May your days be filled with peace, hope and love. Have a great holiday!

As one could imagine from the content of our blog, we like to support hand-made. We also want our readers too, as well. That’s why we’re putting a special section on our blog from now until the end of December where you can upload your store logo and link and help us spread the love of hand-made. The requirements for posting your shop are as follows:

1) Your logo must be no larger than 100×100 pixels wide.

2) Your store description must be 100 words or less.

3) You must be selling hand-made items, not craft supplies in bulk or at a discount.

That’s all! So click here to upload your store (etsy, hyena cart, or anything else) and help us spread the love of hand-made this Christmas!

Two out of four of us have finally decided to start selling some of our wares and caught the etsy-bug. And while we want to say that we appreciate you guys even checking out our stuff, we of course appreciate you purchasing something or giving us any feedback on our shops.

So if you want to see what Candace, Heather, Jen and Joy are up to when they’re not posting here, check out their links and spread some crafty love.

We had so much success with the crochet school that we’re thinking of doing an embroidery school to begin next Tuesday, August 14. Before all the legwork is done, we just wanted to see who would be interested in something like this. It would follow the same format – general introduction, weekly lessons, and fun homework assignments with a giveaway at the end – except Candace will be leading this school. So if you would be interested in learning this type of craft, please let us know in the comments. Thanks so much!

This is the last call for anyone who is interested in doing some guest-posting for Crafty Daisies. Our beloved Joy is heading to Nogales, Mexico for an amazing ministry opportunity, and admist her absense we’ll need some help filling in the gaps. The gig doesn’t pay well (okay, like at all), but you’ll get tons of love and affirmation from us and others who read the site. And we’ll send you a lovely parting gift from one of the lovelies at Crafty Daisies. So if you’re interested, please shoot me an email (gals@craftydaisies) and let me know.

Since we all had a blast doing the first swap, we’ve decided to another one sooner than expected! This swap will be easier and best of all, inexpensive.

In this swap, you will take a tea towel and decorate it with whatever tickles your fancy. You can do stencil, embroidery, applique, beading, whatever you want. You’ll place it in a padded envelope to send, so total it should cost you no more than $5, especially using things you already have. The sign up will start today, May 18, and the item needs to be sent by June 1.

We’re doing sign up a little differently this time, so if you’re interested just leave us a comment in this post. This swap is also limited to the first 20 people who sign up, so if want in, hurry and comment. **Comments have been disabled since our 20 slots are filled. If you missed out, have no fear we will be doing many more swaps in the coming months so keep checking back!

For those participating in our Summer Craft Swap, today is the deadline to send off your packages. If you can’t get your packages out today, please let me know (if you haven’t already). We’ll be posting pics of the items that were exchanged and will hopefully have those up in the coming weeks.

For those who missed the sign up, we’ll be doing another swap at the end of the summer, so please check back. We’re not sure what kind of swap we want to do yet and are open to any ideas or suggestions. We were thinking of maybe doing a particular color-theme, or maybe a kitchen swap. Any thoughts?

Because we work hard at our love of all things crafty, we’ve decided to take a spring break. We’ll still be posting, but it may take us a little longer to return emails, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still send them or comment – we appreciate all the crafty love you give us. Your encouragement and support are what fires this machine! We do have a guest contributor this week to help out while we’re all away, so make sure you check back to see what Emily will be posting (thanks again Em!!).

Enjoy your holiday, behave yourselves, and have a great week!

Much love,

Candace, Heather, Jen, and Joy

PS – I wanted to do something fun and “WOWEE!” to announce our new cafepress store, but time has gotten away from me. So if you want to take a look at our goods, click here. And keep checking back – we’ll be starting some giveaways in the next few months.

UPDATE: The swap entry is now closed. We will be doing another towards the end of the summer, so if you didn’t get a chance to participate in this one, have no fear, you’ll get another chance.

UPDATE: Due to the amount of participants already signed up, we’ve decided to close the swap entry on Tuesday, April 3. If you want to sign up, hurry and do so before Tuesday at 12 noon, EST.

While we missed the opportunity to do Valentine’s day and Easter craft swaps, we’ve decided to do one for the summer. This can include anything that you love about summer – flowers, butterflies, birds, whatever, and can range from sunglass cases to beach totes. You’ll just need to get a Priority Mail Flat Rate Box (11-7/8 x 3-3/8 x 13-5/8 inches) and stuff it as full as you can. Shipping will cost you $8.10 regardless of weight or destination (in the continental U.S.). Now, for all the technicals:

1) Drop us an email (gals@craftydaisies.com) to let us know if you will be participating in the swap. Please include your name, web or blog address (if you have one), shipping information, and if you would ship internationally. Also, tell us a little about yourself, if you have any children, what your favorite crafts are, anything that you love or are interested in. Sign up will begin today and continue until Friday, April 6 Tuesday, April 3. Once you email us, we will be contacting you by Monday, April 9 to let you know who you will be sending your swap items to.

2) If you sign up you must complete the swap or you will not be eligible for participation in future swaps. If you are unable to send your items, for whatever reason, you must contact the swap admin (Candace) as soon as possible. Please be mindful that this needs to be reciprocal – if you sign up, please follow through. In the same regards, we will try and accomodate everyone, however we at Crafty Daisies will not be responsible for items not shipped.

3) Packages must be sent out by Friday, May 4. If you can not send packages by this date, please contact the swap admin.

4) One of the items in the swap must be handmade. All other items can be handmade as well, or can be an assortment of craft-related items, regional items (such as seeds, photographs, etc), or anything fun and pretty.

5) Have fun!!!!

Lots of things going on around the daisy patch. We’re having an upcoming Summer Craft Swap, so if you’re interested, please check back as details will follow in the next week. There is also a lot of business behind-the-scenes as Heather, Jen and myself are getting ready to open individual online stores, and we’ll definitely post links to those as they’re finished. We’re also gearing up for a summer of fun roadtrips to Atlanta and New York City for two craft and gift trade shows and are so stoked about them! If you’re going to be attending either the AmericasMart Gift Show (in Atlanta) or the New York International Gift Fair as a vendor or there just for the eye-candy (like us), please let us know, we’d love to meet you! We’re also looking for extra help for about 8 weeks as our beloved Joy will be going to Nogales, Mexico for a ministry opportunity. If you’re interested in being a guest writer to help us fill in the gaps, please drop me an email at gals AT craftydaisies DOT com. We also want to take this opportunity to thank all of our readers for being so faithful in visiting – this website has been a blast to do and we thank each and every one of you for being a part of it!