Garden LOVE!

This swap is for the garden lovers here!

Sometimes when I am in my garden, I am inspired to sit down with a sketchbook and draw my plants. For this swap, you must create an original drawing, sketch, or painting. This could be a portrait of a beloved plant that you grew, a whole garden scene, a still life of your harvest, or a detailed close-up of a leaf, flower, or vegetable.

You don't have to be a great artist, but put some love into the drawing. It must be hand drawn or hand painted. It cannot be a photo, collage, scrapbook, etc. This can be a simple pencil sketch, or you can use colored pencils, charcoals, pastels, any kind of paint. Any style you like, does not have to be totally realistic. Express your love!

I'm thinking 8.5"x11", but it could be a bit bigger or a bit smaller if you want, that's up to you. As big as you want to go, but no smaller than 6"x6".

These should be drawn from life. You are going to sit down with a plant and draw what you see. The purpose of this swap is to take some time to sit in your garden and be close with a living plant, to appreciate its beauty, to carefully study its growth and development, to give you a moment to connect with your plant... and at the same time to create something you can pass along and share with another plant lover.

To make this a little more fun, you will also include a lovely garden surprise with your drawing. Choose 1 (or more!) of the following:

• Penpal letter to your partner, all about your garden, at least 2 pages long. (You can talk about what you are growing this year, how the plants are doing, favorite gardening tips, how much you've harvested so far, problems you've run into and how you've managed them, etc. I'd sure love a penpal to talk about plants with!)

• A gardening book or magazine, used or new. Used is great, can show some wear, as long as it's still readable!

• 5 or more gorgeous photos that you took in your garden (can be from current or previous years. Should be printed on photo paper if you have a photo printer at home, or get them printed at a professional photo lab. Target or Walmart can do this for cheap if you bring them your digital files on a flash drive.)

• A nice product from your garden (for example: a jar of the jam you made from the berries you grew, a jar of your homegrown salsa, a notecard or bookmark made with your pressed/dried flowers, a lavender sachet you made from the lavender you grew.)

• At least 3 different packets of seeds. These can be purchased or harvested from your plants. If they're homegrown seeds, the packet must include at least 10 seeds, in a baggie or envelope with some sort of label to explain what they are.

• A cute garden tool. I have seen some really cute trowels and stuff that come in fun colors and patterns!

• 8 blank notecards with envelopes that have a garden/plant theme (such as notecards that have photos of flowers or veggies on the front)

A big fancy garden is nice, but ABSOLUTELY NOT required to participate in this swap! As long as you enjoy plants and you have at least 1 plant in your life that you'd like to draw, I encourage you to join. Indoor plants totally count as a garden. A couple of small planters on your front porch totally counts as a garden. I myself live in a small 1 bedroom apartment in a major city, and have a container garden on my balcony... and I have TONS of love for my plants! They are amazing!!

This is my first time hosting a swap so I'm paranoid about dealing with flakers. For now, let's say you need to have at least 5 ratings and be rated at least 4.9 to do this. If you want in and you don't have these qualifications, let me know and I will check out your situation on a case by case basis. If your bad ratings happened at least 6 months ago and you've had a lot of good ratings since, I'll be cool with it. Just let me know! I do not want any flakers, so I may ban you if you seem fishy!

I'm making this USA only for now, but let me know if there is interest in an international version. I love being able to exchange things with people in other countries, but I hate paying international shipping costs and waiting so long for international shipping... so I kind of love doing USA only swaps.

I'm giving a good 3 weeks after the signup date to send it out, because I don't want anyone to feel rushed, and want to make sure that people with busy schedules will be able to find a peaceful moment to relax in the garden and create the drawing.