A to Z Passport Art Journal Swap EDITED

This idea for an art journal swap came from an art journal that Pouffia did. The inside front cover had rubber stamped postmarks from different countries and I thought that an art journal swap that combined several of my favourite things, maps, stamps, and the alphabet would be an amazing swap.

EDIT: Since several of you have contacted me about doubling up the countries, each partner doing two countries instead of one to shorten the time the journals are out, 12 partners instead of 25, which will reduce the chances of loss in the mail, etc.

SO:

As the owner of the "passport" you would decorate the first four pages of your passport with Countries that starts with the letter A and B. These include the following countries and here is an A-Z List of countries link.

Afghanistan

Albania

Algeria

American Samoa

Andorra

Angola

Anguilla

Antarctica

Antigua and Barbuda

Argentina

Armenia

Aruba

Australia

Austria

Azerbaijan

Bahamas

Bahrain

Bangladesh

Barbados

Belarus

Belgium

Belize

Benin

Bermuda

Bhutan

Bolivia

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Botswana

Brazil

Brunei Darussalam

Bulgaria

Burkina Faso

Burundi

Swap requirements would be that an image of a map or portion of a map and either the flag or stamps from that country would have to be used. Since all you have to do is Google images for maps, stamps, coats of arms, flag, etc and all sorts of amazing images pop up it would not be difficult, as they do not have to be real stamps, maps, etc unless you have them and want to use them.

The other requirements of the swap are as follows:

Journal has to be 6 x 5 inches (18 x 15 centimeters) or smaller. Moleskines have a package of 3 ruled journals that are 3 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches that are perfect for this swap. I have weighed two different journals that fall within the swap requirements, at this size they weigh between 1 to 2 ounces empty.

You cannot decorate the cover of the journal until it has been returned to you, this is to keep the weight of the journal to a minimum during the swapping process. Also please keep your additions to the 'passports' limited to paper, rubber stamped, inked and hand drawn images. Adding a coin from a certain country might be a nice thing to do but if you add the coin at letter D then everyone is paying for the weight. An image of a coin would be a better option.

What is below appears to be the standard Pocket-sized Journal information that Pouffia wrote, since it is so practical and informational, I asked her if I could copy it because why reinvent the wheel when it works so well, but I have amended it to work for these swaps.

Essentially...

...you send out a journal that will be forwarded to 12 other swappers who'll do two entries each before it gets returned to you.

You will buy or make a pocket-sized journal that has at least 30 two page spreads to work with. You must fill the first two spread pages of your own journal. You can label each set of spread pages A, B, C, D, etc.

Write your name and address (and email address in case you move) on the front or the back, and a note asking to return the journal to this address when it's full.

About Rating & Flaking & Lost Journals

Please, communicate! If the journal doesn't arrive, do contact me but also contact your swap partner. Before you rate a 1: Try to come to an arrangement (for example, wait a bit longer or arrange a re-send, depending on the circumstances). If the journal never arrives, please ask the person to whom the journal belonged to send you a new one. If all else fails I'd be willing to send you a replacement journal myself, but please try to solve it yourself and keep me updated in the process.

If you have questions or if you can't come to an agreement, do let me know. After all that's what I'm here for. Only rate a 1 if you never received anything after considerable time and your swap partner isn't willing to come to some sort of arrangement. However it is extremely important you rate your swap partner. So while you shouldn't rate a 1 as soon as you can, it is important you do if appropriate. Rating a 5 upon receiving the journal is no less important. It lets your swap partner know the journal arrived and it helps build a good Swap Bot standing, which is something we all deserve since we put in a lot of work.

Last but not least, if you sign up and swap partners are assigned, you have to send a journal out. Which means it's best to drop from the swap or not sign up at all as long as the journal hasn't arrived. It's not a problem if you skip a swap (or more), as long as you don't vanish from Swap Bot without a trace.

Swap Frequency

I am going to try to keep 3 weeks in between send deadlines and sign up deadlines. They may deviate a little here and there and that may change as we see how far and how long it takes for these to arrive to each other. Also, you'll now have 2 weeks to fill your two pages and send the journal out. If you're worried about not being able to participate in the follow-up swap because you haven't received the journal read the above.

Communicate & be available

If you're delayed for whatever reason, let your swap partner (and me) know. If you're going to be on vacation or in a place where you don't have internet access, let your swap partner and me know, or put it in your profile. Do check your email and/or your Swap Bot account for messages. If you suddenly seem to have fallen off the face of the earth, alarm bells start ringing.

How to rate your swap partner?

If you receive a journal from someone who didn't fill two pages, you rate a 3. I don't like setting rules for ratings but if you didn't fill two pages you did not meet the swap requirements. If swappers pass on journals without filling 2 pages, then they will be missing a country and having a passport filled from A to Z is the whole point of the swap.

If you don't receive anything at all, you rate a 1. Of course taking in consideration the time it may take for the journal to reach you.

Returning a journal that is not full

You can't return journals to owners before the last country has been added. If you send it back, you will have no journal to forward to your swap partner. So don't send a journal back to its owner unless you are dropping from the swap series or you have just added Zimbabwe or Zanzibar to the passport. Of course this does not cover exceptional circumstances.

Shipping Costs

Try to keep the journal lightweight. It helps to keep shipping costs low. However, since we fill these journals, postage will go up and mailing these journals will cost more than the average letter. Keep this in mind.

My Journal is Lost

The thing with these swaps is that you may not know where your journal is. Since each journal has at least 30 two page spread, which means at least 25 swap partners will have it, it's going to take some time before it gets returned to you. I suppose the best thing you can do is sit back, relax, and wait.

If for some reason you must get a hold of the person who has your journal because you're moving unexpectedly or something like that, the only solution I have is except for the first swap, when you get the passport please contact the owner and let them know that you have their passport in your possession, that way, everyone will know who has their passport.

Swappers may not always join the next swap in line. They may have joined C-D but not E-F. Unfortunately there is nothing to do about that. However the large majority of swappers are still reliable people, so trust that the journal gets forwarded or get in touch with the swapper that has your journal (if you can trace him/her). If you sent your journal out a few swaps ago, you could ask the swap partner you had then and get in touch with his/her swap partner of the next swap, and so on, and follow the chain. The one thing that I would ask is, if you get a passport that does not have the country in front of the one you are doing, such as you are doing D and there are two blank pages at C because the swapper didn't sign up for C, be nice, be an angel and fill those two pages, that way, we can sort of self angel as we go along.

Of course there is always a possibility your journal just gets lost. This is the risk involved. If that happens, let me know and I will try to put together a journal for you, but I would prefer not to have angel too many of these.

I do not know if I will be able to send out a message every time these swaps get posted, hopefully I can work that out with Pouffia.

But please do have fun as we travel around the world via our passports.