Interview with Laura of See Hear Say

Laura is relatively new to swaps but she jumped in and hosted her very first, the Inspire April Project recently. With such a creative and...inspiring idea for a first swap, I can't wait to see what else she has in store in the future! Visit her lovely blog and see pictures of the first swap on flickr.

SwapDex: Tell us a bit about you.

Laura: I grew up in Indonesia but I've been living in sydney, australia for about 3.5 years. I work full time in an online advertising industry, although i don't actually work as a designer there. I always interested in art, design and photography, hence the blog. I don't really do any craft but i love taking photos and exploring good places to eat on my spare time, or traveling when i have budget.

SD: How long have you been swapping? How did you first learn about swapping, and what made you decide to start? Do you remember your first one?

L: I've joined a few swap projects held by other blogs maybe about 2 years ago and i thought i haven't done it for a while since then but none of the blogs that i subscribe is hosting any. so i thought why not just organize my own swap project, and there it was. why i decided to do it is just purely for fun. it's been great writing a blog and meet some new blog friends around the world, swapping some goodies with new friends from other countries is just making it more exciting.

SD: What is your range of swapping? Do you stick to swaps hosted by people you know or are you likely to swap with anyone, anytime?

L: Who's hosting the swap doesn't really matter much to me. i guess what's more important to me is the theme and whether or not i'd have enough time to prepare the items for the swap.

SD: Do you swap with any organized groups like yahoo groups, flickr, groups on swap-bot, other message boards, etc? Why or why not?

L: No, not yet because i didn't really know much about them and i didn't really search about them before! wow there are so many different other sources.

SD: What's your favorite swap you've ever been in or hosted?

L: I guess i like the ones which have a theme that you can personalize into the things that you put together to send to your swap partner. always nice to get to know a bit more about your swap partner.

SD: What do you do to make your packages special?

L: make it personalized :) i also like having my package wrapped in a nice presentation.

SD: Do you have a good story about hosting or participating in a swap?

L: I always get excited everytime i've received a package in the mail. you just don't know what to expect what's inside the package. and hosting a swap project is a good experience too, it's nice to see what other people sent / received and it's a good feeling to hear happy stories from the participants.

SD: What do you think is the most challenging part of hosting a swap? Any advice for someone who is thinking about hosting a swap?

L: I guess the tricky part is to come up with a certain theme for the swap. also organising everyone with the swap partners, make sure people who don't wish to participat internationally get a swap partner from the same country etc. my advice is just make sure you have enought time to organise everything on time, and just enjoy and have fun.

SD: Any exciting plans for the near future? Swaps, projects, new products?

L: I am joining this on going project with some friends called sparkapolooza. would like to host some new creative projects too some time in future but i haven't figure out in what sort of forms haha..