Letters stuffed with treasures from Pattie

Around the end of the summer of 2014 I became penpals with Pattie through instagram. Creating a penpal through instagram was a new fleet for me, and it really hit me on how big the snail mail community became. Pattie is, I believe, my first penpal from Poland so that was very exciting!

Pattie's vast collection of ephemera and stickers is something to awe at. So whenever I have received mail from her there has consistently been a thick bundle of old post cards, stickers, and illustrations. It is simply amazing.

The latest mail that I received from her was my favorite thus far.

The envelope was beautiful and was made from an old map along with a cut out of an illustration of a bird.Inside were multiple envelopes and packets all brimming with treasures to unfold.

The cute brown paper packet held a letter from Pattie inside. The letter was tied up with twine and the whole thing was dainty and a bit magical. I love the things Pattie talked about in this letter. We've been talking about traveling and how we like where we live. It was interesting that she mentioned about the different attitudes that she feels when she goes to different parts of Poland. 

A letter from Pattie (featuring Snowball in the background)

 Among the many components of the parcel Pattie sent, was a simple small envelope with a bright orange sticker. I'm not sure why, but I really loved the simplicity of this envelope.

 Inside the envelope was a barrage of stickers, illustration cut outs, stick on tags! There was also a little black paperclip with a smiley face on it holding all of the stickers together. 

It was hard to find room to place all of the things that Pattie included and take a photo of it. I feel really thankful that she sent so many goodies my way.

Are there any things that have brought smiles to your daily lives? I'd love to hear from you guys!

The Season of Giving

Winters always kind of suck for me. Things get really hectic, things start feeling really sluggish, and things get hella cold. But what seems to cheer me up through the long winter nights is the opportunity to give gifts to others. For some reason, it just really makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside when I can share little gifts with my friends. It makes me happy sending cute things via the postal system. And I like hearing back from my friends and seeing that they enjoyed the little gifts. And that, in and of itself, can lift my spirits back up.

The first gift I sent was out to my good friend Emma. Throughout this year, I have gotten to know much more about Emma through snail mailing. Her letters, always brimming with empathy, coaxes out that sweet spot of letter writing that I feel kinda proud of.  

I sent Emma some daisies that I picked and pressed over the summer and a little surprise gift.

The next gift that I sent was to Arielle. Arielle is someone I met through a tea themed swap at The Postal Society. What she sent to me was absolutely amazing and so creative that I had to send something back to her immediately. Unfortunately, our parcels and letters had bad timing and while we've both sent many letters and parcels throughout the last months, we have yet to get to know each other very well. But hopefully this time it'll work out! 

When I was putting together Arielle's parcel I was super excited and really liked how the daisies turned out. (I guess that's probably why I didn't notice that I spelled Arielle's name wrong until it was long after I sent out her parcel and I was editing these photos. >___> if you're reading this Arielle IM SO SORRY I GOOFED UP T ___ T).

Anyway, I had a lot of fun decorating the little baggie of tea for Arielle and wrapping up a little extra gift for her.

Another gift that I sent out was for my friend Lizzie. Lizzie and I had a slight inside joke about goats since two years ago. When I saw that there were these caramels made from goat's milk I knew I had to send them over to her. 

Here's what they looked like wrapped up.

I also included a couple pressed flowers for Lizzie as well. Since they were so delicate I didn't want to just throw it inside with the card, so I placed them inside a little tea bag.

Anyway, those were some of the gifts that I sent out around the holidays.