CrafteaDragon

Hi there! I'm Veronica, 40, live in southern Sweden with my husband, my 12 yo son and two cats.

As you might guess from my username, the things I like include tea, crafting and dragons!

I have a whole cupboard full of tea and love trying new flavours. I find it hard to pick favourites but I do enjoy a nice breakfast tea in the morning, for the afternoon a good chai during the winter or citrus green tea in summer, and a relaxing sleep blend in the evening. There's a tea parlour in my city that does afternoon tea as well and I go as often as I can!

I have a little collection of dragons and love fantasy things in general. It's nice to escape reality in worlds where magic and dragons exist. :)

I love going to thrift shops and flea markets, looking for fun little treasures or things I can upcycle for my crafts.

Other things I enjoy include cooking, baking, reading, writing (mostly short stories), gardening, gaming (board- and computer- games), doing jigsaws.

Crochet is my big craft love. I started crocheting as a child, taught by my mother, but then fell out of the habit for many years. I picked it up again after I had my son and re-taught myself from internet tutorials. My favourite crochet things to make are doilies/mandalas, shawls and amigurumi. I mostly work with cotton yarn of fingering weight or lighter.

My other main craft is, of course, papercrafting. I like to make mostly anything happy-mail related, but my favourite is pocket letters. I just really enjoy creating the individual little cards and getting it to come together into a whole. I also like making embellishments like tags and altered paperclips. I've gotten into collage/mixed media ATCs too lately and am really enjoying those, it has encouraged me to learn to draw so I can add handdrawn elements too them.

I also cross stitch and have from a young age. This one is sort of on the back burner for now, other than one project I have in my queue, but I do enjoy it so I will probably pick it up again!

I started sewing recently. I've made some simple clothes for myself and my son, as well as some furnishings. I also bought a book to learn quilting so that's my next project!

I try various other crafts here and there; I make some of my own jewelry and I just started using polymer clay.

Books: I mostly read fantasy or historical fiction. Love anything by Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, Tavia Lark, Deirdre Purcell, as well as Tolkien and Jane Austen. Been a fan of Anne Rice's Vampire Chonicles since my teens, still am nostalgically obsessed with vampires. I enjoy reading poetry as well, sometimes dabble in writing it, too.

Movies: Lord of the Rings trilogy, Shrek movies, Studio Ghibli Movies (my favourites are Ponyo and Howl's Moving Castle), Disney movies (my fav since childhood is Beauty & The Beast), Rocketman, Kingsman movies, Everything Everywhere All at Once.

TV shows: The Good Place, Babylon 5, Doctor Who, Star Trek, The Expanse, Good Omens, The Sandman, Lucifer, House of the Dragon.

Music: The Amazing Devil, Pink, Hanson, Adam Lambert, Taylor Swift, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, Elton John, Queen.

Games: For computer games I love the Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Diablo and Final Fantasy franchises, Stardew Valley, The Sims, Detroit: Become Human, World of Warcraft. I'm kind of new to board games, but so far I've really enjoyed Calico, Flamecraft, Azul, Ticket to Ride... and I'm looking forward to Stamp Swap, the theme is right up my alley!

Art: I love John Bauer's art - my grandfather had a children's book illustrated by him and I loved the style even then. I also like Elsa Beskow and Cicely Mary Barker. For classical painters I really like Monet and Von Gogh. I find it more difficult to pick contemporary favourites cause I see so much art I enjoy even just browsing online... Love Robin Wight's wire sculptures.

Colours: Purple, teal, rose gold, and also any pastels and jewel tones, and rainbows.

Tea: Earl Grey, breakfast tea, rooibos, chai, flavoured green tea, and different "sleep blends" since I always drink a cup before bed.

Chocolate: Milk or white chocolate with nuts, caramel or praline.

Fruits: Grapes, mango, strawberries, blueberries.

Animals: Cats, wolves, squirrels, gorillas.

Season: Spring, I love watching my garden wake back up again after winter and spring flowers are so pretty. Autumn is a close second because I love autumn colours!

Holiday: Christmas.

Flowers: Roses, tulips, violets, forget-me-nots, bleeding-hearts. And I love dandelion puffs!

• Anything typical to your country/region. I especially love items and information related to local customs, cultural traditions and folklore.

• Tea and anything tea related. (The scent of Jasmine is a migraine trigger for me so please don't send Jasmine tea!)

• Anything with words/quotes on such as magazine clippings, quote stickers, book pages etc.

• Washi samples (short ones are ok, I keep a sample journal and only need small samples for it).

• Stickers of any kind. I'm really loving those plastic transparent stickers atm, as well as washi and cardstock stickers.

• Blank notecards (I like to tuck flat swaps into notecards so I go through a lot!)

• Handmade envelopes.

• PDT and address labels, happy mail stickers.

• Used postage stamps, especially ones related to any of my likes.

• Sticky pearls and epoxy dots.

• Patterned paper napkins (for decoupage).

• Die cuts and cuttings dies.

• Stamped images and clear stamps.

• Bits of fabric, ribbon and lace.

• Anything crochet or yarn related (I don't knit though), such as stickers or cards with crochet/yarn images.

• Ephemera, especially vintage or reproduction. (I recently started junk journaling and don't have a lot saved myself yet).

• Any papercrafting destash. (I really enjoy getting random bits to craft with! Even things like scrap pieces of patterned paper or partial sticker sheets are appreciated).

• Love receiving mail in handmade or decorated envies! I started keeping a "mail diary" type junk journal where I decorate the pages with things I've cut from mail I received so anything decorated is used for that, even if it's just some stickers/washi. :)

Favourite Themes: Tea cups & tea pots, creativity, yarn, books/literary, mailboxes, letters, stamps, dragons, faeries, mermaids, mythology (esp norse), fantasy, vampires, werewolves, space/sci-fi, forests, flowers, butterflies, dragonflies, animals (esp cats, crows/ravens, wolves & woodland animals), rainbows, vintage, Wrendale Design, winter/Christmas, Halloween.

I collect: Postcards, dragons, enamel pins, tea cups & caddies.

Postcard preferences: I love cards with books, cats, woodland animals, mythical creatures or fantasy themes, and cards with mailboxes on them. I generally prefer illustrated cards. Also enjoy postcards related to any of my other listed likes.

For non-touristic cards I have no preference for whether they are blank or written. If you can't think what to write, I would love to know your favourite quote, song lyric or piece of poetry.

For touristic postcards, I have no preferences on the type, I just like seeing cards from places around the world. I prefer touristic cards written with a little fact or story related to the place on the card. (Unless a swap calls for blank touristic cards, ofc.)

Here's a photo I took of some of my fav postcards I've received recently. I definitely appreciate every single postcard I get, but these are ones I found particularly pretty, for an idea of what I enjoy. :)

I appreciate not getting sent:

• Scented items (this includes perfumed writing paper).
• Items smelling of cigarette smoke.
• Hibiscus and Jasmine tea (or blends containing those).
• Spicy snacks.

The above are all due to migraine triggers/sensitivities, so I'm really grateful if they can be avoided. If you can't avoid smoke smell, please don't try to mask it with perfume as that's worse for me.

I don't like sweetened tea so not a fan of bagged tea with stevia or other sweeteners in.

Although I love Halloween and vampires I don't like horror or excess gore.

I'm not religious so I have no use for overtly religious craft supplies or blank cards, but I don't mind Christmas cards with religious imagery or if you want to send me something related to a religious holiday which you celebrate.

Other than that I always appreciate the time and effort put into sending happy mail, as long as things are clean and undamaged I'll just pass them along to someone else if not to my preference, so they're still useful. :)

If there's a kid swap or you'd like to include something for my child, Thomas is 12 and likes:

• Pokemon, Super Mario, Kirby, Minecraft, Lego
• Red, blue and rainbow colours
• Stickers
• Hama/Perler Beads
• Fidgets
• Plushies

If you send me kiddie stickers and similar I will pass them on to my son since he loves stickers and I have no other use for them.

If you send something that's not flat from outside the EU which requires a customs form, please make sure you label it as a gift. Otherwise I have to pay customs fees.

I always send and always rate, so if something seems amiss please do message me so we can fix it! Am always happy to resend if something hasn't arrived in a timely manner, or if I misunderstood the swap parameters. (Do note that international mail to outside the EU usually takes 2-4 weeks to arrive, sometimes even longer.)

For those who check postmarks - I mark swaps as sent the day I put them in the mailbox, but my closest box is only emptied every second working day, so there will often be discrepancy. I also only get mail delivered every second working day now so esp during holidays delivery for mail coming to me will be slower... not a change I like (checking my mail is one of the highlights of my day!), but it is what it is.