An Invitation to the Handmade Joy Exchange

About five years ago, when I was still new to blogging and my creative journey was near its beginning, I had an idea for a joyful exchange. I imagined handmade bits and bobs created with love, wrapped up in joyful packages and sent around the world. I imagined beautiful little creations of hope traveling across the country and over oceans. I imagined mailboxes glowing with joy and love and hope.

For three years I hosted the Handmade Joy Exchange (read about it here, here and here) and bits of handmade joy were posted with love and traveled around the world.

And then the exchange took a little break. My Mission was still that of beauty and joy, but I couldn't figure out how to fit the exchange into what I was doing.

Until now.

This year, with all the stresses of news headlines continually filled with hate and violence and messages of exclusion, I think it's time to fight back with joy and beauty and love.

And so I'm sending out an invitation.

Of creativity and joy and love.

I sent an early invitation to my JoyLetter subscribers on Sunday and within minutes of sending the email I had people signing up.

Won't you join us, too?

What's involved.

The Handmade Joy Exchange is now closed. Thank you to everyone who signed up!

1. You have until February 23rd to sign up for the exchange. Simply email me your name and postal address (and website/blog if you have one).

2. On February 24th I will assign the swap partners. It's not a direct match, so your package will be a surprise!

3. Make something by hand with joy and love. It can be anything you're inspired to create.* In the past creations ranged from crochet pieces to paintings to jewelry to sewn pieces to collages and on and on (take a look at the past exchanges for inspiration if you're stumped, but don't feel at all limited by them or by the photos in this post!). Take a photo of what you create and send it to me so I can share it later on my blog.

4. Get your Handmade Joy into the mail no later than March 17th.

5. On April 21st I'll publish a celebration post concluding the exchange, sharing a photo mosaic of all the Handmade Joy creations and linking to blog posts by anyone who wants to participate in a blog hop celebration of the exchange.** One thing I learned from past exchanges is that getting all the packages where they're supposed to go in an international exchange like this can take a LONG time and that's why I'm allowing five weeks from mailing to blogging.

Please let me know if you want to join the exchange. And if you know someone you think would be interested, invite them along, too. The Handmade Joy Exchange is open to everyone.

I hope I'll be hearing from you soon!

Keep the faith and enjoy your weekend.




*I've had questions about monetary value and I understand the concern behind the question, but I'm not going to limit it. Many of the people who created pieces for the exchange in the past do not sell what they create and don't value their creations in this way. Be generous and give what you feel moved to give.


**If you have a blog and would like to participate in the blog hop, simply write about your experience and share photos of what you created and what you received. Plan to post it on or slightly before April 21st and send me the link to your post so I can link to you.