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

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: 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

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