Outgoing postcards

It’s been a while since I’ve sent many postcards… I had a real block on letter writing recently, I’ve got a stack of replies to write and I just can’t get the words down. But here’s a few postcards that will go out tomorrow. I decided if I want to come home to nice post I’ll have to send more!

The cards on the left are off to China via Postcard United – to someone who likes flags, and someone who likes local views. That’s a card from my hometown of Shrewsbury 🙂

The cards on the right are going out to Russia via Postcrossing. The Jane Austen quote is to someone who likes anything which always makes a hard choice of what to send. The Postcrosser who likes yoga was easier to pick a card for!

The card on the left I’m sending to my Dad, my big nut brown hare (for anyone who knows ‘Guess how much i love you’ 😊).

The ‘once upon a time’ card is for a swap-bot swap for the first and last lines of a current book. I’m currently re-reading one of my favourite books – ‘Saving CeeCee Honeycutt’ by Beth Hoffman. It’s a story about a young girl who loses her mother and goes to live with an Aunt in Georgia where she rediscovers how to be happy.

And the carved stones are off to a postcard pal in Taiwan 👋😀

I actually got the addresses at least a week ago so I’m still struggling with getting post ready to send, but it feels good to be sending them out to start their journeys.

It’s almost February!

And February is the month of Lettermo and InCoWriMo. There doesn’t seem to be a huge difference in them, except that Lettermo gives you Sunday’s off, so I usually end up doing a mash-up of both. And this year the Lettermo website seems to be more up to date.

January has felt like a long month and now it’s suddenly over, so I’m not very prepared… So unprepared I just finished writing all the replies I owe and will start the month with not much to catch up on! Which might be a good thing really, with an imminent but so far undated house move I imagine this month I’ll be writing a lot about packing boxes or be too busy packing boxes…

Note to self: don’t pack the stationery too early 🙂

I’m also hoping it will inspire me to update the blog more often. The last year had felt like hard work but I’m hoping 2018 will be better in lots of ways.

So, anyone want a letter?

(Postcards) travelling home the long way round

I’ve been participating in the Swapbot ‘Adventures of the travelling postcard’ for a while now. I suspect that my original card is long lost but I love seeing where the postcards have been. The last cards I received came with a philosophical travelling note too. The note is now on its 4th journey! If I’m not going far for a little while, at least I can send other things on journeys 🙂

These two cards are following the same path but will end up so far apart

One card will eventually go home to Germany, the other card should soon fill up with names and head home to USA!

And all part of the adventure, the cards were rather damp when I received them so they look well travelled!

The first day of advent (calendars)

I did a couple of advent calendar swaps again this year. Everyday becomes a bit more fun with little gifts to open in the morning 🙂 Obviously I haven’t seen much of the calendars I received yet – I’m resisting the temptation to open everything at once! but I’m pleased with what I sent out so I hope my swap partners are enjoying their advent too.

Full advent calendar, sent to Australia:

I rearranged some of the order after I’d taken the pictures, but the calendar includes note pads, note cards, stickers, craft items, coasters, and a bit of chocolate. I also included a little note for each day, the first advent calendar swap I did a few years ago included notes and it made the calendar extra special, so I try to do the same now.

And of course it all got wrapped up nicely 🙂

The second advent calendar I swapped was slightly different. It’s made up of 4 swaps of 6 items, with a theme for each set. I can’t quite remember now which swap went to who, but I think it ended up mainly within Europe.

Random flat items:

Possibly not all technically flat, but I sent 2 swaps to the same person so it was never going to be a slim package! Includes fabric, beads, stickers, decorative paper, and a clear stamp.

It’s only just December but I’ve already used up several rolls of wrapping paper so far!

I also sent the 6 pairs of socks swap to this swap partner, but I forgot to take a picture before I wrapped them!

Kitchen items:

Cake decorations, cupcake kit, a tea towel, cookie cutters and felt coasters. All very festive and hopefully useful.

Cards with gifts:

I raider my Christmas card stash for an extra festive feel 🙂 Surely everyone has some cards left over from previous years?! Gifts included bath salts, craft items, a face mask, and a bit of tea. I tried to brighten up the plain envelopes too 🙂

I hope the recipients are enjoying starting to open their gifts. I definitely had fun this morning – I got penguin gift tags and an owl key cover 🙂 I can’t wait to see what I get tomorrow!

Happy Mail supplies swap

I feel like I haven’t blogged for a while… I’ve been struggling with low energy and feeling a bit overwhelmed by all the things I think I should be doing – getting all my post organised, written, and sent; sewing a large birthday present; my scrapbooking is 6 months behind; preparing for my next holiday; so many things I want to sort out and tidy up; and then just all the things that I need to keep on top of in basic living… Most evenings I do very little of that and then the weekends fly by and there’s a whole new week to deal with! Maybe at some point I’ll feel like I’ve caught up with myself.

I’ve still been doing a few swaps. It’s amazing how much time can vanish when preparing the perfect envelope of goodies! I’ve been thinking recently it might be nice to have a penfriend who does more mail art, I’ve had a few ideas for more creative letters but no one to really try them out on… I don’t want my existing penfriends to feel they have to reciprocate but I do really enjoy receiving more creative post. I’m not entirely sure where to find such a correspondent, the methods I’ve used before have introduced me to lovely people but with more normal letters. Anyone have any ideas?

A recent swap was for “happy mail supplies”, I sent items thinking one way and received from someone thinking differently…both valid by the swap and it wasn’t profile based but I’ll admit I was slightly disappointed – I don’t do a lot of papercrafting so I’m not sure I’ll do much with the smaller bits of card I received.

Sent to UK – I can send a lot more for less postage within the UK so I didn’t have to worry about it being flat 🙂

Watercoloured envelope

Stickers, envelopes, note cards, postcards, sticky notes, paper clips, patterned fabric tape, and a shaped peg. And a flow magazine journal because they listed it as a magazine they liked – I bought them because they looked fun and I like the magazine too. but then I never used them…

Received from Chile:

A fun envelope and bright little parcel 🙂 And yes the confetti went everywhere!

Tags, decorations, bits of card and paper, various types of stickers, decorative bits and pieces. All bright and fun but not stuff I typically use. It could be good to have something unusual to play around with, I might use some bits in a few mail art ideas…

I sent another couple of envelopes of nice things out recently, just need to wait and see what I receive next 🙂

Lettermo 21st – 23rd

I’ve been writing, I’ve just been bad at updating…

A few days of incoming post:

3 of these are from the Swap-bot ‘happy mail all month’ swap – a colouring card with flower seeds, a selection of stationery items, and a postcard of a wooden bridge apparently common to certain areas of USA. The cat face card also comes from USA as part of the ‘postcard roulette’ swap.

Outgoing:

21st – I made this scrapbooked art letter thing I have forgotten the name of a while ago but never figured out who to send it to… the ‘happy mail all month’ swap seemed appropriate 🙂

22nd – a letter to a penfriend in Germany

23rd – I didn’t feel up to letter writing this evening although I have 2 I want to get out over the weekend… today I’m sending a postcard to Italy through Postcard United. She likes UNESCO sites so I’m sending Strutts Mill in Belper.

Lettermo day 2

There’s 2 postcards heading to USA today. The quote card is off on adventures with the swap-bot travelling postcard swap – I can’t wait to see where it goes! The camera and coffee card is also for a swap-bot swap, the first item I’m sending for the happy mailbox all month. I’ve been having fun sorting out other things to send throughout February too 🙂

2 days in and it’s going well!

The day in pictures – 14th January 2017

I put together a bit of happy mail for a Swap-bot ‘send something to make me smile’ swap. Hopefully an envelope of goodies with a card will do the trick…

The shadow of holly on the bus shelter. Today the sun came out, I went into town, and again failed to buy any new boots.

The start of a new quilt! I’m planning to make the Star Light Star Dark quilt from Quilt Habit for someone’s big birthday. The bottom section will be orange, shading to red then purple.

In order to tidy things up, it is first required that I sort the mess into piles on the floor – Elinor tidying theory then says to leave them there to fall over until I get so fed up of it all I finish the job!

And now on to letter writing!

October’s month of happy mail

I really enjoy month long swaps, I can look into all of my swap partners interests and find lots of cards and items that I hope they’ll like. I usually select everything at the start of the month and have it ready to go, one of the best parts is matching cards and gifts to someones profile. And it’s a guaranteed series of things arriving in my letter box! The requirements for this swap were to send 7 items over the month, including one letter. It’s all randomly assigned but last month I got really lucky with my partners. I could find lots of things in my stash to send, and received some amazing post that definitely made me happy 🙂

Sent to USA:

I started with a card full of inspiring and fun quotes, with a few flat gifts. I sent 3 postcards over the month – one local view, one fun quote, and one colour changing patterned postcard. I wrote the required letter, sent a small shiny card with a few cheerful words, and finished with an envelope of happy mail – cute and colourful stickers, postcards and envelopes. And my swap partner loved it all!

Received from Switzerland:

I was so lucky to have a really creative swap partner. I received lots of fun and interesting things over the month. It started with a birthday card and some fun little gifts. I then received two envelopes numbered 2 and 3 – it turned out to be a set of 3 cards that make one picture sent from different locations on the same day, that can’t be read until all 3 cards are lined up because the message goes across all of the cards! The first two cards arrived on the Saturday, but I had to wait until Monday to read them 🙂 I’ve displayed the fantasy Eiffel tower on my bedroom wall. I also received a flower skull card for Halloween, a postcard from Tenerife sent while my swap partner was on holiday, and possibly the  best thing ever posted – a personal art gallery! It’s a concertina style ‘building’ full of pictures with tags explaining why she likes that painting or artist. I’ve got lots of new art to discover wandering around my private gallery 🙂 I’ve also received a lot of beautifully decorated envelopes, I’m not sure what to do with them but it seems a shame to just throw them away…

I enjoyed this swap so much I’ve signed up to the December Christmas version too!

Incoming postcards – time to consult an atlas

I was just think that Postcard United wasn’t much different from Postcrossing except the clunkier website, when a couple of much more unusual cards arrived 🙂 Along with a few from travelling postcard pals and wandering family it’s been a proper global postal experience opening my letter box!

From top left: my Turkish postcard pal was visiting Athens and sent me this card of traditional Greek things; my Dad was in Spain (and wearing shorts while my extremities froze off, not fair!); the beautiful and mysterious looking girl is from a postcard pal in Russia, and I really like it although I have no clues about who or what it’s of; the lovely pink building is the Nassau public library, all the way from the Bahamas – first ever card from there 🙂

And another first, a postcard and bank note from Guyana celebrating the anniversary of their independence. I’ll admit to checking the map for this one – north eastern South America if your geography is also lacking a little south of the equator 🙂 I’m slowly and accidentally acquiring a foreign note collection, and I’ve checked the exchange rate – $50 is worth £0.20! Presumably it has more value in Guyana? Or possibly not if they’re posting them out to random postcarders… And I’ll take the stamps off the envelope and add them to my coffee table stamp display, it needs a bit of attention after moving house…

Who knows what and where I might receive next!