How to Host a Craft Swap Party: Lessons from Madeira’s First Ever Edition

ARTE.M
Jul 9, 2025
4 min read

Updated: Jul 15, 2025

On June 21, Madeira hosted its first-ever Craft Swap Party — a vibrant gathering that brought together 13 talented crafters and an enthusiastic audience of locals and nomads.

The idea for our Craft Swap Party was born out of our participation in the international project CraftWork 4.0 All, co-funded by Creative Europe.

The project is defined as a platform of international and intercultural co-creation, built by 12 partner organizations from 12 countries, with the goal of supporting emerging craft artists and practitioners.

This project inspired us to bring its values to life on our island — creating a local event for crafters and craft lovers that goes beyond just sales, to focus on exchange, visibility, and artistic sustainability.

This wasn’t just a fair — it was a creative laboratory, where ideas, hands, and hearts met. Many crafters used recycled, upcycled, and natural materials, showing how meaningful and beautiful sustainable craftsmanship can be.

Today we’re spilling the secrets on how to organize a Craft Swap Party!

Spoiler: it’s all about community, curiosity, and just the right amount of organized chaos. From Idea to Action: What You Need to Know to Host Your Own Craft Swap Party

✅ Step 1: Define Your Vision

Do you want to promote collaboration, learning, selling, or all three?
We learned the hard way: selling + demo + networking can be too much in one event. Pick a focus!

✅ Step 2: Create a Clear Call

We invited participants through an open call, with simple but strong criteria:
✔ Maximum 2 crafters per category (ceramics, textiles, jewelry, etc.)
✔ Must work with authentic techniques and/or sustainable practices
✔ Encouraged upcycling, reusing, and slow craft✔ Welcomed crafters of all levels, as long as they love what they do

✅ Step 3: Talk to Your Makers

Ask what they need — tables, electricity, demo space
Ask what they want — to swap, teach, collaborate, or just talk
Keep the format flexible, but celebrate uniqueness

✅ Step 4: Build Community Partnerships

We worked with Madeira Friends Community, which helped bring in nomads and conscious locals
Art Center Caravel hosted us in its ARThubVadeira, providing space, infrastructure, and great energy

What Made It Special

Emphasis on cultural identity, not just aesthetics
Focus on sustainability — from handmade eco-soaps to fashion made with leftover fabric
A truly international vibe, with makers from Portugal, Italy, Ukraine, UK, and Poland
Over 30 Instagram stories and reels shared by crafters before, during, and after the event

The Faces Behind the SWAP

MyMadeiraMagnet by Iuliia Kazakova
"I specialize in handmade clay art using polymer and air-dry clay to create unique jewelry and decorative souvenirs. I started working with it in Madeira after I moved around two years ago. My first experience was with one of the artists who is present here, Hanna Yesionova, who is doing colors with stones. There was a workshop with pottery and for it was so lovely to do some pieces for myself and to create a feeling of home. I am literally creating my home here"

VitreusVenice by Alberto Bacchi

Handmade glass jewelry

"After years of unsatisfying jobs, I followed my painter brother’s example and plunged into the creative world. A course in jewelry design hooked me, and today I run a small studio-shop where I craft my own pieces"

Annaroart by Hanna Yesionova

Painting, ceramics

"I’ve always been involved in some form of art since I was a child. But when I moved to Madeira, I started to connect more deeply with other artists — and that’s when I discovered ceramics. I began experimenting with it and really fell in love with the process. Now, living in the middle of nature gives me constant inspiration. It motivates me every day to create pieces that reflect that connection to the natural world."

Emanuel Faria

Recycling paper pulp

"It all started when I was studying design at university. I used a lot of paper and cardboard for my projects, and I started to notice the amount of waste I was producing. That got me thinking — how is paper actually recycled?"

Flor de Lis by Lisandra Pereira

Jesmonite

"What first caught my attention was that Jesmonite is water-based — that means no toxic fumes, no need for masks. I was genuinely curious about it. Once I started working with it, I realized how versatile and expressive it is. I didn’t want to stop."

👉Get to know the crafter better

Linear Design by Maria Guadalupe Franco

Digital illustration of Pets

"I have pets and I lost two of them and due to the grief I had to go through I decided to create a webpage as a way of honouring every pet. It is also a way of sharing with the people that they can have a positive memory of their pets, so I decided to create my webpage."

Sandra Criar

Needle felting /wet felting

CLANDESTINA BY Zofia Lisowska

"I'm creating jewellery out of natural materials and also working with alternative photography techniques (pinhole, cyanotype)."

MAMA BEAR BABY TOYS BY Sofia Aguiar

TERRACOTA MADEIRA BY Francisco Teixeira

Ceramics

"My ceramics because it comes from my family, from my father. Even though he was a painter, some years ago he tried ceramics. I'm from Braga, and we have Barcelos nearby, which is a place with a strong tradition in this kind of work."

CRAFT HILLS

Craft and craft theraphy

Pretty Granny's Recycled Textile by IrinaTaltseva

After such great feedback and community energy, we are planning:

A second edition of the Craft Swap this autumn with deeper local collaborations
A craft residency week to co-create sustainable objects with the community
A visual storytelling blog series about crafters who champion sustainability
A Craft Swap Toolkit so other cities can recreate the model