track 018 - spring?

You'd think that March is a spring month already... well, if you live in Finland, think again! We had a snow storm in Oulu yesterday and when me and my boyfriend walked to the bus stop around 7pm to make our way to my grandmother's place, we had to do so with snow up to our ankles. But the dinner we had at my grandmother's place - spinach soup, shrimp and herb salmon and goat cheese salad, with ice cream and berries for dessert - was totally worth it.

My own personal Lettermo has reached #13 already! Since I'm planning to send 24 items, like I would've in the month of February, I'm past halfway! Now I'm just waiting to get some replies... any replies... my mailbox is so sad. I did get some envelopes I had ordered, but it's not really the same.

My Lettermo #11 was a private swap called Fancy Mail with Stefanie on Swapbot. The term 'fancy mail' only stood for mail art and a short letter... but the fancy part stuck with me and that's how it ended up like this. Very wedding invitation-esque:

My numbers 12 and 13 were replies to letters I have received. Caroline first wrote to me through Sendsomething, and Marijke did Lettermo last month! These took quite a long time for me to reply to, but hey, patience is a virtue. ;) Both envelopes are from the batch I ordered from fastrunningfox on Etsy, I really love the colours! The yellow is way more yellow in nature, but the picture I took killed it for some reason. (By the way, I love using Korean stickers because they're full of hilarious stuff... check out the flag in the France - sticker for example and then compare it to the colours on the left of it - that's how they're supposed to be! I guess the mentality for the sticker was "as long as the colours are there, it's OK." I also have a sticker that says "Go fine yourself" - I think the original was 'find'.)

track 015 - in and out

I've had several nights of bad sleep (nightmares and waking up constantly) so my brain feels like pudding at the moment. Therefore I won't even try to write anything interesting... a picture is worth 1000 words, right?

Incoming:

Outgoing (Lettermo 4-7):

A card to Sofie via Sendsomething, in two envelopes - a see-through red one and a smaller one made out of a magazine page.

A reply to Romy in Austria. Nature themed (ish).

To Nicole in U.S.A.

This is actually both in- and outcoming: on the left you can see a card sent to me by Helena in Japan (she was doing Lettermo, too!), and on the right is my reply.

That's that! Has your mailbox been happy lately?

track 011 - bits and pieces

So, I said there wouldn't be any more mail pictures unless I received something awesome... well, I did receive something awesome! I tend to order quite a lot of stuff from Etsy and eBay, and it's always lovely to see an envelope from a person whose name you recognize but don't remember what you ordered! So, today I received my sticker order from Hong Kong and an ephemera kit and lovely extra goodies (a post card and some cute stickers) from Wreckthisgirl (that was fast! I ordered it last Saturday!).

Fun fact: I was actually going to enclose a sheet or two in Satu's envelope (she's my partner in a swap at the moment), but then saw on her blog that she just received the same stickers this week... so I didn't. :D

Now, I still have a ton of stuff to so before taking off tomorrow around midday. So, packing and organizing, laundry and sending some mail awaits!

track 006 - mailbox happiness

Yesterday I had three lovely thick envelopes waiting for me at home!

The one on the top was a letter from U.S.A. - Erica wrote to me via Sendsomething. I love it when I receive something I haven't been expecting!

The one in the middle is a very thick envelope from Canada - I finally received the letter papers and airmail stickers I ordered from Julie! I'm always low on letter paper, so I opted for a stationery grab pack. I like surprises and it included several random letter paper designs, a fair amount of each - 50 altogether. That should be good for a few letters! I may have let out a little squeal when I realized what the envelope was - the anticipation between seeing it and opening it is just delicious, don't you think?

I also got an envelope from Germany, one that included tag items. It was a tag where you were supposed to send 3 items in an envelope without checking your partner's profile. It was great to receive something completely surprising! My partner sent me more than 3 items - I feel spoiled now - and they included a beautiful postcard with dunes and a lighthouse, and a big flat felt reindeer! I really loved that one, since I sent some reindeer / elk felt stickers to my pen pals around Christmas (even saved a couple for myself because I liked how they looked) and it looks exactly like them!

Since I'm in the process of talking about stuff I've received, here's some more goodies I ordered online:

So cute lettersets! I ordered them on eBay from DreamingiDesign. Since I couldn't decide which set I liked the best, I ordered the pack that included one of each. The time between ordering them and receiving them was 9 days and they shipped from South Korea - fast!

I think the beige one might be my favourite.

On another note... I discovered a genious game the other day! Challenge Accepted is a game where you play as a role playing character, completing tasks, quests and odysseias - that are your life! Since I'm so hooked on RPG's, I discovered this is a great way to achieve things - I add things I need to do on my list, and when I don't feel like doing them, just the thought of the +50xp gives me some sort of motivation! It's in beta still, so if you do try it out and find bugs, do report them so the game can keep on developing. Oh, and it's made by two American women, Amy and Daisy - girl power all the way.

So, at the moment there are quite a few things on my to-do list. I'm quite busy with school at the moment, since we're doing a project that involves a customer, and those always take time and require loads of meetings. But I won't be forgetting leisure either - me and my boyfriend are working on a 3000-piece puzzle of Picasso's Guernica! That might not sound like fun to everyone, but I happen to thoroughly enjoy puzzles, and when you combine it with us planning our summer (touring around France, anyone?), it is very relaxing AND productive!

photo from pablopicasso.org

Next time I'll try and finally show you how I store my letter-writing stuff and hopefully I'll have some pretty outgoing mail to document as well as incoming! Now I'm off to see if we can make any sense of the puzzle yet...

track 005 - paris letters

This week I received something fabulous in the mail!

I stumbled upon Janice MacLeod's Paris Letters sometime in December 2012. It took me a while to understand what the project was about, and when I did understand, I fell in love! It combines so many of my favourite things in this world:

•  Paris
•  Watercolour paintings
•  Snail mail
•  Did I mention Paris?

In a nutshell: Every month, Janice paints something. You can see examples of her beautiful aquarelles above (If only I could paint that beautifully... I would never ask for anything else again!) She writes a letter on it, copies this painting to all her subscribers, adds each of the subscriber's names on them to personalize it and mails it with a pretty stamp.

If you, like me, would love to receive a breathtaking piece of art from Paris (oh, how I love Paris), you can subscribe at Janice's Etsy page. You can subscribe for 1, 3, 6 or 12 months, and the prices vary from 7,70€ to bit under 60 € for the whole year (that's less than 5 euros per month!). There's also a special subscription called Paris Love Stories, which offers a year-long glimpse to the tragic, beautiful or scandalous happenings of the City of Love.