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

INSPIRATION: 3x flipbook

The past few weeks were all about flipbooks! I have actually made three of them, all very different but all very (if I might say so) lovable. Prepare for a picture overload...

These cute booklets are the best for using up scraps from other crafty projects, for these three booklets just to sum up a few I have used scraps of cardboard, patterned paper, doilies, wallpaper samples, yarn and plastic bags from stickers and postcards. One might think my craft desk is one crazily cleaned up place right now, but unfortunately nothing is less true.

Anyway, the first booklet I made went to Mariska. Probably the most colorful one, I have used so many different kinds of patterns!

And some pictures of the inside, a booklet filled with small cards and bags, paper goodies and of course my letter to Mariska.

The booklet I sent to Vikkie in Norway was kind of vintage/brocante style. Not really my 'signature style' but I loved to play with it for a bit.

A peek inside: lots of different flower patterns, shades of pink and gold.

My booklet for Rinske is a mix of this snailmail folder I made last year, and a flipbook. Bright pink and mint green, always a winning combination (and my favorite!), paired with some bright hints of yellow and gold.

As you can see, by making a folder I could stick my letter and some paper goodies inside the booklet, and for the 'flip effect' I simply used a small patterned paper bag and some washi.

Bonus: on my Instagram you will find the flipbooks in 'live action'. Please do tag me in your pictures if you decide to make a booklet like this yourself, I would love to see all of your creations!

Love,
Anne

OUTGOING: August

August was a good month for snailmail. First of all, I started writing with four new penpals, which is so much fun! I love getting to know some new awesome people from across the globe (some close, some very very far away) through letter writing. Secondly: SUMMERTIME! I wrote a lot of letters outside (preferably sipping some Sauvignon Blanc, just because). Every now and then I received some curious stares from our neighbours, still not sure if those were about the amounts of washi or the amounts of white wine. And, best of all: I started blogging again. I have absolutely no idea how often I will start posting, but fact is I missed blogging and taking pictures of the beautiful letters I receive. My intention is to at least try to post a recap of incoming and outgoing mail every month, and the post you are reading right now is a good start!

Vikkie

Ok, to be honest: this one was sent on July 27th :-) My first letter to my new penpal Vikkie from Norway! I went a little crazy with the washi tape and used some nice patterned Flying Tiger paper, always a winner.

Strawberries

My new penpal Ingrid received the first letter of our abc-snailmail project: A for Aardbeien (the dutch word for strawberries). If you'd like to have a closer look, check the whole thing out here. I am looking forward to her B-themed letter already!

Friendship blanket
One of my Instagramfriends Louisette (check out her Instagram, her pictures are adorable!) is making a friendship blanket. She is collecting granny squares people send her, and I decided to join in. Such a fun and creative project! I am considering to start making a friendship blanket myself, I absolutely love the idea! If you would like to send me a granny square, please let me know!

Could not send this without a nice note obviously, so I made her a simple card as well. I am already looking forward to see Louisette's finished blanket!

What did you send last month?

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: 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: Handmade with love

Next to snailmail, I am a huge fan of crochet. I crocheted some larger projects, like blankets and bags, but (as many crocheters will recognize) I also have TONS of unfinished projects, piles and piles of granny squares and tiny bits and pieces I found on Pinterest and wanted to give a try. So I thought to myself, why not combine those two granny hobbies of mine and send some crochet around the world?

Oh yes, I do admit: no crochet in the picture above. But, when I was going to send some yarn in an envelope, the writing paper had to match, right? Probably the most lazy form of cross stitch in the history of embroidery, because I guess even my friend's 3-year-old could poke holes in a piece of paper and pull some colored thread through, but still! I like the effect of brightly colored thread on kraft paper.

As you can see, I did a simple cross stitch in pink, and an arrow 'pattern' in lime. I also used one of my favorite hot pink pens, it's a Pilot Choose in color 07. Go get one of these, they write like a charm and come in yummy colors.

Back to the main topic of this post: crochet. I glued a pink crochet flower to a kraft label to send as a tiny gift. Granny squares also make great envelope gifts; they're light in weight, and I have seriously never seen a granny square that didn't look cute. For this one, I used this pattern I found on Ravelry once, it looks harder than it actually is. Don't let the long text with sl st's, dc's and sc's scare you! Oh, and I made an envelope out of light blue "Made with love" paper, thought this went pretty well with the 'theme' of my letter.

And that's it! A light-weight letter with pretty accents, hope you like it! I sent this one off to my new penpal Jane, I am looking forward to her response!

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: Extended postcard to Bosnia



Hello lovely readers, it's been a while! After some time of radio silence, while I was relaxing my ass off on the wonderful island of Lanzarote, I'm back and here to stay! We had an amazing holiday! How have you been?

I came home to a very happy mailbox after our holiday! Among all of your lovely letters, was a very cool postcard of Sarajevo from my Bosnian penpal Amra. I brought some tourist cards back from Lanzarote, and wanted to send one of these to Amra. But instead of just putting a plain one in an envelope with my letter, I decided to put a little more effort into it.

Okay, I started selecting pictures for this blog post when I already sent my card away with Mr. Postman. Not such a good idea. Why not? I seriously forgot to take a proper picture of the front of my Lanzarote card. I was like "Are you freaking kidding me?" Nope, turns out I was not. This one above is the best one I have. You have to trust me on my word that Lanzarote is a beautiful place.

Anyway, the whole reason I am writing this post, is to show you that it's really easy to create some extra writing space on your postcards (remember?). I used two blue A4 sheets, adjusted the width to my postcard, stuck them together with double-sided tape and folded them like a harmonica. Yes, it's so easy I was seriously reconsidering this post.

Since  I did not use washi tape for a whole week (I nearly started peeling off random things), I obviously had to use it on this letter. By the way, you won't believe what happened to my previous letter to Amra! It ended up on BARBADOS of all places! Because you know, it was addressed to Bosnia & Herzegovina, which is so close to Barbados and sounds very much alike.

Well, I finished my letter off with some dark blue cotton thread and a label that nicely matched the theme of my letter and the postcard. Hopefully Amra will like the card!

I'm very happy to be back, crafting away, taking pictures, blogging. Expect some new blogposts real soon!

Love,
Anne

OUTGOING MAIL: Birthday booklet for Silvia

Something TERRIBLE happened to me last week. Somehow, I forgot my penpal Sylvia's birthday! To make up for it, I made her a happy birthday booklet in pink and teal. Let's have a look!

So, I took a piece A4 cardstock with a teal patterned outside and a blank inside. I folded the paper in half widthwise, there we have our booklet. I decorated the inside of the booklet with paper; on the left page I used light blue blank paper, on the right page I used patterned Flying Tiger paper. I made a pocket from plain white paper for the left page, to put some gifts in, and I stuck a transparent bag for my letter onto the right page.

For my letter, I used a page from a Flow notebook that came with the magazine once. It's naturel colored checked paper, the thin lines are pink. I used pink and teal washi from HEMA to make the writing sheet super happy, and I wrote my letter with a teal fineliner.

A close up look of the way I used the washi tape. And proof of my terrible mistake: writing my penpal a day after her birthday.

As mentioned, on the left page I made a little pocket for gifts. Some time ago, I received gorgeous polaroid-like cards, and those pictures are definitely birthday-worthy! I also made Silvia some personalized address labels on my typewriter.

I went a little overboard with the decorations. Like I mentioned in a previous blog post, I have a thing for bunting. So I made a bunting with Silvia's name and stuck it from one side of the booklet to the other with pink washi tape.

Just to sum up some other things I used for decorating the inside of the booklet: I made fringe out of paper I gave rainbow colors with watercolor paint, there's an overload of washi tape (but hey, what's new about that), some kraft paper flowers, watercolor heart-shaped stickers and a light pink label with an awesome birthday quote: "Keep calm and be crazy, laugh and live it up, because this is the oldest you've been and the youngest you'll ever be."

I kept the outside a little less over the top: just two watercolor heart-shaped stickers and a ribbon. Because, you know, ribbons are just awesome. I reinforced the fold of the booklet with pink polkadot fabric tape.

As I said, ribbons are awesomeballs.

Hope you liked this peek into the booklet I sent Sylvia!

Love,
Anne