Swap No. 2 of the week

this afternoon Leila and I will be taking a walk to the post office to send off my second swap this week! (I have one more to send next week and then I'm taking a break until after Christmas.) There was no real theme to this swap, just a chance for "newbies" to send and receive a package and build up ratings. I received a lovely homemade cookbook full of recipes a week or so ago and have been feeling the pressure to get my package out the door soon, but as I mentioned on Tuesday, there is a lot going on this week and to add to it all, Leila had a bad reaction to her rotavirus vaccine later that afternoon and got really sick all over me multiple times and then fell asleep on me before I could clean either of us up and move her to her crib. Other than the throwing up part, I really didn't mind an afternoon of holding her in my arms, but now that she's better, I still have deadlines to meet.
So, my partner for this swap stated that she likes blue and flowers, hates pink, and owns a very spoiled chihuahua named Sophie. Even though I am not a dog lover, I came up with a cute idea to send.

I'm not sure what the official name for this item is, but it's something that attaches on a dog leash and carries plastic bags for disposing of doggie doo. My idea was to make this a little cuter by creating a personalized tag for Sophie to hang on the bag dispenser that I picked up at Old Navy.

I cut out two circles of felt and some little orange felt flowers. Then used black embroidery thread to attach the flowers to the first felt circle and also back-stitch the letter 'S' for the dog's name. I added ribbon for hanging and sandwiched it between the top and bottom layer of felt and used the blanket stitch to close it up and hide the back of my embroidery. This was my first time using the blanket stitch and I like how it turned out! Not only did it bring the two circles together but also added a cute scalloped edge to the whole project.

I think what I like about swap-bot the best isn't the sending and receiving mail (although it's always fun to get something in the mailbox that isn't a bill or catalog) ... I like the challenge to create something new that I wouldn't have thought of on my own. All I know about the people I send to is what they put on their user profiles and oftentimes (like this one) they aren't that specific so I get to put on my thinking cap and come up with totally random (for me) ideas about gifts for dogs and whatnot. I never would have thought of this little felt tag without the challenge of this swap, but now I am dreaming up reasons to make more!