Incoming: #SecretPenpalScavengerHunt2014

As I was taking out the groceries from my car, the delivery man pulled up. I remember thinking that I didn't order anything, but still he came up to me and handed me a really big and colourful envelope while I was holding two bags full of groceries. Unfortunately it was that time of the day that I didn't have good lighting anymore, the kids almost out of school and then the hectic time starts over here! And mail is to be opened in peace, with a cup of coffee and my camera ready to take pictures. So I did manage to wait to the next morning to open it up. And damn I was so curious who the sender was! It was from the UK as I could tell by these lovely stamps, but I didn't have a penpal in the UK so even more curious now! 

So the next morning, with my cup of coffee and camera in hand, I carefully opened the envelope to discover it was my Secret Penpal Scavenger Hunt 2014!!!!!!!! To cut a long story short, I had send my parcel to Fangni a couple of months ago, but the person who was supposed to send me something turned out to be a flaker (this was not Fangni by the way who is lovely, but someone I don't know). I really hate people like that, they sign up for a swap, but only intend to receive something and not send anything. Grrrrr. Fab who organised the Secret Penpal Scavenger Hunt, decided to find me an angel. An angel who would send something in case of a cheater. And she did! My angel turned out to be Samrana! And OMG I was lucky with my angel!

Six small packages all carefully wrapped in purple tissuepaper! Samrana read on my blog my love for wrapping in tissue paper and she decided to do that for me! A good choice I might say so!

The Mail kit
Lovely colourfull postcards and very fancy ribbon. She made her own stationary with a sea theme and some stamps on a Dutch-English dictionary (a nice little touch I thought).

Something made of fabric
A really beautiful fan. Samrana came across this fan somewhere and it reminded her of her childhood. I really love these colours!

Something to read
A dictionary style fact book about mail. This is so lovely! She used a moleskin envelope book which is full of fun facts about mail. I decided to post every page since it's so cool!

Something tradional
Sending postcards is traditional, and especially these ones with the English mailbox, bus and phone booth! Samrana made these herself.

Happy day kit
This is definitely for a happy day or when you are in need of a happy day! I can tear of a little note to cheer myself up a little and make a colourful bunting for myself!

A gift
This gift is so lovely! It's a vintage style pocket mirror! The colours are just so bright and sparkly! I could not get it right on the picture though all this sparkle! So this picture does not do justice to the beauty of it. It is really beautiful!

Luckily Samrana hates cheaters, just like me! So please if you decide to commit yourself to a swap, commit to doing it then! (this message is meant for my cheater :-)

Outgoing: birds

Sometimes I just start to draw. This was my first ever owl by the way. He looks a bit bad ass though. First I wanted to give him some sunglasses, but in the end I decided against that idea. This is a picture from when I first finished it with some stuff lying around on my table.
I've made my own stationary with some stamps and wrote a lengthy letter of six pages I think! I've mailed this off to Teneille and included some small gifts for her children.
The gift was: magic towels! Just a small lightweight package, but when you leave them for several hours in the water, they expand into really soft washing towels! My kids love these, they never use them to wash by the way, they use them as tiny blankets for their dolls and cars. Yes, in our house even cars get tucked in by little blankets!
I've wrapped everything in tissue paper, just because unwrapping is so much fun, but also because it keeps it safe while travelling across the globe.

Inspiration: old envelopes

More vintage envelopes and cards found my way! Check out all these stamps!
Some envelopes are a bit damaged, but some are in really good shape! They are all empty by the way, so no secret note inside them, but I could write a secret note in them ofcourse for my penpals. Who knows!
Also some first day postage stamp issues from the sixties, seventies and eighties. The ones from the sixties have letterpress envelopes! Love to glide over them with my finger and actually feel the print (or is that a bit silly?)
I really love the postcard someone has sent to the Queen, right after the second world war, and it returned to sender with a small handwritten message: "thank you for your help to the refugees". But I'm not sure who has written that, I don't think the Queen has written that herself.
What really strikes me about these envelopes and cards, they are from all over the Netherlands. How come they all landed in the same box at someone's house? That's the kind of thing that really puzzles me.

Outgoing: a penpal book to Poland

Sometimes you will find people in the digital world, from whom you might think that would be such a great person. Well Ania is that kind of person. She has such a simple style and a calming view on things which I secretly admire. We don't know much about each other, so I decided to make her a penpal book. A book to sort of introduce me to her. It really was the first time that everything was so personal, but it really represented me.
I've used a book of hand crafted paper which I altered a little. On every page I used something that represents me or is like me. Each page turned out quite different. I decided to share it with you, although it's really personal, so you the reader can also learn a bit more about me.

Inspiration: vintage carte postale

How I love vintage paper! I managed to get hold of such a lovely collection of old postcards! Dating from all the way from 1907 tot the nineties.
I just love everything about them, the aged colouring of the paper, the stamps, the postmarks, the handwriting. Some even have an old receipt attached to them. These old papers are such an inspiration to me! But what to choose! Should I just keep them and admire them? Or should I use them for my journal or for a drawing or something.
But whatever I am going to do with them, I'm a happy person!

Outgoing: to Mim

I've sent out this mail to Mirjam to thank her for her PIF (Pay It Forward). She had written me such a nice letter, and I really like letters that come from the heart. The kind of letter where you just start writing away without really thinking about it. Where you just start rambling on about life or thoughts or stuff that has happened to you. So I made my own stationary with a stamp and started writing. Six pages later I thought I better stop :-)
I've included some pages from a vintage Red Cross book about lifting patients. I used to work in a nursing home and really damaged my shoulder while lifting people, Mirjam had some back problems while doing the same kind of work. So I thought this would be really fun to see how it's not done. If you want to break your back, go ahead, but I would strongly recommend to check the latest patient lifting techniques!