KatrinaKatrina

UPDATES

02/21/19-03/09/19 I will be out of the country at this time, except for 3 days that I will be in CA/TX. I tried to get a bunch of mail out in my short week back at "home," and I'm so excited to see that I actually got them out on time lol. (It's always exciting to see the ratings come in, finally knowing that the mail made it out haha). If you find that you're missing something, it could slipped through my notes or some kind of mishap if overseas, but I always end up sending or re-sending if needed.

02/09/19 Slowing down on hosting the new bigger swaps :(. I’m trying to get caught up on angeling for people that got legitimately flaked on by the user mentioned below. There is another user as well who I’m trying to send mail in place for but can’t recall the person, I only have their “owed to” written down. Some people I’ve sent my angeling before my own swap with them lol, so when I see their name I think they’ve already received from me when they haven’t. So generally I’ve confused myself! Lol. I’m still active on here, but I’m now super behind between some of my swaps and getting the flaked users’ mail out as well. Please send me a message if you’re missing something from them or myself, these messages get lost in the inbox too easy for my liking so don’t hesitate to message me more than once in the week!

I don’t think I will be participating or hosting Disney postcard swaps anymore :(. I’ve gotten multiple messages of people not receiving mine and these are THE simplest and THE cheapest things to send. I’ve re-sent multiple times to some especially if I sent the first from out of state and half will receive and the others will not. People have received my envelopes with 20 stamps on it, bulky and all. But not the postcards. :/

02/01/19- Currently will be out of town until end of next week. I believe I sent as much as I could early in some of the swaps. But as always, please shoot me a message if you didn't receive something in January that was due before today! I have 2 I am still trying to figure out the locations on so far.

01/17/19 So as many of you unfortunately know, the user @BabyBee78 had been a part of a LOT a LOT of swaps in December or so. She had a great history of sending actually before and had awesome ratings so she was approved for lots of swaps including many I hosted. A lot of users got flaked on and I tried to make private swaps between them and myself to still be able to send and receive what was missed out on in ones I hosted. For the majority of them I think we're squared away but some I mixed up and didn't send "my" swap to my partner because I had a new private one for the person who got flaked on, and some did get their swaps from me but not the banned user. Wishy washi-ness like that lol. So if you're missing something from me, or from BabyBee78, just message me and we'll clear it up! Sometimes you have to message me 3 days later because your messages get lost completely in all the hundreds I get :(. As a host, you know you get a ton of messages and those who have never hosted, WE GET A TON OF MESSAGES lol.

My super wish list! Lol, like food I just have a overwhelming desire for these currently lol

-playing cards with different backgrounds rather than the generic pattern :). Literally just 1 card from the collections you use for washi samples and ATC’s! I don’t know when this obsession started but I only realized it recently :) if you have the number 9, even better!

-Disney anything (except for tsum tsum/tsum tsum stickers only B.C. I have all of them I think. Ironically I don’t have the ones in my Disney likes lol). I hope to swap for some Disney things from other countries especially!

-ephemera, or drawings, or stickers, paper... ANYTHING that has a postal/envelope theme, cameras, eyeglasses, gumball machines, bicycles or cute dinosaurs lol

-tiny, TINY stickers... small enough to fit on your nail but are not nail stickers :D

-a piece of paper with my name written on it. That would be awesome if your whole family did it and I have like 5 pieces with my name on it in different writing lol.

To other hosts: MY RATINGS OF 1 and 3

Rating of 3- please see the comments referring to it by scrolling or clicking on the 3. I can gather you can understand both our sides on this by reading through it.

1 rating- These flippin' postcards! I'm so frustrated with them, lol. My Disney ones are not getting to their destinations (if you no longer see a 1 for Disney things, then I either re-sent a Disney package in place of a postcard or they finally received it lol). Other 1 rating- It was just a simple postcard that refused to arrive. The intended recipient was very polite and kind and kept giving me time to re-send but after 3 cards sent, I'm going to assume a goblin likes to eat my mail to her :(.

Swap-bot shows your "1's" but not how many times you have angeled :)

WHEN I HOST

OMG I flippin' absolutely love hosting swaps! I hate banning people and I normally will not because I am more than happy to angel for people anyway! Especially small things like postcards and stickers, I'll be happy to send away :). If it's in the middle of a big swap and something happens to someone's partner, I normally will create a private swap for myself and the flaked on and swap the items, or just angel for the person period.

ME AS A HOST + OTHERS' "1" RATINGS

Just as when I host things, I don't see the purpose in banning someone who has 300 swaps and like 3 "1" ratings. I see that some issues took place but I don't neglect the amount of positive swaps the person has. That's ridiculous to me so in my own swaps, I don't ban them for that. Only when someone is really, obviously not sending a multitude of things and are doing nothing to help the situation. There's a huge difference between people who have a great track record with a few nicks versus someone who is an actual flaker or scammer, so please understand that when you see these 1's and 3's.

REAL LIFE

So, I do have a life. lol, believe or not many of us go to work, have families to take care of, and have things to take care of outside of swapping. I know many of you are lucky to be able to just stay at home or have time to concentrate on this hobby 24/7, but I do not have that luck. I work 6 nights a week, 12 hour shifts, leaving 1 day and the hours in between to be able to do fun stuff. I don't agree with only participating in 1-2 things at a time as I am a busy person, like to stay busy, and like to always have things going on. Truly, I am more likely to miss my swaps when I only have 2 to focus on lol.

WHY I'M HERE

I really love sending mail and creating things. It helps me in my life and just adds an incredible happiness to my day. I work 6 nights a week, 12 hour shifts, but I'm always, always (trying) to do something crafty at work to keep me sane, lately it's been hard to do that though.

This idea of swapping is incredible fun to me! I have a lot of fun reading through your profiles and really try to match things in your likes, even if the swap isn’t specific for it. It makes it fun for me and just as fun for you!

WORK

I'm a cardiac nurse at the hospital I pretty much live in. I actually graduated in 2010 but didn't pursue the actual job until 2016 I think. I go out of town way too much for work, and sometimes I wish it wasn’t so. I love flying but time is also flying by. (I wish I could consider traveling a job lol). I also used to work as a bartender, gogo dancer (not stripper!), though I did bartend at strip clubs before haha. I was a wedding photographer, a door to door AT&T sales person, I used to show senior citizens how to use tablets and cell phones and I used to teach toddlers soccer. I had to drop out of my masters' program this year for family reasons but eventually I hope to be able to teach nursing classes one day and/or get into nursing forensics as well. As you can probably tell, my mind is all over the place haha.

Right before this job, I was a daycare teacher for a class of ten 2-year olds, who I miss so, so much. I used to cheer whenever my toddlers would poop and pee, and now I do that for adults! I don't have any kids of my own, so I will gravitate to any friend who has a baby or child under 3 haha. I do have 3 siblings younger than me who are still in college, and I'm the only one with the big kid job so far. I try to help out my dad as much as I can but the bills seem to be more than my normal paychecks... but, 'tis life. :)

I really am lucky I work with the people I do because I have to pick up so many shifts, it makes is a tad more do-able to work with awesome people. It's my first nursing job and though we are the lowest paying state in the country, here I am! Haha.

WHERE I'VE LIVED

I was raised in California, and I used to live an hour from the mountains, an hour from the beach and an hour from Disneyland. IT WAS PERFECT! lol I moved to Texas for a few years and now I live in Kentucky! I was only intending to move here for 2 months but 4 years later, I'm writing this from Kentucky :).

LIKES

I love soccer, playing more than watching. Dancing is another love of mine. I love to travel, although overseas is still on my list :). I love foods, desserts especially and mac & cheese, also pot roast. I babble a lot so I pre-apologize for postcards that are just ramblings from me :).

My number one is Disney anything all day everyday lol. I love all things Disney except for tsum tusm stickers lol (got too many).

I used to study AT Disneyland in college! It was only about half an hour away when I lived in CA so it was only logical to study there when I was stressed in nursing school :). I still have an annual pass although I don’t live in CA anymore. I would love to receive brochures from the Disney’s in other countries! I only have the brochures from the last 2 years at Disneyland so even if you have things prior to that, I would be a happy recipient!

I really love anything related to the castle, Chip & Dale, Aladdin/Jasmine, Lilo & Stitch, Peter Pan, Mulan, Little Mermaid, Boo from Monsters' Inc, Alice in Wonderland and the baby Oyster, Malificent, Chip from Beauty & the Beast, Jack Jack from Incredibles and Violet, Mickey and Minnie characters and things shaped like their heads, haha.

A: avocado (cartoon/drawn) images/stickers

B: BMO from adventure time, blankets, bicycle/bike images/icons, Betty cool

C: Charmed, Camera images or prints with them on it, castles, California, clocks

D: dolphins, Daria, die cuts, (cute/kawaii) dinosaurs, Dot from a bugs life

E: Egypt, ephemera!!, cute/cartoon baby elephants

F: Flipbooks, fairy tales, cute food images/stickers/icons, film strip images

G: Groot, glittery things, gold foil accented items

H: handmade projects big or little, HOCUS POCUS ANYTHING, hermoine, Harry Potter, cute/cartoon hedgehogs

I:

J: journals of all sizes, gravitate toward the hand sized

K: Katrina’s name on it, keys shapes

L: little things

M: Miniature things, maybe cuz I’m little lol, mermaid themed anything, MAILBOX themed

N: notebooks, numbers 9 and 19

O: Once Upon A Time

P: Precious Moments anything, project life cards, postal pictures/images (pictures/stickers with envelope images or mailboxes), photography related

Q:quirky things/sayings

R: rugrats

S: socks with cute prints/patterns, stuffed envelopes, swaps, stickers with a clear background or vellum backing, miniature stickers lol

T: tombow pens, tote bags, travel themed anything

U: unicorn themed anything, umbrella images/icons

V: vintage ephemera, vintage themed things (not necessarily old papers but moreso the clocks, keys, old dresses type of vintage)

W: writing prompt books, Wonder Woman

X: Xena

Y:

Z:

NOT SO MUCH LIKEY

Foods in mail, unless it's chocolate from overseas lol. Vintage paper scraps or old sheets- although if I do get them, I'll use them in swaps! Ribbon/lace. Animal prints, animal stickers, lime green or yellow, punch outs (I have so many!) :(. But it’s okay if you send it! I can send it off in some happy mail as well :).

COLORS

glitter, blue in all shades, pink, gray, gold, rose gold, red, black

RECEIVING

I only recently discovered the word ephemera! AND I LOVE THEM!! haha. Of course I gravitate toward the vintage themes like older clothing styles, the mannequin thing to hang dresses on, older clocks/keys that kinda thing. I love hand-lettering! Please consider sending a random piece of paper with my name written on it by you lol.

CRAFTS

Pocket letters and flipbooks! Currently learning of new others :), but I have not had any time to make them :(

TINY THINGS

I love little tiny images that resemble stickers or are the size of it.

OTHER

I love to swap pages of stationary or memo sheets! I use them in my journals (don't ask me how many haha). I just like everything in general really :D

ON BEING LATE

I WILL sometimes be late more often than I would like, I am a procrastinator by nature, lol. Ever since I was in junior high. But even when I have every intention of sending things early, I will sometimes have something come up- usually regarding work, which usually will involve some kind of traveling too. I never flake because me not sending is not purposeful. I hope seeing the ratings help you see that I do always intend to send mail lol. I highly appreciate every single person who has been patient, kind, messaging me, and just incredibly sweet when it comes to re-sending or re-doing, or just waiting. You are lovely people that deserve more stickers and more ephemera that you can handle. I've only run into one butt-face on here amongst the millions, so I have been lucky. I don't and will never claim to send every piece of mail out on time. I go out of town so much for work/life, I send from different states/cities, I've had un-expected mail rain ruin my mail and outgoing mail, my mail get sent to 3 different addresses from a move FOUR months ago (still happening) -_-. and I just deal with more than what the average person deals with in a different way. However, I always get things fixed when there is room to :)

MISSING SWAPS

I appreciate so much of your patience to those who message me about missing things. I have no problem at all being bombarded with reminders/messages as I do realize by now some of my things don't get sent out depending on what city/state I've mailed from. Either that, or what normally happens is your name is repeated in our swaps and when I think I've recalled sending to you, it's actually your swap from 3 swaps ago! I didn't realize how many times we end up seeing each other's names get repeated in these swaps so, ah! I'm learning this as we go :).

POSTCARD MAILING

When it comes to postcards, I'm always going out of town and mailing from every post office box, hotel, wherever I can reach. Some places, mail is not as reliable as others- as some of you have discovered. So please let me know if you realize you didn't receive mine. 1. I'll send it from somewhere else, haha. 2. Postcards are so simple to mail, there's no reason for me to not send more than one.

I go out of town a lot, as I live in one place and have family in 2 states AND work sends me out of town. So between everything I’m pretty much out of town every month, and many times not by choice and last minute :(. Sometimes my mail is on hold at the post office, other times I have family pick it up for me at the house so I don't lose it. If you don't have ratings from me, please send me a message so I can look into it! I get paranoid about my mail and I know we all are concerned whether people receive ours or not. Please feel free to ask me about them at any time!

12/09/18 I'm back in town :). Trying to play catch up on any mail I have missed, incoming or outgoing. Please message me if you're missing anything from me. Being here is a part of the "good" parts in my life, so please don't feel like you're bothering me when you message!

If you don't see me logged in here for longer than 3 days, please email if you'd like about anything missing. Some of my workplaces I go off to don't allow certain websites and by the time I get back to where I'm staying I'm too tired to even look at anything fun. My emails get checked fairly FAIRLY often and I can check them at work too ;)

11/15- Hello! I'm currently out of town for work. It was such a last minute choice to send me out that I can't even get my crafty things together to lug along with me. Plus with losing my luggage of craft items in the past, I doubt I would like to do that anyway :(.