Autumn 2008, I had a major dilemma. I knew money was tight, so it was going to be a mostly-handmade round for me. BUT, I was assigned a witchee from my immediate geographic area, and she knew me and, because of our special gatherings, she either knew personally or knew of pretty much all the other Switch Witches in the immediate area. As much as she might try NOT to sleuth me out, the game would be up pretty much the moment she saw the postmark. How was I to stay an anonymous witch right up until I was ready to reveal, yet also stay in contact with her and make sure she got multiple packages, without breaking the bank?

See, the easiest way to confuse your witchee as to your location is to make sure early packages come from etailers or etsy sellers or the like. Or, if you're one of those people who use Paypal or Stamps.com or other postage-from-your-computer services (I'm not), you can edit, forge, or otherwise obscure your postmark that way. If you like to use UPS or Drop Ship Express or FedEx, you may still be able to work with your shipper to fudge things a bit. Most places, USPS is too paranoid to help you out with this anymore. I can't say for sure with any other country's mail system.

Now, let's assume that for whatever reason, those methods aren't going to work for you. What's a sneaky witch to do? Here are some time-honored tips gathered from many veteran witches out there. I didn't come up with most of them, but for reasons of maintaining anonymity, I'm only going to attribute ideas to witches who ask me to. Your fellow witches would love you to use these tips and submit your own - the more people who use them, the more effective they'll be!

* Sneaky barter. Barter is the bread and butter of resourceful witchery, and it applies to everyone, not just those trying to witch on a budget.

I've known witches who had no crafting skills whatsoever, but made sure a made-for-witchee item, the equivalent of which could never have been found in stores, arrived on their witchees' doorsteps.

I've known witches who have teamed up to witch each other's witchees.

I've noticed somebody who wasn't my witchee mentioning that she'd like to try scents from a non-BPAL perfumery I knew I had samples from that were languishing. So I posted to General Chatter "HEY, <witchee>'s WITCH! You should PM me!" When the witch in question responded, we arrived at the agreement that she'd paypal me some $ for the samples, and I'd make up a package for her witchee, complete with personalized note and frimpage. If she hadn't already revealed, it would have been a great way to obscure her location.

I've also crafted items for another witch's witchee in exchange for the other witch sending my witchee a package of bought goods from a store local to her (other witch), thereby making it look like I might be in a completely other country and NOT be doing an all-handmade round.

As another example, say you've got your eye on another crafty witch's merchandise for your witchee. It costs you nothing to PM that witch and ask if there's something you could barter for it. Or, you notice another witch lamenting that ey has no crafting/cooking skills but wants to witch eir witchee with something handmade/nommy, and it just so happens that you've got the crafting/cooking skills and a little time to do it. You should totally approach that witch via PM and ask to barter.

It's also a good idea, if you'd like others to approach you for this kind of action, to post in General Chatter about your barterable skills and willingness to be a co-conspirator or conspire together, so other witches can find you. Many witches will use these words as search keys in the General Chatter Thread to find witches like you to conspire with. You could be one of us!

* What should you do if your witchee contacts you for a barter? The simplest way is to respectfully turn 'em down. If you don't want to do that, you could offer to send stuff to eir witchee in exchange for em sending you something YOU want. If you're really resourceful and into the witching web, you could even offer to send stuff to eir witchee in exchange for em sending stuff to a third witch's witchee (and you don't even need to tell your witchee that third witch's witchee isn't your witchee, ie that third witch is involved at all), in exchange for third witch sending stuff to your witchee. Did you get that? It can get complicated. If you start getting the Nacho Witch Sombrero involved, it can get really tangled, but totally awesome.

* Sneaky seller. If you're a seller on Etsy, or otherwise have a company to sell your handmade items, particularly if your work has been sent to other witchees in the past, it's extremely effective subterfuge to send your witchee a package of your goods made specially for your witchee and pretend you're just the middlewitch and the package contains only items eir witch commissioned from you and had you send em. Pack it up just like you normally do with your outgoing packages, and add a note like "from your Switch Witch" or something else that could imply that you're just the middlewitch, but doesn't exclude you actually being the real witch.

* Sneaky not-seller. If you've got time and materials to make up a couple of fake handmade business cards, hang tags, letterhead, etc, you can invent a handmade items company to send your witchee stuff from! This one's tricky, though, as your witchee is likely to try to find out more about the company and their merchandise, which will expose the fact that it doesn't exist if you don't make it suitably obscure.

* Sneaky packer. If you're a witch who works for an etailer or mailorder company of some sort, particularly a well-known one like B&N or Lush, and you have access to their packing supplies/department, you can make it look to your witchee like ey's getting a package from that etailer, which could have come from anybody anywhere. To accomplish this on the cheap, make your package up out of samples or stuff you aquired with your employee discount, and ship it out through their shipping department (arranging for S&H and packing it yourself).

* Sneaky redirect. If you're not lucky enough to be one of the above, you can still do the sneaky redirect. Say you want to send your witchee some cheaply aquired or like-new-from-your-stash books/DVDs/games/fabric/yarn/tea/etc from your stash, and you've ordered from Amazon/B&N/fabric.com/KnitPicks/Zhena's/SBS Teas/etc in the past. If you carefully saved the packing materials from past orders, you can reuse the them (save $) and make it look like you had those items shipped from that company (obsfucate geography) all at once. Just remember to use the same shipping company they usually do (ie, UPS for B&N), and write the return address so it says something like "Shipping Department," and the zip code matches the postmark (for USPS) or origination (for UPS), etc.