The Process of Swapping

I love doing beaded charm swaps with my Marie Antoinette group.  We have done soldered silver with yellow, pink with silver, celery green with silver, red with vintage brass, and blue with vintage brass.  I think that's all of them. Now we are going to do a crystal, white and pearl with silver beaded charm swap. Everyone creates 25 beaded charms and gets the same in return (plus a few little extras from me).

I am blessed to work with some amazing artists.  And they always let me know how much they appreciate my job as hostess.  I love doing it though for selfish reasons.  Naturally I love getting all of those gorgeous chrams.  But I really love it at the end when everyone receives their returns with joy.  I love knowing that they have a smile on their face and had a good experience.

Many have asked me how I go about sorting the charms all out.  It seems kind of complicated, but I have created a system and I promised the group I would show them how it's done.  So here it is... feel free to laugh if you like.  There is probably a much easier way to do it but this "system" works for me. And once I begin, I CAN'T stop because it will mess my system up.  Everyone knows that when Mama is sorting out the swap charms, she CANNOT be disturbed! LOL

Everyone has a paper plate with their name on it as well as a large zip lock bag.

All of those wonderful packages of charms are gathered together and kept in their original packaging.

First batch to sort.  That person's plate is removed so that they don't have any of their own charms put onto their plate.

Next, the charms are added to each participants plate as evenly as possible and I keep a tally of how many charms are on their plate.  A person can receive two to four charms from the same person and I try to give them as many different charms as possible. Even when sorting the next participants charms, I try to mix it up as much as possible if there are similar charms or beads.

Next batch to sort (and yes I was in my pj's).  Remove that participants plate and sort their beads to give into piles of "similar". Next, distribute those beauties out!

Keep a running tally so everyone gets their 25!

Hello Ohm, my beautiful and devoted dog.  I'm sorry, you can't help.  But if you lay still, you can keep me company.  Just DON'T distract me.  And that is why Killer the one year old wiener pup is NOT aloud to join us.  He zooms around all crazy, oh my gosh!

Next batch to sort......

Keep that running tally......

Until I am all done!

Then, I put each plate into a large zip lock bag.  That way I can look through each participants beads, make sure they have the correct number and none of their own charms (which can get a tad confusing when I have participants with the same first name) and make sure they have a good variety and few that are the same. Variety is the spice of life you know!

Once that is done, I can put them in a pretty bag, tie then with a ribbon and send them on their way.

Then I put all of the plates and zip locks away for the next swap.  And then the REAL fun begins.....

Drooling over the returns that I received and deciding how to use them.  It's such a fun swap and I look forward to many more.  Thank you so much to all of those who have joined in, their hard work and for the joy they brought to our faces!

XOXO