Jewelry Design Challenge: 30-Minute Rings
Editor: Marthe Le Van
Entry Deadline: March 19, 2010

Are you a skilled and imaginative jewelry designer who is up for a challenge? Great! Your mission is to design a ring that can be made…start to finish…in 30 minutes flat. Sound fun? We think so.

30-Minute Rings will showcase more than 50 incredibly stylish step-by-step projects that can be created without investing too much of a valuable commodity—time! The selected ring designs will be modern and sophisticated and encompass many different styles and techniques. The common denominator will be fast projects that look terrific!

PS: In 30-Minute Rings, we won’t be teaching fundamental jewelry making techniques. Designers can assume that their readers are already proficient (and quick!) at skills such as sawing, soldering, and finishing.

Visit This page for Submission Guidelines

Love Books? Great purses? How's this for Spring? I love this soft coral color and the texture with all that weaving of leather and the medallion on the bottom is cool too! This is an Elliot Lucca Bag and you could win this AND a bag full of Books to read from HarperCollins, worth over $455.00

Yes, this beautiful bag could be yours and the latest fiction from Harper Collins, all you have to do is GO HERE and enter to win. Elliot Lucca can be seen on HSN and if you sign up to be alerted by email when he'll be on next, any time in February you will automatically be entered into a drawing to win a $100 HSN gift certificate.

So what if you don't win the purse full of books, and you really LOVE BOOKS? If you've been reading my blog I'd make a guess that you do. :) After introducing you to BookCrossing last week, as cool as that is, and I love a treasure hunt I got to thinking about Book swapping. Why couldn't there be a place where you could swap the books you have for books you want? So I went online and found, much to my happy surprise, there not only is such a thing but many choices out there. Now I haven't tried any of these yet so if any of you have please leave a comment and share! But I will be looking into these deeper and see which ones I'd like to join.

Here's a quick rundown on the ones I discovered.

SwapTree -

• Trade the books you have for the books you want, for FREE
• Swap your books for video games, CDs and DVDs
• Instantly see all the books you can receive in trade
• Print perfect postage right from your computer
• Discover new books and authors
• Recycle, reuse and reduce your carbon footprint

So, more than just books, but CD's and DVD's games and probably Book on tape. You can follow them for updates on Twitter. And here's an interview with the co-founder on TIME online Magazine. And a quote from the article:

There's a staggering amount of stuff ready for the swapping: Swaptree currently has about 2.5 million items listed for trade, and the number of users doubles every four months.

The best part is that Swaptree does most of the work for you; after you set up a "have list" and a "want list," the site automatically lists all of the permutations—including complicated triple trades—that'll hook you up with your picks. And it's free. You only pay for shipping, and you can do that for a couple of bucks via media mail at the post office.

Read more: http://money.blogs.time.com/2009/06/19/qa-with-the-co-founder-of-swaptree-com/#ixzz0fwPEDiFD

AND you can even print out postage from their site, so this sounds like one I will be signing up for!

Here's another.............................

PaperBack Swap
Want a quick run down? Watch this very short video. This sounds like another I'd like to try. Here's the link to the site too!



And here's one more to get you started:

BookMooch , they just recently were written up on this article by ABC news. They work on a points system explained here . Basically you have to send out 1 book for each 2 you receive. You can even share your points with charities they work with. Worth checking out.

Logo artwork courtesy of BookMooch.com

So there you have it, three great places to join to get free books, and not just any books, but the ones you want and you get to clean house at the same time and save lots of money and who couldn't stand to do that nowadays?

Remember that they have Children's books, cook books, Biographies, History, Fiction, Sci-Fi, Travel, Everything you could find at your local book store, library and more! Not only does this help you save money, but space (clear off those bulging bookcases!) but it also, and this is my favorite, helps you to be very green, save trees by sharing your books and giving them a new home while you still can read all you want!

Try Book Swapping today, I'm sure you'll be hooked! And I'm sure I will be writing more on this later!
Hope this gives you some fun things to investigate today! Have fun and let me know what you think!

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