Mug Swap - What I Got!

A super quick post today! It's the mug I got from the mug swap, ages ago! HAHA! I already shared what I sent, so here's a piccy of what I received!

Tada! Isn't it beautiful? Such lovely red and pink flowers and the little dots on the bottom! And then there's a stem of cute pink flowers right on the inside of the mug too! So very cute! It's so perfect for me, there's no way I explained my likes that well to my swap partner - she must have psychic abilities!


Boyfriend and some friends and I might be going camping next week, and I might bring this mug with me for tea. Hee. ♥

Mug Swap - What I Sent

Another Iggle swap! I had planned on staying away from iggle swaps for a while. The last one I'd done - the recipe book swap - took longer than I expected because I went overboard. It kind of burned me out. With that and the Best Birthday Ever Swap... I figured right then that I'd back off a bit. I avoided the swap section of the forums like the plague.

...And then I got a DM from the person running the Mug Swap. She had a bunch of people sign up, but she was at an odd number, and wondered if I might be interested in making it even. Of course I said yes... despite trying to stay away from the swaps, a swap sought me out, and I love swaps too much to say no. I couldn't resist!


So my swap buddy gave me a list of fandoms and other likes to go from, and I found myself on etsy searching "each fandom + mug". When I got to Batman, I found 5 million people and their mums were apparently selling vintage* glass Batman mugs. From 1995. From McDonald's. From Batman Forever.

*I don't know if I consider 1995 "vintage"

I laughed at this. "Who," I thought, "in their right mind, would want Batman Forever mugs?!"

And then a tiny voice in the back of my head spoke up.

"...Me."


All of a sudden I was looking at these mugs in search of the best deal to buy one for myself. Then I realized that maybe if *I* - a person who is only really more of a fan of the Batman movies and doesn't quite consider "Batman" one of her fandoms - would be interested in a Batman Forever mug... mayhaps my swap buddy would be interested?

I ended up finding a fairly good deal on three Batman Forever mugs - two Batmans and a Two Face.

One Batman mug is mine now. Bah hahaha.

Here are pics of Batman and Two Face:

Batman front

Batman back

Two Face front

Two Face back

 These mugs were super cute! I like the coins on the handle of the Two Face mug! Once I washed them, I happily started packing these two mugs in to a box when my anxiety crept up behind me and whispered in my ear,

"What if she's not like you...?"

Dang it. THANKS ANXIETY. So my excitement from "vintage" Batman Forever mugs imploded in on itself and all that was left was a lingering mushroom cloud of doubt.


I went back to her list of likes, and headed out to the store.


Cats are one of her favorite animals, so I picked up this cute mug:

It was between this and an owl mug, (another one of her favorite animals) but overall I thought this one was cuter, mostly because the tail is the handle. Hehe.

So, I wrapped the cat mug up, found a bigger box, and sent all three mugs to my swap buddy. Surely she's bound to like at least one of them!! ♥

March Tiny Birthday Swap Part 2 - What I got from my swap buddy

Today I share what I got from the Tiny Birthday Swap!

Isn't this wrapping paper adorable? I love it! So simple and cute!

Tada!!! A Funko Pop, some MLP Lip Gloss, an ADORABLE mod podged MLP picture frame, an MLP blind bag, a card, and some M&M's!

I closed the box of M&M's for this picture, but it was the first thing I opened, and then munched on the M&M's while opening the rest of the presents. lol.


Here's a couple of individual piccies of some of the things...


Look at the cute card!!

Cruella DeVille!! HECK YEAH. So awesome! ♥


Here's what I got in my My Little Pony Blind Bag:

Isn't it PERFECT?! I got Sweetie Blue, which has a CUPCAKE Cutie Mark!!! Perfect for birthday celebrations!!



And LOOK at my newest Funko Pop!!!

Squeeeeee!! It's the Hot Topic exclusive Dancing Groot!! SO CUTE!! I have already mentioned in a previous post that I have two normal Dancing Groots, so now I have three Dancing Groots! I'm definitely keeping one normal one and my new Hot Topic Exclusive one though. I'm fairly certain I'm giving away the extra Dancing Groot. HOW CUTE is the little "I am Groot" pot this little Dancing Groot is sitting in?! I LOVE IT!!



There we have my goodies from the Birthday Swap! I love it all!! ♥

March Tiny Birthday Swap Part 1 - What I sent my swap buddy

So for March, there were three Iggle Swaps and I only signed up for one - the Tiny Birthday Swap.

All you had to do was send some birthday gifts to a swap buddy. I tried to keep my gifts "tiny".

I was busy in March, but I didn't realize how busy I was, and as a result, I wasn't able to do everything I wanted to do for this swap, but I'm still happy with what I ended up getting.



First, for March's Iggle Paint Live, we painted the IGGPPC logo freehand. So I thought it would be cool to do that for the birthday card:

 Of course, I didn't do this one live. I like how it turned out.


It just wasn't enough though, so I added some confetti and a birthday hat:

 Hee. Much better.



And here's all I sent:

1: Birthday Cake M&Ms - I've never tried them, so I don't know if they're any good, but I hope they are, because I got the bigger bag of them!  M&M's are tiny candies no matter what size bag you get, so that's how I justified the bigger gift. LOL.

2: Slinky Jr. - a mini slinky!

3: A Supernatural anti possession button - I picked this up at Fan Fest Chicago last month, and when my swap buddy mentioned she liked Supernatural, of course I had to send it.

4: Stationery - My swap buddy said she liked pastel colors, so I tried to find something that fit. This is probably not "tiny", but I do think the paper is a bit smaller than what's usually considered normal for stationery, yeah?

5: Happy Gum (For Your Crappy Life) - a small pack of gum! The name of it made me smile, so I had to pick one up.

6: My Little Pony Lip Balm - Originally, I had grabbed a pack of mini Hello Kitty gel pens. This was before I got my swap buddy.... who informed me she wasn't a fan of Hello Kitty. Oops. She does like My Little Pony though! Soooo I grabbed this to replace the HK.

7: Some hair ties - I found these at the mall, where I picked up the gum. I like this style of hair tie, and these were on sale, so I picked some up for myself and grabbed some for my swap buddy too.

8: Washi Tape - because they tend to be small anyhow, so of course I had to send washi tape.

9: A mini bottle of bubbles - because they're festive, right? It's not a birthday party without balloons or bubbles!

10: Travel size lotion -  ROFL, I feel like this is out of place, but when I think "tiny" I always think of the travel size section of the store. So I had to pick something from there, and toothpaste or deodorant seemed inappropriate. XD

11: Hot Chocolate - I was originally going to wrap a couple of tea bags when I realized I should probably ask if she likes tea first. She responded that she was more of a hot chocolate person, so I was super glad I double checked. I like Hot Chocolate too! That Caramel Delight is my fave at the moment.

12: Puffy cat stickers - I hope she likes cats, or at least, likes cute cat stickers. lol.

13: Caviar beads - for nails or crafting, she said she liked pastel pinks and purples, and these were the closest colors I had for those.

14: Tiny penny earrings - I made these from Nixon Pennies, and I love my pair, so I hope she likes hers!

15: Pocket Pops Daryl and Harley - On her list of fave fandoms, she had The Walking Dead, and on her list of fave heroes/villains, she had Harley Quinn. Originally I was going to just get Harley, because I didn't know Daryl was a Pocket Pop too. But there he was, just chilling right above Batman. So of course I grabbed him too!



There you have it! My tiny birthday package! I wrapped them in two different wrapping papers, and I might have also thrown in a party blower, I can't remember - I know I had planned on throwing one in, but I can't remember if I actually did. lol.


Next week, what I got from my buddy! ♥

Fictional Crush Swap Part 2 - What I got from my swap buddy

Last week, I talked about what I sent for the Fictional Crush Swap. Today I thought I'd share what I received from the swap!

I got this package a couple days before I was able to send out my parcel. So I decided to wait a bit before opening it.


Inside was an adorable mishmash of items, all from a handful of my crushes! Here's what I got:

Fictional Crush Swap Part 1 - What I sent my swap buddy

Happy April Fool's Day! Ha. No jokes here though, today I'm talking about another iggle swap from February - the fictional crush swap.

Here's some of the details on the iggle swap page:

I just KNOW if *insert your favorite character here* was real, you two would be bffs! Basically what happens in this swap is you are sending (& receiving!) a package as if it is from a character beloved by the recipient. If your swappee loves Han Solo, you get to imagine what he would send her & what he would say. If you love Peeta, maybe he’d send you some carefully-frosted cookies! Y’know, Hagrid knits– I bet he’d send his sweetie something hand-made! There’s a lot of room for creativity, so you & your partner can chatter away about the characters you love & why, then assemble packages of much affection to treasure forever.


I guess this swap scared a lot of people. But me? I was excited! I signed up immediately.

It took my partner and me a couple of days to think up our list of crushes. But I eventually sent a list of nine, and she sent me eight. And one of the guys on my partner's list spoke out to me.

Making a bookmark

A while back, I participated in a mini swap via lovely iggles on twitter, or twiggles. We exchanged bookmarks. I made them, and started taking pictures while I did them... but I got distracted and forgot to keep taking pictures. Whoops.

Then that love story book exchange happened, and I realized that my swap partner was actually my original iggle secret santa from December! So I decided I wanted to make her a bookmark too, as a small thank you.

And I remembered to take pictures the whole way through this time. lol.

Here's almost all of what I used. Not pictured is a small penguin bead, a couple of markers, a homemade stamp and a heart shaped paper puncher.

Swap Project - Love Your Inner Geek art book [Pic Heavy]

The last thing I made for my #loveyourinnergeek swap buddy was an art book. It took me way, way too long to make it. As usual, I bit off more than I could chew. And, as a result, I ended up sending this super late, and she got it three days after the end of the swap. *blushes*


I had never attempted to make an art book before, so this was all pretty new to me. I had attempted to start a beginner art book a while back, but that was by altering an already made book.


I had originally thought I would take pictures of the whole process, but realized pretty quickly that this book was going to take a long time already, so I didn't bother taking progress pics. These three are the only in progress pictures I took.

I jumped the gun and cut the pieces of chip board before the book was actually done. Lesson learned - I ended up having to cut a wider middle piece. The bubbly pink paper I found while looking for other papers at Michaels. I saw it and thought it would be the perfect cover for this art book.


I also found this pretty space-themed paper at Walmart.

My buddy likes space, so... I figured it'd be a good inside cover design.



I decided to use greeting cards for the pages.

They're all already the same size and folded in half, so it worked out nicely. I actually sent some of the extra cards as a day in part of the rest of the swap for her.

That's all as far as in progress shots. lol. On to the rest of the book!!

Thriftbooks experience #2, and also, my need to use Amazon

Helloooo, here again with another post about thriftbooks.com.

 I mentioned in my last thriftbooks post that I ordered a love story book for my iggle swap partner. Well, I ordered those in early February! And I didn't hear from my iggle swap partner until the 25th. From her, I learned she enjoyed paranormal romance.... and The Princess Bride, while many things, is not a paranormal romance. ROFL. *sad trumpet*

So, I went back to thriftbooks to pick up a book for her that actually fits the genre she likes. I decided to get the book Warm Bodies, by Isaac Marion. I think a zombie romance counts as a paranormal love story right? Heee.

Aaaaand then, just like last time, I decided I would also like a copy of Warm Bodies. I've only ever seen the movie, but I've been meaning to read the book. I wandered on to the site and ordered two copies - $4 each!

This time, both copies are fairly recent, so I didn't care which one I keep. I also noticed that, this time, they were being sent from two different places. One coming from Maryland, one from Washington. Opposite sides of the US! Haha.

I decided I would send the first book to get to me.

But alas! Within hours of my order on February 25th, I received an email stating they could not find one of the copies I'd ordered! They issued a refund for the book, so I went back to see if I could find another copy for around the same price. I couldn't. Soooo I ordered a copy for $5 on Amazon.

Thriftbooks.com Quick (not so quick) Review or Look at these books

Note: This was my intended love story book for the iggle swap, but then I heard back from my partner, and found that this book didn't fit! Serves me right for jumping the gun and ordering early! LOL. Oh well, I'll keep the book as a backup to giveaway in the future. lol. 


So one of February's IGGPPC Swaps was a love story book swap. I decided to sign up for all of the swaps in February, so I sat there for a good long while, just thinking about what kind of book I would want to send to an iggle.

I'm actually a lover of sappy romance novels. I love how, no matter what, there's always a "and they all lived happily ever after" ending. That being said, I don't read them too often. They're great, but not priority books. Although sometimes I find myself needing to read a sappy romance, because soooo many books I read have sad endings or have characters I just can't get behind. And I need some cheering up. So enter sappy romance. I've only ever found a small handful of romance novels I didn't like. Therefore odds are I'll be grinning like an idiot with tears of joy by the end of a romance novel.

ANYHOO... I know I love romance novels, but I also know not everyone does. In fact, I feel like it's one of the most hated upon genres. So what do I send as a love story book? I thought of Nicholas Sparks, but then... I'm not that big a fan of him. I loved the first of his books I read - A Walk to Remember. But then, after reading a few more of his books, it started to feel... the same. Someone dies in almost all of his books. Sometimes it's a secondary character, sometimes it's a main character. And it gets tiring.

So I didn't want to send a book I probably wouldn't like! And now what???

The idea came to me as I was reading a chapter of As You Wish.

Why not The Princess Bride?

A quick search online showed some fairly reasonable prices, although with shipping it wasn't so great. As I searched though, I found an ache forming in my stomach.

I do not own a copy of The Princess Bride.

And I was afraid I might not want to part with the copy I end up buying...


So, I decided to halve my budget, and try and get two copies of The Princess Bride. One for me, and one for my swap partner.

And then I found thriftbooks.com.

This website has millions of used books with free shipping to the US!

And they had The Princess Bride!  Hoorah!!

Not-So-Secret, Not-So-Christmas Santa

So late last year, IGGPPC had a secret santa exchange, and I participated. I can only hope the person I sent presents to liked them, and I know I loved the gifts I got from my secret santa! But a new Iggle missed sign ups for it, and so I offered to have an exchange directly with her. I called it a "Not-So-Secret Santa". We exchanged some emails about things we like and whatnot and set a price cap and... both of us ended up with order issues. We both ordered something from two different people, and had separate problems.

For me, I had ordered a plushie a couple of days before US Thanksgiving, it was marked shipped on the 4th of December, but I didn't receive anything until the 16th, and when it came... it was the wrong plushie!! That had me irked, but I contacted the seller, who asked that I send back the wrong item, and he sent me an extra plushie for the trouble. But the right plushie didn't come until the 20th.

Anyhoo, my swap buddy lives in Canada, which meant that my Santa package wasn't going to get there in time. Then I find out she's been waiting on an order she made for me too! So essentially, our "Not-So-Secret" Santa also became "Not-So-Christmas" presents as well. Heh. Ah well. Presents are presents!

I got mine last week, and figured I'd do a blog post to share everything in the box. Because there's a lot of awesome in this box.

Princess Pen Pals

Another blog post about another one of my loves at the moment: Princess Pen Pals.

Princess Pen Pals was created by a lovely Iggle within the IGGPPC community who wanted to be a princess, and really, who doesn't want to be a princess? Essentially it is a role playing game. You create your character and the world that they live in. The character doesn't even have to be a princess. You write a default introduction of your character and their world, and then you choose another "Princess" to write to. You each send your letters and go from there.

I must admit, I was at first intrigued and terrified at this idea. I wanted my own world too, but I'd never role played before! While I still sat on the fence about joining this tiny group of "Princesses", my mind went crazy with ideas of my world. It seemed my mind knew exactly who my character would be, and what my world would look like. I have a notebook with all of the ideas, and trying to sort things out was tricky, and yet they all fit together well. In the end, I chose two "Princesses" to correspond with, my introduction letter was over 1,000 words, and my character seeks friendship.

I deliberately decided that my character, a Queen, would only seek friendship, because I knew that would be a safe action to attempt for my first whack at role playing. Since I only sought new friends, I could easily adjust to whatever actions my correspondent was taking.

My first Princess Pen Pal is actually a Princess. She lives in a world full of Unicorns and seeks allies. Our letters are working nicely together.

My second Princess Pen Pal is not a princess, she is a Shadow Priestess, and she is seeking help for her world, which is trapped by unknown forces.

Overall, I'm incredibly happy with my decision to join the other Princess Pen Pals. It is quite fun having to depend highly on my imagination to write these letters. Sometimes I get stuck and have to sit on the story line a while, plan out the next move. It'll be fun to see where these stories will lead!

Not to mention, it has increased my interest in all things princess - specifically items with crowns on them. :)

IGGPPC

Greetings! I think we can all agree that the simplest way for me to get used to this blog is to write as if I've always been here. Ha.

So today I thought I'd write a bit about one of my loves, IGGPPC.

IGGPPC, or the International Geek Girl Pen Pals Club, is a large group of geeky folks from all over the world. It started in March of 2013 as a community for those who are both geeky, and enjoy snail mail.

Every month, they run a sign up, and all you need to do is list a few things like your name, age, email address, and your five geeky loves. Then they pair you up with someone who has at least one of the same loves, and you've got yourself a new pen pal!

But pen pal pairings are not the only things you'll find on the website! You'll find many, many different things, from activities to meet ups, swaps & exchanges, challenges and forums, and even special events like online camp in the summer and a Halloween party! Even if you don't sign up for a pen pal, do consider signing up for the site (two different things.) to have a look around. You might find your new geeky best friend there!

There are four houses to get sorted in to:
House Granger   (Ages 13-17)
House Quinn      (Ages 18-22)
House GlaDOS  (Ages 23-29)
House Organa    (Ages 30+)

These houses are there mostly so you can be paired up within your age group, and to be able to see all the other geeks your age, and sometimes there's house competitions where we compete against each other.

I'm in House GlaDOS, but only for one more year. In December, I'll be 30, and head over to House Organa.

Mostly, IGGPPC is a community of guys and gals who are various levels of geeky and all levels of acceptance.

Click here to check out the website!