{"id":12139,"date":"2015-01-05T05:00:26","date_gmt":"2015-01-05T13:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/?p=12139"},"modified":"2015-01-04T14:52:57","modified_gmt":"2015-01-04T22:52:57","slug":"2015-secret-valentine-exchange","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/?p=12139","title":{"rendered":"2015 Secret Valentine Exchange!!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"2015-sve2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Last year, Ute<\/a> and I teamed up to host a\u00a0Secret Valentine Exchange<\/a>, loosely based on a Scandinavian Secret Santa tradition called Julklapp. We had so much fun with nearly 40 participants (read the recap here<\/a>) that we\u2019re bringing it back for 2015! For this go around of the craft\/sewing swap, we\u2019re getting started a little earlier to give everyone more time.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re keeping things pretty much the same as last year: once you sign up, Ute and I will assign folks (Ute and I will also be included in the swap). You\u2019ll get helpful information on the person who will be receiving a gift from you via a little questionnaire we\u2019ve drafted, but your recipient will be in the dark in terms of\u00a0your<\/i>\u00a0identity. Like the previous exchange, we’re striving for casual and easy, and the gifts need not be sewn, though we figure most of you will want to give your sewing machines a whirl. All that matters is that the gifts should be handmade. In the spirit of reduce\/reuse\/recycle, we ask that you use materials you already have on hand. We don\u2019t want this to be an expensive project for anyone.<\/p>\n

Almost everyone was willing to ship internationally last year, and we had a lot of international folks. To make the pairing easier, for this year, we\u2019d like to make a blanket rule of participants willing to ship internationally. I personally found it thrilling to send a package off to India! The gifts should fit in a medium to large-ish envelope and be fairly light to keep shipping costs manageable.<\/p>\n

\"2015-sve-flowers1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Oh, and no need to have a blog or any online presence to participate, just in case you were wondering. The whole experience of making, sending and receiving handmade gifts via snail mail was absolutely wonderful last year, though of course it’s a blast to share the process online too.<\/p>\n

*****<\/p>\n

I made new tags for this year (they come in aqua and<\/em> pink), and the process is easy peasy:<\/p>\n

1. Download this questionnaire<\/a>, fill it out and email secret.valentine.exchange@gmail.com to sign up by January 9th<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

2. We\u2019ll take care of assignments and send out the Secret Valentine info to all participants by\u00a0January 16th<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

3. Make something fabulous and ship it by February 7 (if you\u2019re shipping internationally, you might want to add a few extra days). Don\u2019t forget to download the tags\u00a0here<\/a>!\u00a0And we\u2019d love it if you could upload your creation to the Secret Valentine Exchange Flickr\u00a0account\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0(you can see the lovely projects from last year). Shhh, don\u2019t reveal who the gift is for though! If you\u2019re on Instagram, use hashtag #2015sve. Fun, fun, fun!<\/p>\n

4. Receive your Secret Valentine gift!<\/p>\n

We can’t wait to see who signs up!! Are you in? Please feel free to contact me or Ute with any questions here in the comments section or at secret.valentine.exchange[at]gmail.com. We’ll also announce the exchange on instagram and you can find us there too (@ute_ig<\/a>\u00a0@sanaeishida<\/a>). So excited!!<\/p>\n

\"2015-sve-flowers2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Last year, Ute and I teamed up to host a\u00a0Secret Valentine Exchange, loosely based on a Scandinavian Secret Santa tradition called Julklapp. We had so much fun with nearly 40 participants (read the recap here) that we\u2019re bringing it back for 2015! For this go around of the craft\/sewing swap, we\u2019re getting started a little earlier to give everyone more time. We\u2019re keeping things pretty much the same as last year: once you sign up, Ute and I will assign folks (Ute and I will also be included in the swap). You\u2019ll get helpful information on the person who will be receiving a gift from you via a little questionnaire we\u2019ve drafted, but your recipient will be in the dark in terms of\u00a0your\u00a0identity. Like the previous exchange, we’re striving for casual and easy, and the gifts need not be sewn, though we figure most of you will want to give your sewing machines a whirl. All that matters is that the gifts should be handmade. In the spirit of reduce\/reuse\/recycle, we ask that you use materials you already have on hand. We don\u2019t want this to be an expensive project for anyone. Almost everyone was willing to ship internationally last year, and we had a lot of international folks. To make the pairing easier, for this year, we\u2019d like to make a blanket rule of participants willing to ship internationally. I personally found it thrilling to send a package off to India! The gifts should fit in a medium to large-ish envelope and be fairly light to keep shipping costs manageable. Oh, and no need to have a blog or any online presence to participate, just in case you were wondering. The whole experience of making, sending and receiving handmade gifts via snail mail was absolutely wonderful last year, though of course it’s a blast to share the process online too. ***** I made new tags for this year (they come in aqua and pink), and the process is easy peasy: 1. Download this questionnaire, fill it out and email secret.valentine.exchange@gmail.com to sign up by January 9th. 2. We\u2019ll take care of assignments and send out the Secret Valentine info to all participants by\u00a0January 16th. 3. Make something fabulous and ship it by February 7 (if you\u2019re shipping internationally, you might want to add a few extra days). Don\u2019t forget to download the tags\u00a0here!\u00a0And we\u2019d love it if you could upload your creation to the Secret Valentine Exchange Flickr\u00a0account\u00a0here\u00a0(you can see the lovely projects from last year). Shhh, don\u2019t reveal who the gift is for though! If you\u2019re on Instagram, use hashtag #2015sve. Fun, fun, fun! 4. Receive your Secret Valentine gift! We can’t wait to see who signs up!! Are you in? Please feel free to contact me or Ute with any questions here in the comments section or at secret.valentine.exchange[at]gmail.com. We’ll also announce the exchange on instagram and you can find us there too (@ute_ig\u00a0@sanaeishida). So excited!! \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12139","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-community","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12139"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12152,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12139\/revisions\/12152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}