Mail Monday

Happy Monday everyone! Did you have a good weekend?

I have to say that it's been extremely hard to stay indoors and concentrate on anything when the weather is so incredibly nice. Yesterday was +20C/68F and I was outside wearing a t-shirt! (I also wore pants, so I wasn't being inappropriate or anything) I really needed to recharge my batteries, especially as it seems I will need to stay indoors most of this week. More about what I'm working on a little later!

Right now I am getting a lot of new projects coming my way, so please excuse me for posting a bit slower at least this week.

Despite of all the work, I do try to stay afloat on my snailmail! You should always have at least a little spontaneous craftiness going on!

Outgoing

The first outgoing is a larger, hand-decorated envelope. It's a surprise delivery, so I won't mention who it is for. I felt like I wanted to try out something a bit different. This was done on Saturday night, while watching SNL, so it didn't seem like that much work... And, it was fun too! Wouldn't recommend trying this if you're in a hurry though...


Another outgoing was packed in a bright yellow envelope and decorated with some washi tape. It might, or might not have been decorated this way so I could try out my new tapes...

Incoming

I got this awesome handmade postcard this week! I just love the collage. Thank you Lynn!

So, do you guys have a busy week ahead?

Friday Inspiration - Notebooks

Have I ever told you guys how much I love notebooks? I actually make them myself, but still keep acquiring more. I've recently been working on my notebook-building techniques and I can't wait to share the final results with you soon. In the meantime, let's drool over some awesome paper-goodness!

Source: melissamercier.com via Melissa Mercier on Pinterest

Source: laprochainefois.blogspot.com via Aline on Pinterest

Source: 25.media.tumblr.com via Amanda on Pinterest

Source: api.ning.com via Zaz on Pinterest

Source: poolga.com via XiaoMei on Pinterest

Source: designcrushblog.com via Amy on Pinterest

Source: anthropologie.com via Aaron on Pinterest

Do you use notebooks?

Organizing - The best way to keep your mail supplies in order

Sometimes it's the simplest ideas that are the most effective.

The problem: All the small items, like address labels, priority mail labels, decorative stickers and most of all, postage stamps, are all over my desk. I can't find the ones that I need if I'm working on something else at the table. I used to keep them in a box, but then had to go through an entire stack of things when working on something.

The solution:



A photo album. I can't believe I didn't even think of this before. I actually bought this album a long while ago for another project. I ended up never doing that project, so it's been sitting on my shelf all this time, taking up space.

I organized it to have the large sticker sheets of postage stamps* in the first few pages in the front. Then there are mail related stickers like priority mail stickers and address labels. Then we have other "office supplies" type stickers (square and round blank labels, highlighter tabs, file organizers, color-coded dots, etc) and the end of the album is reserved to all sorts of random stickers, like the silly Korean ones.

I feel there are two major benefits to this; I have all the materials in one place, so 1) I can easily browse through what I have and 2) I won't have to look for things when I'm sending something out.

Do you have a great organizing tip to share? I'd love to hear about it!

*) I have another solution for non-sticker stamps. I'll share that with you next time!

Mail on Monday

Happy Monday! It's everyone's favorite day! (No? It's not?)

For me, last week was... Well, really, really long. There was a whole lot going on and not all of it great. I am hoping this week will be much, much better. I'm actually fairly sure it will be. The weather is beautiful, sunshine and not a cloud in the sky. A smidgen on the chillier side still, but not too bad. At +9C/48F it's definite sneaker weather. When I can wear my Converse, I'm one happy gal. It won't be  much longer now that I can bust out my nice heels too!

Let's take a peek at the mailbox:

Outgoing

As I mentioned here and here, I've been working on some new items for my shop. The thing is that I don't just make things for sale, I love everything I make! To the point that I actually use the things I make. These envelopes are all a part of the sets I made this weekend, sometimes I just like them so much that I have to use a few myself before putting them up for sale...

The first two are made from the pages of a book about ChiChi the Panda. It's a photo book about ChiChi moving to a new zoo. There were a few photos of some of the other animals at the zoo, so that's why there was a photo of the deer. I love the quality of the paper! And I think the envelopes turned out awesome. I'm kind of tempted to keep a few more for myself. Maybe there will be a few left over when I start packing these... There will be a few sets available in the shop soon!

The last one of the envelopes is from a 1970s pastry book. The photos were just too awesome! They combine really yummy looking desserts with 70s photo props. How cool is that!

Incoming

The first incoming is a construction-y (I feel any word can be made into an adjective by adding a Y at the end) letter from Susanne! It's awesomely committed to the theme, the envelope is made from a page with pictures of tools, the stamps show kids dressed up in construction site appropriate gear and it's closed with, you guessed it, duct tape. Awesome! Thanks Susanne!

And the second incoming letter from last week is from Laura, who sadly just took a break from her blog. She can now be found over at LEP. I'm glad I get to still read your awesome thoughts on matters of life and death, like the zombie apocalypse and fountain pens! Thanks Laura!

So, are you planning on sending some mail this week?

Sunday musings - more paper

I spent a good part of yesterday just chopping up paper. I have so many gorgeous things I've found and rescued over the years, but they tend to be forgotted and left unused. The whole point why I look for these treasures is to give them a new life as something else. The idea is not to just bring them home and let them pile up.

So I started the daunting task of slowly chipping away the mountain of beautiful paper. I have a few small boxes full of paper snippets. Things I've fallen for for whatever reason, saved them and here they are, unused. I talked about this before, but as I often have the tendency to do, talking doesn't really fix the situation, actions do.

I finally started figuring out what to do with all this. I finished the envelopes with the pandas and pies from earlier in the week. I then started putting together paper packs. I made these awesome ephemera packs in black and white. They have as many different kinds of things as I could pack in them; book pages from the 1950s, vintage playing cards, illustrations and photos clipped from books, postage stamps and other bits and bobs. I'm quite happy how they turned out. There's a few available for $4 per pack. Each pack has 20+ pieces.

There's also packs of vintage flower and plant illustrations available for $3 per pack. Each pack contains at least 20 vintage illustrations. They are from gardening books from the 1970s, printed on high quality glossy paper. 

You might have also noticed there is a new link at the top of this site, Vintage Paper Packs. This goes to another store of mine, where you can purchase some of my items. I'm hoping to start adding more and more vintage paper and other finding to that shop as time goes by. Right now, however, The packs are available in my Etsy shop as well.

I have to make a confession. When I was putting together those packs of paper, I actually remembered the ideas I had for most of the paper. I've saved those pieces over a long period of time and kept them with specific projects in mind. I'm not quite sure when I thought I'd get the time to make all these projects though...

Anyhow, paper packs: yay or nay?