Happy mail!

My final happy mail from Leuke Post arrived. It was such a pleasure and joy to receive them. They were all really really wonderful! Exactly my taste! A bit of papercraft, vintage, arty, drawings and prints and lovely lovely paper. Check out these cool stamps aswell. What's not to love about this!

I found this inside the envelope, perfectly styled paperstuff.

Janien from Leuke Post has made a really cool sort of vintage sewing pattern mail with a print on them. So very beautiful!

There was also a small sewn together envelope. I had to cut it to see what was inside!

Thsi was inside! A really funny vintage thread holder!

Incoming: Advent mail from Mischa (the contents)

This was my second advent mail, this was a total surprise from Mischa! And even more unpacking fun every day. It was almost like a birthday this month, but then everyday of this month! What a joy it all was!

This was all inside, ribbon, a notebook, stamps, beads, hangers, buttons, a home made stamp, a sheet of music, stickers, pictures, a seashell, tea, labels and some vintage pictures.

The sheet of music can be used for making an envelope or some small bags, or a card or whatever I can think of! The wooden Santa hanger now hangs on my kitchen door!

This seashell is so freaking lovely! Mischa has glued some glitter on it, Like!

Beads! Love beads!

This handmade Christmas tree stamp is so lovely! Definitely gonna use that next year!

Really nice vintage pictures!

Incoming: Adventmail from Jolanda (the contents)

After a whole month of unpacking advent envelopes from Jolanda, this is what was all inside! After my first disappointment of the wrapping of the whole advent mail, there were some nice surprises inside! Stickers, masking tape, labels, pegs, craft stuff, some beauty things, a hanger, a bracelet, magnets, a card, a pencil, a pen and a keychain light.

My favourite was this Christmas card, normally I'm not into the 3D cards, but this one is really nice!

This shiny metal hanger is now on the knob of my old closet, looks really cute!

These funky red Christmas pegs are still on the same Tulip vase as I put them on to make this picture :-)

A bracelet with a coin on it.

Two tea lights covered with masking tape. Really easy but really cheerful!

A really nice hanger, it says: made with love.

A label, my daughters favorite by the way

And some beautystuff. A lip balm, a face mask and body butter. I'm not much of a beauty person, only use moisturiser, and sometimes some bodylotion, but will definitely use the body butter in wintery cold days.

Outgoing: Adventmail to Majella (the contents)

First of all: Merry Christmas to all my blogreaders!
Although I've already posted that I'd joined an adventswap, and since it's Chrismasday, I'm going to show you what was inside it all. I was matched to Majella by the way.

I've used the same colour, but different sizes brown paper bags to wrap everything. And used a red cord to tie the bags and tags together. Had a great time getting it all together. It took a while to find the right paper bags I wanted, but they just arrived in time, but it was a tight call! Just in time for sending off!
Half of the items were presents, the other half handmade or crafted. Maybe I've went a bit overboard with my crafting, but I got really inspired all of a sudden!

On day one a countdown calender to Christmas!

A Christmassy kind of hanger with an origami bird.

A postal like paper Christmas bauble.

A garland made of small strokes of folded paper.

From a vintage fairytale book a story about a Christmas tree which I've embroiderd together like a book. A matching green stamp and some Christmassy ribbon to tie it all together. I sort of imagined Majella reading that to her kids on Christmas eve. I do have a vivid imagination...

Origami paper stars. So much fun to make and really easy! Tutorial over here!

A little Christmas matchbox! With a tiny woman decorating a tiny paper Christmas tree with tiny paper baubles. I do have a thing for matchboxes and everything tiny.

Chistmas tags! In a clear plastic bag full of sparkle!

An embroidered Christmas card. I'm sorry to say that the back of it was really badly glued, I hate that when that happens, but you just can't get it off without damaging the whole card.

An glassine envelope with some tiny Christmas envelopes with Cristmas stuff. I must say it did look a lot nicer when it was all inside the glassine envelope. It's not a good picture (I am my worst critic)

A deer made of Hama beads! The kids were playing with their Hama beads and I joined in, it's such a patience thing to get those tiny beads on the right spot with my big grown up fingers.

More Christmas tags to go on Christmas presents! (the prints are made of velvet by the way) (really soft to the touch) (I kinda like that)

I've found a really good tutorial to make an origami paper ball. Although I can't seem to find the tutorial any more now. And my paper ball turned out like half a ball, but then I made a postcard from it! I've sent a small Led candle to go with it and it gives out a really good Christmas shine like this! I was really chuffed! But it really annoys me that I can't seem to find the link anywhere anymore.

These were all the presents that were inside along side the crafty stuff.

Glitter fragranced gel pens, moustache masking tape, a postal Christmas pin, stars, ribbon, a pencil (budget wise more efficient) (but with a sharpener!) a crafty butterfly kit, a really cool deer hanger, Christmas stickers, paper clocks, some wooden hangers, a tin and the wooden XMAS letters.

The tin is a tin with a nurse on top, so me! I've put some band aids inside, always handy when you have kids. You're going to need a lot of them!

Inspiration: Christmas at home

We are all ready for some festiveness around here! The house is decorated, but not as abundant as I use to, since I wasn't feeling really up to it this year. Still recovering from my intestine inflammation I decided to take it easy this Christmas. I did something I had never thought I would, I bought a fake Christmas tree! I just couldn't bring myself to drag me and the kids to find a "real" tree somewhere, which always turns out lopsided or with broken branches or something and me full of rashes from the pine needles. So I went to our local DIY store and bought a really fake Christmas tree with fake snow. I already had a white Christmas tree, but now I have two really fake trees. If you do it fake, fake it good I say.
And just to get into the festive mode, some festive snapshots from around the house.
A little display on the piano. And to stay in the postal theme, check out the mailboxes!

Even My Litlle Pony showed up this year.

I just love colour everywhere!

Okay, I have to be honest. The mantelpiece did start out looking like this. But in the meantime, my son decided it was a good place to put all his Skylanders (not on picture). Sigh....

I just don't manage to get the Christmas tree the right way on a picture. Must be because all the strings of light we put in, 6 or so. It's a total mess this fake tree, it's just full of, well, full of  everything. The kids could decide. It's full of colour and full of baubles, birds and flowers. And only 1 bauble got broken. That's a first.

Just love my wooden XMAS letters!

A tiny peek trough my house. And yes, that's the white Christmas tree over there.

But as a total postal freak, I just love all the Christmas cards coming in! You can't see them all, but there are a lot! From far away aunts and uncles, family and friends. But seems that this year, as postal rates are going up, people are not sending as much card as they use to. I know a lot of people who don't send Christmas cards any more.

These are the cards we sent out this year, a postal Santa Clause!. My boyfriend wrote them all, he's just so damn quick at it, that they are sent off before I know who the hell he'd sent them to! I always like to write something personal on the cards, but this year people have to do with just our names. And a lot of people didn't get a card since not all the people I want to sent a card are in our address book. Like all my snailmail buddies. Sorry about that guys!

I did find some more cards though which were half price! Love the fifties theme! Next year, a new attempt to write them before my boyfriend does. Love him anyway though.

Incoming: I (nearly) won!

Since I never ever win something, I (nearly) won something this time! Carin from Moose Traveling (check out her blog) had bought a book at a thrift shop full of nice pictures from deer. She had put a photo on her blog with some stuff surrounding a nice picture from that book. She asked if anybody knew what she would use and the winner would receive some cards she would make with the ites and the picture. Well, I didn't win. But since Carin is a good sport, she decided to send everybody who joined in some cards! Yeah! So that's the story of how I nearly won.

This was inside the envelope Carin had sent.

A sewn bag, a tag, a postcard from her blog, postcards from the deer picture and a hanger made of a domino game piece. On the back of the domino card was a small note about giving, giving gives more pleasure than keeping everything for yourself. As my postal project develops, I can safely say that's true.

The postcard turned out really funny!