OUTGOING: Strawberries

Last month I started writing with Ingrid, whose awesome blog I have been following for ages. We decided to start an abc-snailmail project, which basically means we send eachother themed snailmail following the letters of the alphabet. So, I kicked off the project with the letter A, then Ingrid sends something back with a theme that starts with a B, etcetera. Such an easy idea, but it boosts your creativity like crazy!

Picking a theme with the letter A was easypeasy: the dutch word for strawberries is "aardbeien", my fav summer fruit, so strawberries it was! I was looking forward to trying some new things and materials, let me take you through some pictures of the mini-package I sent her.

Let's start with an overview of my strawberry mail. I like making my own writing sheets, using various kinds of decoration. For this snailmail, I kept it simple with some red and green watercolor and a black fineliner: hello strawberry stationery. Tied together with my all time favorite baker's twine. I also made Ingrid a blank strawberry postcard. I used some scraps of kraft paper and small dots of glue to create a 'weave'-pattern, and on top of that I glued some mini strawberries cut from paper. And then for the red mystery package at the bottom...

...this strawberry garland was inside! These days most of my letters seem to include some kind of crochet project, I can't emphasize how much I love crochet. I cut some strawberries from red paper. Well, at first they looked like a three-year-old's attempt of cutting hearts, but once I drew tiny seeds on them and crocheted the garland and crowns the red shapes started to look like strawberries ;-)

My masterpiece! I made a felt strawberry envelope! I was super excited about this, since it pretty much turned out like the picture in my head. Take into account this was my first time using felt, I gave myself a small pat on the back. It took quite some time to stitch it all together (how do other people make this seem so easy?), but I discovered two major benefits of felt as an envelope: 1) it's super light! So no worries about sending heavy creative snailmail. This whole package, including letter and bits and pieces weighed 42 grams. And 2) it survived its journey very well. Ingrid already wrote a blogpost about it, the envelope made it in one piece.

Now let's all dig into the last strawberries of this summer, enjoy!

Love,
Anne

OUTGOING MAIL: Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower

Although autumn and I didn't start off as the best of friends this year (what's up with that flu, pal?!), autumn always makes a rewarding theme for a letter. This one went to my friend Aurelia in Poland.

I folded a piece of leaf-patterned cardstock in three to make a little folder (notice I've got a thing for folders lately?). Searched my stash for matching paper for writing sheets and mailtag, then I just decided to go for ocher because that's probably my favorite autumn color (ugly word though!) I decorated the writing sheets with some red patterned washi tape and used a dark green fineliner to write my letter. And phewwwww the ocher matched my cardstock! I do not only have a thing for folders, I also have a thing for matching colors and patterns. Might need to see someone about that.

For the mailtag, I used a leaf-patterned piece of paper by Flying Tiger (whew, I'm even matching patterns now!). I used one side of the folder for my mailtag answers and questions, one side to stick the letter (used golden washi tape for that), and I sent Aurelia a nice bag of autumn tea. Which I stuck to the folder with leaf-patterned (sigh...) washi.

One of my penpals sent me some beautiful fake flower leafs a while back, and since the colors matched the theme perfectly I used them as a decoration on the front of the folder. Baker's twine helped put it all together. Baker's twine always helps putting it all together.

My color-matching, pattern-matching heart is beating so fast right now! Hope you enjoyed, please share any links to your own fall-themed snailmail or crafts!

Love,
Anne

OUTGOING MAIL: I'm an open book

My dear penpal Rinske loves reading, so I decided to send her a letter using scraps from an old book. It somehow physically hurts to tear pages from a book (and I don't mean paper cuts, although they hurt too, and by the way, have you ever cut your tongue licking an envelop? Ouch.), but this book is very old and by one of my least favorite dutch writers (Simon Carmiggelt), so I did sleep at night.

I think decorating writing sheets is one of my favorite parts of snailmail. I rarely buy stationery in the store anymore (unless I accidentally step into Paperchase, but I protect myself from this happening very very often). For these writing sheets, I used two sheets of plain white A4 paper, which I cut in half. I tore bits and pieces from my book, and made some fringes. And cute yellow heart stickers from one of my new favorite shops Sostrene Grene (it's a good thing this store is a three-hour drive from Rotterdam!).

Again, bits and pieces and a hole-puncher do the trick! And the yellow cuties ofcourse.

And then for some goodies to send with my letter. I cut two pieces of about 9x5 cm from old bookpages and with double-sided tape I stuck them to white cardstock. I decorated the cards with a quote about reading. For obvious reasons (instant happiness) I made a garland from bookpage scraps, using baker's twine, glue and a flower-hole puncher.

I'm back to experimenting with handlettering again, so I wrote Rinske's name in huge polkadot letters on the envelope. Also pictured: some other snailmail gifts. A sheet of the cute yellow stickers, and decorated white labels (used that flower puncher again).

It went out like this, baker's twine always does the trick doesn't it? I have a thing for bundling up everything I send before putting it in the envie.

That's it, hope you gained some inspiration! Lesson of the day: don't be afraid to tear up an old book every now and then. Oh, and stick yellow hearts everywhere. Just because.

Love,
Anne

OUTGOING MAIL: Squash card

Sometimes you come across a tutorial you want to do over and over and over again. The squash card tutorial below, by Craftinggeek is one of those (subtitles in English are available for this video).

Although I do not speak a word of Spanish at all, the moment I watched this video, I wanted to make this card myself. Again, and again, and again. And so I did.

Although I very much like the idea of a squash card with different segments to decorate, I wanted to write a long letter. I used three squares of green paper, 15cm each side. When you fold the paper, you are left with squares of about 7,5 cm each side. I used washi tape in different pink/green tones and patterns along the sides of the paper, but other than that I did not use any decorations so I had a lot of writing space left.

The folding is SO MUCH FUN! Seriously, when everything fits together, great feeling! Anyone can make this, I have two left hands and managed to get it right at the first try. Now try applauding yourself with two left hands.

Anyway, since I did not have any patterned/colored cardstock that I liked enough for this project, for the squash cards' covers I cut two 9x9cm squares from plain cardboard. When I glued them onto the 7,5x7,5cm letter, I had nice edges of about 1,5cm.

As you can see, I left the inside of the covers blank, just because I like the natural look of brown cardstock. I did decorate the outside though, with cherry-patterned paper. It has the same colors as the inside of the squash card; green and pink.

I finished this cute little project with a light pink label and some bakers twine. This also made me realise I probably need bakers twine in all possible colors. I love how this squash card turned out, and I will definitely make many, many more of these in the (near) future.

Love,

Anne