OUTGOING: C is for Cuba

Hello dear readers! I hope you have had a splendid New Year's Eve and I wish you all a very inspirational and creative 2016!

It has been a while, in between work, work and work (and some more work) I made the trip of my life: in November me and the boyfriend went to Cuba for three weeks! So obviously, my next letter in the chain of the ABC-snailmail project I am doing with Ingrid had to be themed: C is for Cuba. Yup, took me some time to make and write everything...but hey, that's what it's called snailmail for, right?

This snailmail was more of a long letter and sharing my travel stories and experiences with Ingrid kind of thing, rather than a artsyfartsy crafty package. I printed six of my favorite pictures from our trip, which I used to decorate some writing sheets. I basically took Ingrid on a tiny Cuba-tour through my stories, and told her about weird, funny and beautiful things that happened to us during our time in Cuba.

I also wrote Ingrid a letter, which actually was not really about Cuba but more of a reply to her last letter. It became quite long, like I already mentioned...quite some time passed since I last wrote to her! You have to trust me on my word that my writing sheets were quite fancy. I collected all kinds of Cuba-related illustration from the internet and printed them on some nice paper. In my enthusiasm I closed the envelope before taking pictures... Oh, the Che Guevara photo is one I made in Havana (quite the obligatory picture when you're there, I wonder how many tourists took the same one!) I stuck the photo into one of those nice Hema mini cards, on the inside it says "Hola!"

And obviously there had to be baker's twine and some white pen on kraft paper, right? Plus, I used all kinds of colored paper, which actually has a thought behind it: Cuba is the most colorful place I have ever visited, literally and figuratively speaking. Its people, its architecture, its history and its nature...just WOW.

What was your favorite travel destination ever?

Love,
Anne

INCOMING: B is for Batman

About a month ago, Ingrid and I started our ABC-snailmail project. I sent Ingrid a strawberry themed package, and a couple of days ago it was my turn to find this envelope in my very happy mailbox!

Yup, that's right! I received this super cool Batman snailmail! Such an original theme, and I just LOVE the combination of black, white and yellow.

When you follow Ingrid's blog, you will know she is the uncrowned queen of homemade stationery. Her blog bursts with great tips for making your own stationery. For this snailmail, she printed her own Batman paper for the gift envelope, and I am guessing the cool Batman sticker is homemade to. And confetti is always a good idea.

Speaking of homemade stationery and cute paper gifts, these Batman quote labels are super cool! She packed three of them in the snailmail package.

I am already contemplating my C-theme, I have got some big (Batman) shoes to fill!

Love,
Anne

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: Long letters

Hello you beautiful readers! It's been a while! Life kind of got in the way, I will be using a brand new mailbox very soon! Yes that's right, me and the boyfriend found ourselves a lovely new apartment, yay for that! (I am sorry for the exclamation mark overload, it's just that I'm THAT excited) The past few days have been about browsing both online and offline stores for awesome pieces of furniture, choosing laminate and the colors we want our walls to have, instead of paper craft and blogging.

Another thing that got in the way was stupid Autumn again, it's getting dark so early these days! When I come home from work, it's already too dusky to take proper pictures. So this has to wait until the weekends, and it's not really like I spend the whole weekend at home waiting for the perfect moment to take pictures of my mail.

Anyway, that's enough excuses for one blog post! The past weeks I have been into long letter writing very much. I always (ALWAYS) send my penpals a proper letter, to me that's what mail is all about. Ofcourse, the paper craft, the washi tape decorations and the bits and pieces you send are lots of fun, but really it's about writing. At least, to me it is.

On the other hand, I love sending things that make the postal system a happier place, so why not combine the two right? Lovely long letters and pretty handmade stationery with lots and lots and lots of washi. For Rinske and Joeylyn, I made a small 'envelope package', which actually is nothing more than two envelopes in different (preferably contrasting) colors glued together. I used the one envelope for my letter, and the other for some matching gifts and handmade goodies.

Like these two handmade postcards, so much fun to make! I have been very much into handlettering these days. It's so relaxing! I can use lots of practice (I am actually considering a calligraphy course!) but I am seeing some improvement, whoop!

Hopefully this gives you some inspiration for an easy but fun snailmail project. It's also a good way to prevent yourself from overloading your envelopes, just use two of them! I like the contrast of a plain kraft envelope and a brightly colored one, but it's so versatile: you can go wild with patterns as well.

Tell me: do you prefer long or short letters? Or maybe a combination, like a medium/short letter and some extra notes, mailtags and lists to go with your letter? What do you write about with your penpals?

I am happy I am back to blogging! Is there anything you would LOVE to read about on my blog? My head is almost overflowing with both creative and blog ideas and this weekend I have taken and edited lots of photos so visit back soon!

Love,
Anne