A very special interview today! You get two super swappers for the price of one! (Which is free, but let's not dwell on the details!) Meg and Mag are the hostesses of the Little People Swaps for those with little ones. Let's meet these two great ladies! They each have personal blogs of their own, visit Meg's The Mama Chronicles and Mag's Mommies Think Too.
SwapDex: Tell us a bit about you.
Meg and Mag: There are two of us. We are Meg and Mag (our real names are Michelle and Melissa) We are friends that met at church after having babies at about the same time and since then we have both moved to different parts of the country but our friendship has grown.
Meg: I live in Cincinnati, OH for now, we are here temporarily for work. I am married with three kids, 2 girls and one boy. All under the age of 6. I am back in school becoming a midwife and I love to craft. My favorite crafts are photography, knitting, writing, and sewing.
Mag: I live in Spokane, WA. I am married with two kids, ages 2 and 5. I used to be a teacher but now am a full-time mother. I spend a lot of time helping run the cooperative preschool my children attend. I sew a little and really love making cut paper illustrations.
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?
M&M: We have been facilitating the little people swap for two years.
Meg: I had swapped before and it didn't go so well. My partner was very busy and sort of fell through the cracks part way in. But, I had fun and I love to send and receive mail. We heard about a kid's swap from a blog and thought it sounded like fun. The sign ups were full and so we decided to start our own. My first successful swap was the first little people swap and I really enjoyed it. We had a great partner and my kids thought it was a lot of fun to have a friend who lived somewhere else.
Mag: I heard about swapping from Meg. The first little people swap we hosted was my first. The best thing about hosting swaps for me is getting to work on a project with Meg even though we live thousands of miles apart!
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?
Meg: Being a full time nursing student I keep to the little people swap. I like the fact that it is a family activity too!
Mag: The only time I make for swapping is when we host the little people swaps. I would never want to commit to a swap that i couldn't follow through on.
SD: What's your favorite swap you've ever been in or hosted?
Meg: My favorite swap was the one we hosted where you took a stuffed animal on an adventure and then sent the animal and made a scrapbook for your partner. IT was fun to give them personality and collect things on our travels!!
SD: What do you do to make your packages special?
Meg: I look for unusual things to include and really like for it to match our personality and still appeal to the receiver. I think fun packaging is important too!!! I like to make something (sewn or otherwise) for my partners.
SD: Do you have a good story about hosting or participating in a swap?
M&M: Once we paired two families together that hit it off so well that one family ended up staying with the other family for a day or two while they were traveling across the country.
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?
Meg: I think the most important thing is to stay organized. Also I love hosting with Mag because we work really well together and nothing gets overwhelming! I think the hardest part this time has been to get sign ups and get the word out. So if your reading this sign up, it will be fun!!! I also have noticed that of the three we have hosted the winter time swap was busiest.
Mag: In the past we have reached out to other bloggers to help us get the word out, which was really effective, but neither of us been blogging for awhile so that option hasn't really been open this time.
SD: Any exciting plans for the near future? Swaps, projects, new products?
Meg: I think the tentative plan is to do one swap a year. It has been suggested to do an eco swap and so maybe that would be good around earthday next year. What do you think Mag?
Mag: I think an eco swap would be cool and we would probably draw a different crowd than usual. I think it would also be neat to do a swap where you make a package that tells your partner all about your state (or country if you get an international partner). Last swap my partner was from Australia and the package they sent had an Australian animal theme. We got a stuffed wombat and koala, books and stickers about Australian animals and even little chocolate bars with Australian animals on them.
SD: Thanks ladies! It is great to see how friends are working together to host swaps! A great idea, if you think maybe a swap is too complex to host by yourself, recruit a buddy and share the responsibilities!
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