Wednesday and Holiday Mail

It's that time of the day when I become mostly useless.  I needed to take a break from work and realized that I hadn't tended to my blog lately, so here I am!  Hello, dear readers! (the few of you who are still left, that is)

I worked hard to get Halloween mail out to everyone, and I thought I did a decent job, but this weekend I found a stack of envelopes I'd stamped and addressed, but hadn't sent.  Oops.  Hopefully some of you still have the same address next year!  It seems a bit late to send it out now, since Thanksgiving is only a week away.

So, my goal is to do better with the Christmas mail I'm sending out.   I haven't really decided what I'm sending out yet, so I suppose I need to do that first!  But anyway, the goal is to actually send it all out before Christmas, or at least before New Year's.  I guess I'm just not a particularly speedy crafter. 

How early do you start on your holiday mail?  Do you have a system?  I'd love to hear about it!


Okay, back to work. 

~ Anne

Sandy

Hurricane Sandy is here, and should be around for another day or more. For now I have power, although 100,000 people around the state don't already. Even if we lose power at least our home is safe.  My plan? Catch up on my letter pile!! Hopefully some of you will get letters from me as a result of this storm.

To everyone on the east coast in the US: stay safe and dry!

~ Anne

Blogger's Neglect

Hello everyone!  Or hello to those of you who still read my blog, despite how quiet it's been for the past month or two.

I was sitting at work and wondering what mail would be waiting for me when I get home this evening, which eventually reminded me that I have a blog about mail!!

My excuse: I've been busy with work and school.  And I'm working on fun Halloween-themed mail to send out later this week.  By the way, for those of you outside the US - do you have a version of Halloween?  I'm wondering if my pen pals in Canada, Germany, etc should be on my Halloween mailing list.  (Side note: it's amazing [read: embarrassing] how US-centric my world is.  Despite the fact that I listen to international news stories I really don't know nearly enough about other countries. Although I guess the fact that I want to change that means I'm ahead of lots of people, right? Maybe?)

Anyway, I'm curious to learn about fall holiday traditions in other places - feel free to leave a comment or let me know in your next letter :)

Back to work...

~ Anne

Giveaway Winner Post

Happy Monday everyone!

I just wanted to share that the lovely Aniko has posted about the washi tape she won from my giveaway!  Link is here.

She is also having a giveaway of her own that you may want to enter :)

Hope you all have a great week.

~ Anne

Looking for tips... making envelopes

Hello everyone,

I've been busy with work and school, but I'm also (slowly) catching up on my mail pile!  As I was responding to one of my pen pals yesterday (shout out to Meg!) I was thinking about making envelopes.  As some of you may know, I don't usually make my own envelopes.  Occasionally I use bags from Starbucks, but I've only ever made one envelope.  It arrived at its destination safely, but I covered it in tape just to be sure. 

So, the question is... what are your tips for making envelopes?  Is it just about practicing? 

I was looking online, and Paper Source has templates that look useful.. I also remember seeing a wooden one somewhere online, but I'm not sure where. 

For the one and only envelope I made, I just unfolded an envelope I already had, and traced around that.  Of course, it was sort of sloppy and then I wasn't too successful at folding the sides over.  Perhaps lesson #1 is to use a ruler? 

Any tips and tricks are appreciated.  I'm hoping to make some fun envelopes for the holidays - time to start practicing!

Hope everyone had a lovely weekend, and happy crafting!

~ Anne

Mail Musings

Yesterday one of my expired Postcrossing postcards finally reached its destination (Russia), 134 days later! It makes me wonder how long it used to take for letters to go halfway around the world, before the days of jet airplanes and computer scanners and all of those great things. People talk about 'snail mail' like it's soooo slow, but it's all a matter of perspective, don't you think? 

I like that snail mail helps me slow life down in a world of instant everything. (Hungry? Instant dinner! Bored? Instant entertainment!) I like the convenience of technology as much as the next person (I'm writing this on my iPad after all) but it feels like we've lost sight of just how fortunate to have all of these things people used to work so hard for and wait patiently for. Even our snail mail :)

Hopefully this doesn't sound too preachy! Just my random thoughts on a Monday morning.

Have a great week!

~Anne

Giveaway Winner!

Thank you to everyone who entered my 5k giveaway! 

The winner is Aniko!

Since this giveaway was so popular I may have to do another one soon. I still have two sets of mini washi tapes left... :-)

~Anne

Eye Candy {Anthro}

So, as many of you may already know, I love Anthropologie.  A few paper creations caught my eye while I was browsing their website recently...

Rotary phone:

Sewing machine:

And, perhaps my favorite, typewriter:

If I had $1,000,000...

~ Anne