who's with me?

View this inspirational treasury here.

It's Halloween, which means it's officially (well, not officially) OK to start talking about Christmas, right?  I'm really looking forward to the anticipation season, if you know what I mean - starting to think about presents, turning on the heating or even the fire, opening the advent calendar, sipping amaretto, eating mince pies, making a festive gumdrop wreath and, maybe most of all, digging out my box of decorations to hang on the tree.  I LOVE my shoebox full of decorations, especially all the random handmade ones.

Anyway, I got to thinking (thanks to some inadvertent inspiration from Saffa) about just how much I really do love all my decorations and how quite a chunk of my collection came from a handmade decoration swap that I took part in back in 2008 (no way! five years ago!) via Swapbot.  The swap was so much fun!  I loved getting little parcels all through December and every single decoration, no matter how simple or fancy, tickled me thoroughly pink.  I also loved the idea of my own little handmade decorations hanging on other people's trees, maybe for year after year or even generation after generation.

So, it's been five years.  Don't you agree it might be time to participate in another Christmassy swap?  I had a quick look on Swapbot again, but couldn't find anything, so I decided I should try to organise one myself and just wanted to ask... who's with me?

I've never organised a swap before, but here's what I'm thinking.

* Anyone can participate - I think this swap should be open to all comers, regardless of geographical location.  For this reason, make sure any materials you use are OK to send abroad and the deadline for posting will be set at December 1st to allow decorations a few days to hang on trees prior to Christmas Day (and because it's easy to remember).  Don't tell the boss I said so, but you could always bend this date a bit if you were sending to someone in the same country as yourself since this swap is meant to be fun and not stressful.

* Decorations can be as simple or as elaborate as you like and nobody should worry that their decorations might not cut the festive mustard.  Part of the joy of a tree covered in handmade decorations is that some of them are beautiful and some of them are wonky. It is all good, so please don't let wobbly creative-confidence stop you from signing up!

* We're all busy, so I'm thinking we should keep the numbers small.  I'm sure nobody has the time or energy to go into full-on production-line manufacturing!  It all depends how many people sign up, but I think if we get more than around five takers, then I'll probably divide into two (or more) groups.  You'll need to be prepared to be a little bit flexible on this depending on interest (or lack of) but I'm thinking you would make, and therefore receive, six decorations as an absolute maximum if you did decide to take part.

So what do you reckon?  If you'd like to take part (please, please, please!) then drop me an email (you can do that by clicking on the airmail envelopes on the right-hand side there) giving me your full name and postal address by midnight on Monday November 4th.  By Wednesday November 6th, I'll email everyone who's signed up, detailing how many decorations to make and where to send them to.  This will leave you almost four weeks to make and send your decorations.  Simple, no?

So, are you more Scrooge or Santa?  Please banish those humbugs (bah!) and let the festive spirit run free - sign up and/or spread the Christmassy word :)