Monday, July 2, 2012

How we did an Inchies Swap at the OK PolyClay Twister Retreat

This year was our first big year with three days of claying and the members wanted to have a swap. Inchies were chosen as the swap of choice as they would be small, easy to transport and take less time than the regular ATC's.   
Deal an Inchie! These were created by Iris of Polyform. Very pretty!!
The decision made, we posted this announcement on our COPCGuild Website

We will be having an Inchie Swap at the retreat. For those who are unfamiliar with an Inchie, here is a bit of info.

By Definition, Inchies are one inch by one inch squares of Polymer Clay that contain small art. They can be imprinted, sculpted, collaged, or otherwise decorated.

Perhaps the theme of our retreat "Safari" will inspire many adventurous and exotic design ideas!

You may make as many inchies as you choose. Some are making ten or more. You can use any type of embellishments in your designs but try to keep the thickness below 1/2 inch. Please put a little bit of time into creating your inchies. Think of them as little pieces of art.

Many folks will be making inchies at the retreat. Your inchies do not need to be be turned until 10:00 AM Saturday morning. The swap will take place later in the afternoon.

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About two weeks before the event, it suddenly occurred to me that we had a little problem. Not one of us had ever done a swap. Ever. Some of us had swapped, for sure, but never physically swapped the pieces.

Since my most recent swap was with the Thursday morning chat group on PCC Delphi I sent an email to Jackie, our hostess and one of the moderators, asking for help. She had just finished a big swap where we each sent in ten ATC cards. When asked if she could tell me how the swap was physically accomplished, she said that neither she or her husband knew how to do a swap and had searched the web for instructions to no avail.  Between the two of them they figured out a way it could be done and her hubby did the swap. With their very generous instructions, we were able to execute the swap. 

There may be a large number of ways to do a swap, but with Jackie and her DH's help, here is how we did it. 

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African Inspired inchies by Jane L.

Determine how many inchies to the swap. 5 each, 10 each etc. Request that the inchies contributed are only the posted amount or multiples of the posted amount but not more than the people at the retreat. (We did not do this and it got very, very complicated trying to finish the swap. Some had a just a few and some had one for every person at the retreat. In spite of the difficulty, Angel, the chairman of the swap, did a great job completing it.)
 
It seems t me that it would work smoothly if there were 28 persons, and the swap number is 10 then, if desired, they can enter 10 or 20 inchies.  Set a time for the swap items to be brought to the Swap Chairman.
 
When the attendees bring their inchies to the swap chairman on Saturday at 10, if they haven't done it already, give them a bag and ask them to put their inchies in a bag and put their name on the bag. Their swapped inches will be returned to them in this bag. Many will have already done this.
How to Sort the swap
  1.   Open a bag and remove and count the inchies. If just 10, lay the bag down and put the ten inchies on the bag with the person's name showing(to avoid duplication). Do this for all the bags. You should now have a series of bags with a pile of ten inchies on each of them (two piles for any persons who sent in double*).
  2.   You pick up the first person’s pile (Number One), move one bag to the right and count them out one at a time putting them down in front of each of the next ten piles, like dealing cards. Keep the dealt inchies in front of and a bit away from the existing pile on the bag.
  3.   Then pick up the next pile (Number two). NOTE: At this point, person number one has no inchie. and person two, the one you just picked up, has one inchie.
  4.   Move to the next pile to the right (Number three) and count them out one at a time putting them down in front of each of the next ten piles, like dealing cards. Keep the dealt inchies a little bit away from the existing pile on the bag.
  5.  Repeat picking up the next pile, moving to the next person and 'dealing' them out.Continue until all the inchies are swapped. Pick up the piles created and put them into the bags. Doing it this way helps to fairly sort the inchies. 
*If a person sent in 20 instead of ten, divide the inchies in half, separate the two halves by 12 places; and treat the two halves as one person each. Be sure they are separated far enough so they did not get their own inchies back.

If people bring in more than requested, and further swapping can not be done return any excess in their bag.
 
This is a simple way we did our swap, there are probably many ways to  do it. You may substitute any item for inchies, like ATC's, etc.

 Have fun !

 Penni Jo, designer/sculptor of Best Flexible Molds. Home of great flexible rubber molds and fine tools.





2 comments:

Jackie said...

I'm so glad our plan for swapping helped your guild, Penni Jo!! I'm looking forward to our next ATC swap which I'll announce at the end of this year. :) Jackie

Penni Jo AKA Claylady43 said...

Thank so much Jackie, we could not have done it without your help. Youse a good friend. :-)
PJ