A few weeks back a friend hosted a craft swap and afternoon tea. Well, it was more of a craft rehoming, because the idea is you bring along materials you don’t want any more, place it on a table and people take home what takes their fancy.

I had put a couple of things aside, but hadn’t had time to gather a decent amount of stuff for it by the day. So I decided to spend the morning going through all my craft and art supplies. I wound up culling with rather a lot.

At the swap people were peeking shyly into bags, so I started putting each on the table, unpacking, showing the contents to all and asking who wanted it. This seemed to work, and we found homes for about 80% of the stuff. One participant knew of an organisation that takes craft supplies for kids, so we filled a bag for that. Others had friends who would take materials for hobbies none of us practised. (I brought home some mini fruit decorations for a friend who makes hats.)

At the end of the day I’d found homes for lots of stuff I didn’t want any more, too, so I was very happy overall. I had one shopping bag of things nobody wanted and another of things I’d adopted. The incoming craft items included an old sewing box, lots of jewellery charms and findings, some embroidery hoops and thread, and a few pieces of fabric.

In fact, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and come away with something new, so I think I might host one of these craft swaps in future.