Leuke post 3

This mail came from leuke Post! It's the third one from a series of 5 mails. I love these stamps from Leuke Post! They are so colourful! On the postagestamp I think the postman tried to make a drawing, well, keep practising postman!

Yep number 3!

Inside a vintage kitschy style postcard, a bag full of glitter and three small wrapped parcels.

This is what was inside the little parcels, a really cute button! Four small fabric roses, and four buttons with a little vintage paper still on it!

All the glitter made it a really colourful package! Shame my phone can't catch the light which was reflected on the glitter.

On the back of the envelope some really cool washi tape from the Hema! In postagestamps style. Unfortunately our nearest store didn't have it over here. But maybe that's better for my wallet, since I would definitely have bought it!

Postcrossing and papercutting

This arrived via Postcrossing! Normally I just receive a postcard, but this was an envelope! It made me really curious! I can't read Russian, so I had no idea from who it was. Turns out it's from Julia from a city I can't read.

And this was inside! A really cute drawing, a papercut and a postcard. What a cute drawing! On the back of it a note about the smels, sounds, tastes and feel of autumn. Like! And then that papercut! Like Like triple like! She has read my blog and thought I might like her papercutting and drawing! Well I do! I do very much!

And then that postcard! A definite favourite! It's a collection, vintage, butterflies, flowers, ephemera. Well, it just sums up what I'm really into. Such a cool mail! I'm definitely going to send her something to say thanks!

This week in postcards

Incoming mail:

Mail from China and Mexico via postcrossing. This is the Mexican one, very colourful!

Exotic stamps from China and Mexico.

Postcards from neighbour and neighbour! Dutch postcards for charity, they come with charity postage stamps as well. The stamps are quite horrid I think this year. Very gloomy. The postcards though are very colourful!

Outgoing mail:

Mail going out to Marieke, I've found sticky notes in shape of a kiss, and I have found a matching card! How cool is that! I'm also trying to write like a calligrapher, but I keep on trying I think.

Mail to a sick college with some hearts in it, thought that was a sweet thing to do. That would be a nice surprise when she's opening the envelope!

And some more outgoing mail, but about that later.

Mail from kalwina

Mail arrived from Kalwina! She contacted me on my blog! How cool is that! Since I'm quite busy at this moment with lots of end of year style mail and swaps (more about this later :-) she had send me her package first. And I'm very grateful for that, I'm swamped at the moment! But all will be all right in the end :-) After a few emails we discovered we had an Indonesian connection! She is from Indonesia and my great uncle and aunt used to live there! But now she lives in Singapore by the way, not my great uncle, but Kalwina does!

Really cute postage stamps on the envelope! Stamps are like small pictures, I love them!

For Divali she spent her time at her family in Indonesia and collected things to send me. This is what was inside the package! Out of the package came this really lovely smell! It reminded me of my great uncle's house, which was full of sandelwood boxes and teak furniture. An instant mie and a pink and gold bag. I had to laugh about this instant mie, this is so funny! It was all crumbled since it came alle the way from Singapore, but she had written something on the back of it, that made me laugh. Gonna try this next week! When there are no kids around! Or boyfriend for that matter, it's going to be my lunch some time next week (I'm not allowed to eat at this moment due to an intestine inflammation, that's why).

Check this all out!  A letter opener (in style of a Wayang doll), a satin (or silk?) handkerchief with a batik print ( I'm definately not going to blow my nose in it! That would be such a shame!), a small purse (cute!), a hairpin (my daughter wore this today!), a cute batik card, a small tin (that's were all the really nice smell came from!), a small christmas card, oil, ginger drink, a cleansing powder and white coffee.

And what really made me laugh, Kalwina has put sticky notes on the back of almost everything! This is so funny! Love her handwriting by the way! Turns out that the original white coffee is made from beans which are eaten and pooped out by cats and people pay good money for that to drink! I've never heard about that before!

A letter opener! what a good gift for someone who loves mail! No more tears with a knife, but really neat tears with this Indonesian letter opener. Wayang is a traditional style puppet from Indonesia, check out some information about Wayang puppets here!

This small candle is so damn cute! Such a lovely tin with a rose smell! The whole package smelled like this! A small candle but a great smell!

And how weird is this! I'm sick at home with lots of pain in my stomach, and what arrives from Kalwina? An oil that relieves stomach pain! I've had a lot of these coincidences recently through mail. What's the meaning of that! I've tried the oil once now, maybe I should try it a couple of times. You are supposed to rub some on your chest, stomach, hip and footsole. Well, that's were I went wrong! I'm going to do it the right way this time. It smells like fennel! And that's not a bad thing. It's actually for kids, going to try this for my son aswell, he has a lot of stomach ache. But first I'm going to try this on myself, but I'm going to rub it in is as I was supposed to.

Turns out that inside the little purse was a small bracelet! A turquoise one! Since Kalwina knew that was my favourite colour! It has this cute little triangle on it, maybe it's a Christmas tree, well it could be, since Christmas is near, but it's cute anyhow.

Snailmail with turquoise bracelet

This mail arrived from Nicolette last week. An envelope from Flow Magazine which was in the last issue. An envelope to keep or send. Nicolette chose to send it, to me!

Inside some tea and hotelsoap from Tanzania where she has been on her holidays, a decorated matchbox and a letter.

Inside the mailbox was a really cute turquoise bracelet. My favourite colour! The stationary is also from Flow Magazine by the way.

Sorry for the really bad pictures by the way, think I'm in need of a new phone (yes, I take pictures with my phone! I always carry my phone with me! Everywhere! And I'm not ashamed of it!) Needed to get that of my chest :-)

Good mail envelope

Last week I have received this beautiful mail from Leuke Post! A simple but very elegant mail I thought. Isn't this a cute envelope? Well I think it is! An envelope made from a page of an old book. A vintage book with a page about paper and what to do with it. Well, Janien definitely had some ideas what to do with it!

Inside the envelope was a brown envelope. Inside that one a white one, than an blue, another blue, a brown one, and finally a small white envelope (a seventies envelope by the feel of it). What a unpacking surprise that was! I loved it!! And the colours of the envelopes were stunning! Probably by accident, or intended, I don't know really, but the blue, brown and white, they all match so beautifully!

Inside this tiny envelope was this ever so cute litte artwork! Stamped (but maybe it is a linocut come to think of it). Also a small piece of paper with old fashioned handwriting on it. Wish I could write like that, but my handwriting is almost unreadable. The card is made of the same paper as the tiny envelope by the way. It's a small detail, but I love details, it's all in the detail in the end.

Just to see how small the little artwork is, here are all the envelopes in a row. Have I mentioned already that I adore these colours? Well, I do. So there's that. The idea of this mail is actually so simple, but so nice, that I wished I thought of this, but I haven't. All credit to Leuke Post!

Knitting, I've tried it.

Last week my friend and I did a workshop knitting. But not just any knitting! Christmas ball knitting like Arne and Carlos! They are like the knitting champions. So we thought we'd give it a go. A lot of real fanatic knitters at the workshop and me and my friend. She turned out to be quite all right at this knitting thing. Me however, I was a right disaster! Whilst the fanatic knitters just knitted away and finished it in no time at all, I was still knitting in row 10 or something and even managed to lose some stitches. I was really good at that though! I was really brilliant at being terrible at knitting! It's just not for me. I've tried it though, cause I had this idea to send all my snailmail friends a handknitted christmas ball this christmas, but in the speed of my knitting, that would be christmas in the year 2025. I'm real jealous of all those easy going knitting ladies. Maybe I should try crochet. But that would be a "must do" for next year.

Vintage matchbox snailmail

this mail went out to Anne this week.

I wanted to do something with matchboxes. On her blog, she wrote she was making matchboxes, so I knew she was into those. And after throwing away a few boxes at the hospital were my office is, I've found a small box in the container, perfect for mail size! So I almost had to jump in to get it out, but I managed it at the end! Turned out it was perfect for 8 matchboxes! I finally could use my modpodge for this for the first time! What a great kind of glue that is! I'm hooked!

I have used a few old books (a fairytale book, a book about birds and a book about medicinal plants) to cover the matchboxes and the box. So the style of everything fitted together. And a small magnifying glass, since everything was really small!

And this is what I've managed to fit in 8 matchboxes! At first I found it quite hard to think of things, besides a letter of course, to fit in these tiny boxes, but once I got going I had inspiration enough!

This is what was all inside: buttons, confetti, a letter, felt owls, a garland, a key chain, a tiny woman, tiny stationary (my favourite!), a tiny light (made of an old children's toy) and three wooden hangers.

A round up of autumn crafts this year

A lot of creativity this autumn! Acorns seemed to be the theme this year. A round up of all the crafty stuff at our house, or send or received in the mail.
A cute little matchbox with a gold glitter acorn cap.

Oh deer!

Tiny wooden leafs (received)

Drawn bird on wood.

Halloween!

Let's have some tea! I just love this acorn tea cutlery. Such fun in making!

Drawn plants on wooden hanger.

Pumpkin made by my daughter (8 years old) at her art class.

Also made by my daughter at art class, the theme was: Indian summer. She makes me proud!

Acorn caps with colourful tiny felt balls.

Dried apples from the apples of our own tree. First time I had tried this! It smelled lovely!

This ever so cute little hedgehog! It's so sweet! From Bianca's mail. I can never crochet anything like that unfortunately. The kids were fighting over it, but I didn't want it to get lost in their rooms somewhere. Therefore we compromised, we had a bowl of autumn stuff on our table (pineapples, acorns, leafs and branches) and it had its own place on top of a leaf!

A real classy acorn!

The acorn people, made by my daughter and me. She wanted to do something crafty with our new gluegun, looked at my Pinterest board and found something like this. She went of to collect everything she needed and all I had to do was glue it all together.

And some more classy acorns. They catch the light so beautifully!