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Winter Holiday Swap

Hey there, foxy! Some hints for you:   Etsy favourites! (currently in mad love with those Time Lord necklaces...)   This is... a lot of scrolling, so I'll put new things on top from now on. Eep. Sorry!   Are there any Yules from *PAST* years that you're interested in trying? This is my very first Yule, so I haven't tried much, and none of the classics -- I'd be up for anything! But I'd be especially interested in any cold and snowy scents that aren't florals (Snow White, frex, would be a total no-go). The Snow Storm sounds made of total win to me. Nuclear Winter, Hypothermia, anything in that vein definitely.   Soap dish? Ooh! Yes! I only switched recently from liquid to bar and I don't have a soap dish. I was going to fashion myself one out of chopsticks but first I need to find a decent place to get Chinese food around here and I haven't and until I do my soap will be sitting in sad and slimy pools. Caveat: preferably not something easily breakable since my bathroom has a window above my shower-ledge and, as mentioned 972 times in my blog, my cats are klutzes. They caught sight of a squirrel in the backyard today. This occasioned the near-destruction of the stereo, when they forgot windows are made of solid material and tried to hurl themselves after it. It was a really important squirrel, apparently.   If your fox were to knit something for you, would it be a lacy shawl or a pair of socks? Either would be awesome! Although I can't knit myself socks, it's too scary. But then, every year I get multiple pairs of socks for Christmas. But then again, one can never have too many socks. But....hm. Shawl! It sounds so pretty!     Fruit/dried fruit? Cherries? Tart cherries are love! I adore tart cherry jelly -- not the chunky kind, not the kind with whole cherries, just smooth. It's so difficult to find in the US and I was going mad, but last summer I was lucky enough to get several pounds of cherries and make my own. Still have a few jars, so I'm not desperate at present, but I'd never say no to more   Not particularly interested in dried fruit. Fruit leather's okay. Crystallised pineapple and ginger are okay. I like dried apricots but I'm mildly allergic to them so that's probably not a good idea, even though I'd eat and like them.   Bunnies! What is your general philosophy about patterns for accessories such as socks, scarves, and tights? Do you like solids? Stripes? Polka dots? Weird patterns like harlequin-type stuff? Any of the above? All of the above! Especially stripes and patterns! Argyle and paisley are super. Polka dots are okay but I prefer swiss-dots -- or even better, little patterns, like stars.   $20 to blow in Walgreens: I tend not to wear makeup and for skincare I'm a super-minimalist: I make my own masks/scrubs and moisturise with jojoba or olive oil. But my hair is a mess, and nothing I've tried has worked, so I'd probably raid the hair care section. I have a lot of split ends and have yet to find a product I really like, but I've heard good things about Shea Moisture, so I'd probably get some of their Yucca and Aloe Hair Thickening Growth Milk -- or if there was just some straight argan oil, I'd get that. And.... hm. Maybe a Tamagotchi from their toy aisle! I've been feeling nostalgic. If any was left on the card, I'd look for some lip balm in fun flavours like coconut or lemon.   Penzey's: I'm not much of a carnivore, so I wouldn't use their rubs or meat seasonings. I love curry, though, and would probably go for any of those blends. I bake a lot and would love some of their Vietnamese or China cinnamon and vanilla. They also have Charnushka (rye bread seeds), which I've always wanted to try. I am baking rye bread right now, actually!   Knitted Goods: I love knitted things! All fibers except mohair. I've been wanting to make a felted Gryffindor scarf forever but I'm afraid to felt, so I'll probably never work up the nerve (LOL SOME GRYFF I AM I KNOW). I love scarves of all kinds, especially big giant long ones, as well as fingerless gloves and wristwarmers. Hats and hairbands are okay but I usually need them to be either acrylic or lined because they make my head all itchy. I like bright colours -- deep greens and blues, oranges and golds, crimson and wine reds, especially in bold stripes or eyecatching patterns.   Tree Ornaments: Probably a bad idea. They would be claimed as cat toys the minute I got them out of the box... ::glares at cat, who is currently scaling a bookshelf::   Tim Tams. Yay or nay? YAAAAAAY. Original or Chewy Caramel, yum!   If you were my fox, would you like to receive some homemade goodies, or would you prefer that your goodies came from the store? I love homemade goodies and hope to send some to my bunny myself! Any treats are welcome, but homemade ones are always my preference.   Would any Bunny like to receive Holiday serving bowls, trays, platters etc...? Winter/Christmas or Thanksgiving/Fall themed? None for me, thanks. My current place is so small we don't even have a table, so not much entertaining here.   My lovely fluffy Snow Bunny, would you like a bodyscrub made by me? If so, what scent(s) would you like, if you had to think along the lines of essential oils? And would you prefer sugar or salt? A dryer scrub or one that's more oily/moist? That sounds fantastic. I'd love something warming, with ginger or pepper -- that or something clean and soothing, maybe with rosemary. Since winter's coming, probably sugar, and on the oily side.   Dear snow bunny, do you like candles? if yes, then what kind? scented (what scents), unscented, what colors, do you like them plain/painted on the outside/with decorations attached to the surface/sculpted? I love candles! Unscented tapers are great; we have a brass candlestick we use for reading and in the winter we go through tapers like crazy. Tea lights are also most welcome. As far as scented candles go, I like wintery ones (especially evergreen or peppermint) and hot chocolate. Jar candles are also great, since the other cat (NOT the one on the bookshelf) is a klutz and frequently singes his tail on tapers. Sigh. CATS.   Also what do you think of little soaps? I know most people don't use soaps nowadays but I love the chocolate/vanilla/cocoa/butter/sugar combo scents that I see at beauty stores. I'd give them a try!   Socks! Slippers! Do you love them or not really wear them? If you love them, do you also love Sock Dreams? Yes to socks! Not so much on slippers, but definitely socks. Big fan of knee/over the knee socks, which I love to layer under thick/fluffy anklet socks for SUPER WARM AWESOMENESS. Crazy patterns and stripes and argyle: big yes. I haven't shopped at Sock Dreams but they look great.   Cowl? Ooh. I tend to get claustrophobic with turtlenecks, but that looks nice and loose and I could control the tightness. My neck and back knot up in the cold and I can always use something to keep my muscles warm. Maybe in charcoal?   Talk to me of coffee. Whole bean? Ground? Flavored, not flavored? Decaf, whole caff? Favorite roasters? Drip, french press, keurig? BRING ON THE TEA? I, uh, have named my French Press. His name is Hervé, and I LUFF HIM. Whole bean, full caf -- though I make exceptions for flavoured blends I can't get whole (TJ's Pumpkin Spice, frex). I love spiced/holiday blends: gingerbread, eggnog, candy cane, ALL OF IT. For not-flavoured, I like Vienna roast -- dark enough to reduce acidity and bring out some caramel. For roasters, I love Satellite (NM chain, and I would kill or at least maim to be able to drink their iced Black Velvet again... I miss it so) and Intelligentsia, but it's always great fun trying local roasts from new places. I also love tea!   Who else here loves or would like to try Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics? If so, what would you like? None for me, thanks. I never really figured out how makeup works.   CocoaPink: Um. Everything? I'd especially love to try anything with Black Cat in the Pumpkin Patch, Green Tea and Mint, Blackberry Mist, or Full Moon.   Anybody into nail polish? Any color or formula preferences? I'd try some of the crackle kind, but I rarely use it and am not really much into it. When I wear it, I wear black or something neon.   If you found a $50 bill on the ground and were to place a Lab order, what would be in it? (And shipping is free through the magical BPAL unicorn!) All hail the BPALicorn! My collection's still primarily imps, so I think I'd upgrade my best-loved/most-used scents to big bottles. I find the Conjure Bag stuff pretty effective, so bottles of High John the Conqueror and Wolf's Heart, plus a bottle of No. 93 Engine, which I love for winter. The beeswax and lemon balm make it so sunny and warming, perfect for a cold grey day.   Holiday DVDs None I can think of.   Marvel or DC? Marvel, definitely. I like the X-Men, and Beast is my favourite (cat-version). I haven't got anywhere to put any more comix/paraphernalia at the moment, though, heh.   Lush? Any of their lip balms or bath bombs/bubble bars -- I've never tried any of either! I have and like a Therapy massage bar, but would love to try others -- particularly a Wiccy Magic Muscles, Hottie or Ego bar.   Honey/beeswax? Oh yes please! I LOVE varietal honeys (especially meadowfoam, but I want to TRY ALL THE HONEYS). Yes to beeswax, too! I'm not sure what I'd do with it but I've made candles before and I adore beeswax candles. That or I'd tint it for sealing letters! I love cosmetics and scents with beeswax in (from BPAL I love No. 93 Engine and the beeswax note is a big part of why). I'd take it as an awesome challenge   Trader Joe's? That's actually the grocery store closest to me at present, so I don't need anything in particular there.   If I were to place ONE LAST Weenie order, (uh, which I will) what would you want me to include for you? (presuming that is that the order can get here in time, bites nails)? If it's a TP order, I'd love to try some Samhain soap or a sample of one of the hair glosses (a decant or what-have-you). If from the Lab, well, my Weenie decants haven't arrived yet (although I hope they'll show up soon). I WANT TO TRY OCTOBER 2011, DAMNIT. But as far as GCs go I'd love more imps of Aunt Caroline's Joy Mojo and High John the Conqueror, or imps of random scents I've not yet tried. TRY ALL THE THINGS is my motto.   Will you be away for any part of the round? Not for any great length of time -- maybe a day or two at Thanksgiving, but no longer than that.   Anyone else with an Etsy store and a member of Tradeaholics (or you could join) and interested in bartering for gifts for their bunny? I'll check out Tradeaholics when I get a chance!   What type of books do you like? Dying to read anything? Oh dear. I have SO MANY BOOKS. Seriously. They don't all fit in the apartment. There are things I want to read... but I probably shouldn't own them.   Rose/mastic flavored things? I would love to try mastic -- just the resin. I like rose-flavoured candies and other floral sweets (lavender, orange blossom, etc). When I've had Turkish Delight it's been the cheap kind and chocolate-covered and I didn't like it very much. It was so disappointing because I'd wanted to try some ever since reading The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. But I would try it again!   i live in the city of the chicken wing. if i were to send you something savory, what's your heat tolerance (or sweet and heat for that matter)? OM NOM NOM. I don't like things that are so hot I can't taste anything *but* heat, but spicy is good. I have a friend who once ate a thumb-sized glob of wasabi, straight, and who regularly dares people to make him the hottest possible wings and then complains and puts more hot sauce on them. I am not that kind of spicy-fan. But I like hot curries and green/red chile in the mid-hot range. I prefer savoury-hot to sweet-hot, but enjoy wasabi peas and things of that sort.   Paintbox Soapworks I would love to try some slip or goats-milk moisturiser. Yuletide Mariner, White Snow, Bright Snow, or This Charming Man.   If your fox/bunny were to gift you with a giftcard from anywhere, as in any store food wise, music wise etc. what giftcard would you like? ThinkGeek, LUSH, Paintbox, Sock Dreams. I love all those places but always kinda feel guilty just buying awesome stuff from there for no reason, heh. I love to be enabled!   If I were to send you chocolate is there anything I should avoid as in nuts, cherries etc.? Also, what are some of your favorite holiday candies? I love everything! I'm not particularly fond of cherry cordials or liqueur centres, and licorice I can take or leave. But any and everything else is splendid. Toffees/brittles/caramels with nuts are my favourites. For holiday-specific sweets: candy canes! I love them. I especially love King Leo peppermint sticks.   Does anything from FusionSweets interest you? ::drools on keyboard:: Oh. Oh my... I did not know about this shop. Wow. The Forgive Me I Have Sinned Dulche de Leche Coconut Macaroons, for starters. The Berlingots would be amazing -- probably the variety sampler since they ALL sound good. And *any* of the caramels, of course. Of those things I'm most curious about the Berlingots -- I love having a bunch of different flavours to try!   Interested in anything from the Elements and Artifacts Yule update? Probably too spendy for this swap, alas, but those YuleFrost Orb pendants are bloody gorgeous, particularly the Icebound... ::bites lip::   What was the best holiday present you ever got? When I was eight I got a world globe. Seriously, I loved that damn thing. I got A *BIKE* that year, a bitchin' purple Huffy with PINK TIRES and streamers and this pink-and-purple detachable handlebar pouch/fanny pack monstrosity that any self-respecting eight-year-old in the early 90s should have totally gone apeshit over.... and I was all MY GLOBE IS AWESOME, WHAT'S THAT I GOT A BIKE OH DON'T CURRRRR HEY DID YOU SEE MY RAD GLOBE? ...so yeah. Nerd. NERRRRD.   Anniversary Resurrection scent Oh gosh. I'm too much of a n00b, I think. I've trained myself not to spelunk through old reviews, for the most part, since I already covet so much, but it's for SCIENCE. Or for swapping, same principle. So let's see: I have an imp of Severin I'm scared to try in case I like it... if that came back I'd finally crack the thing open. I'm sad I never got the chance to try The Coil. I'm intrigued by March Hare, so I'd probably try a bottle of that if it came back. I love Death of Autumn and Howl in the Darkness.   Moxie Nouveau? Maybe Greensleeves or Girls with Cigars, but I like my scents dark and dirty and these seem a bit too sweet and demure. Candlemas sounds yummy... but there's tuberose. It would smell like Joyce's The Dead on me, and not in a good way -- in a decaying-pederast way. The ones that appeal to me most all have sneaky floral notes of doom in them. GET ALL THOSE FLOWERS OUT OF THERE DAMNIT.   Favourite colour God, I asked this one and I don't even know. LOTS.   Gemstone? Garnet is my birthstone. I like amber just because it's awesome and you can do science experiments with it (I'm a Faraday fangirl and I don't feel shame.) I love jade.   Favourite animal? Badgers and foxes and octopuses and axolotls.   Phobias? I'm terrified of wasps and bees. I flee them. Screaming and flailing.   Are you Nano-ing this month, bunny? If so, how would you feel about merch/donations to the cause? In theory, but, uh, I sort of haven't exactly quite started yet. Sort of thing. I probably wouldn't be much into merch, because then I'd look at it and go OH GOD I FAIL.   Do you like/need boxes for perfume/knicknacks? I have eleventy-jillion imps and NO serious containment system, so definitely! Right now they're living in small jam jars in my big cigar box and I can never see what any of them are. Something that would let me organise them and see their labels would be great.   Coffee or tea? With caffeine or without? Flavors (if so, what?) or no? Whole bean/ground/loose leaf/bags? PLEASE TO BE SENDING ME ALL OF YOUR CAFFEINATED LIQUIDS THANK YOU YES. I love everything! Except licorice tea. Blech. Coffee: preferably whole-bean, unless it's yummy flavoured coffee. I tend to use tea bags more frequently than looseleaf teas, but that's just cos I'm lazy and no longer live near a good loose-tea shop -- also I could use a new tea-ball, now that I think about it. But try me on anything! Really. Especially florals or mate blends. I love mate and used to have a bombilla and gourd but then my gourd cracked and I lost my bombilla and now I am sad.   Do you have a strong preference for any sort of bath and body product brands (i.e. etailer/etsy type cos, department store/specialty brands like Lush) or are you cool with anything that doesn't smell like Bunnybane? Still kind of a scent-n00b and I haven't tried a lot of things. The only major brand I have really tried and like is Lush -- in my formative years I used waaaaaaay too much B&BW antibacterial hand gel and still haven't quite recovered my stomach for their scents. I have ethical issues with Burt's Bees after the Clorox buyout. Natural/relatively-chemical-free products are my preference, but my experience is limited (haven't even tried anything from the Trading Post yet!) so I'm open to trying new things.   A question: reveal, yes or no? I plan to! And I would love to know my fox's identity.   Any favorite cuddly characters? I especially love cute-monster designs, like fluffy Cthulus, Deth P Sun's stuff, and Domo-kun (I have a giant plushie Domo and also have a Domo hat though from Sanrio my favourite is Badtz-Maru). I'm totally asking my family for a Squishable Worrible for Christmas this year even though I have nowhere to put him in my plushie-filled bedroom because I love Andrew Bell. Love him. He is awesome.   Charity gifts? Either fair-trade type stuff, or virtual type gifts, like vaccinations or school supplies being bought on your behalf, or something along those lines? I approve! Especially fair-trade stuff or pro-animal charities.   Bunny, are you interested in tarts from Two Timing Tart? What scents, if any, are you interested in? ARGH SO MUCH ENABLEMENT. I love it, though. I'd be interested in any! Wench and Kitchen Alchemy look yummy, I'd love the Bamboo/Yuzu or Rice/Honey experimental, and all of the Burlesques. Going by notes I'd probably like Sex Kitten best but I can always use more Pretty Boys in Eyeliner in my life, oh yes I can. I bet they smell nice too   BPTP candles? I wish they weren't so limited! The Samhain sounds interesting but I'm holding out for Yule. I love winter scents for candles.   Do you need any holiday recipies? Is there something in particular that you'd like baked or made for you? I tend to BAKE ALL THE THINGS this time of year, but I'm a failure at candymaking, so I'd love your successful candy recipes! Or just the candy. I also am in need of good recipes for pfeffernusse and mexican wedding cookies. Once, when I was small, I had these amazing creamy meringue cookies -- they weren't exactly meringue, because they were a different texture, but they were white like meringue, and shaped like Cs, and sweet and crispy and melted on the tongue. They were amazing and I have no idea what they are called but if you know what they are and could tell me or bake me some I'd love you forever. I really love different types of traditional cookies and love expanding my collection of recipes. Also: fruitcake! I really, truly like it. Green cherries give me the creeps, though, and I like it to be heavy on cake and light on fruit.   Does anyone have issues with gently used things like books, etc.? Not at all! Though, again, nowhere to put them. Seriously, I have at least four boxes of books in another state, probably more, plus FIVE FULL CASES (big five-shelf ones!) and there are still books all over the floor. Let's not even talk about the boxes of comix. Yeeeeah.   Are you a big ol' nerd for any particular subject? Science, math, linguistics, etc? Or particular authors/fandoms? My nerdly loves are for biology, chemistry, electromagnetics (I ADORE FARADAY AND SOMEDAY I WILL MARRY HIM) and particle physics. I'm also into social science/cultural studies and would make an exception from my Please No Books stance for books from Frankfurt School thinkers like Adorno and Horkheimer or media studies writers like McLuhan.   Fandom-wise, my big love right now is Doctor Who -- I was actually kind of afraid to watch it earlier because I saw some Third Doctor episodes when I was small and was scarred by them. ALIEN EGGS ARE TERRIFYING TO ME KTHX -- but now I am in love with Matt Smith. Also into Harry Potter (Gryffinpuffs represent) and currently rewatching The X-Files (and the first episode of S4 is just as terrifying to me now as it was when aired because it manages to combine two of my most intense phobias into ONE TERRIFYING PACKAGE: SMALLPOX DEATH-BEES). And BtVS and Firefly will always have places in my heart.   Lemon? Yum! I don't really care for curd -- texture thing, I guess -- but marmalade is love, and so are baked goods/candies.   Pink? Sure. Brighter/darker pinks preferred for wearables, as pale pink does icky things with my complexion.   But do you really want all 12 feet of the Tom Baker scarf? OMG YES. YES I DO. I DO WANT ALL OF THE SCARF. I'm 5'4". So, to speak reasonably, I guess I wouldn't. BUT IN ACTUALITY I DO.   Fingerless or full mitts? Fingerless mittens are the greatest of mittens! I wear fingerless gloves/mitts constantly in winter and always need more.   Mugs? I'm always on the lookout for the perfect mug. I like larger-than-8oz mugs, especially nerdy mugs (i.e. thinkgeek, topatoco, engrish.com and the like). I used to have a clear glass mug from despair.com with a dividing line and the text 'This Mug Is Now Half-Empty'

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