Outgoing: #SecretPenpalScavengerHunt2014

I joined the secret penpal scavenger hunt hosted by Fab from wreckthisgirlsblog. Randomly I was matched to someone and the scavenging could begin! And today is reveal day! Finally I can show what I've sent.
You were to find/craft 5 items out of 10 possibilities and include a small present. I was matched to Fangni from cutekawaii96. There was little information to go by:  
“I am a high schooler in my last year before University who also studies music at a Conservatory and loves drawing and crafts. I am a huge fan of a K-pop group called Exo, I like languages (I can speak Spanish,Catalan,English,Chinese(and the Shanghainese)”
Oh, hmmm, well. That's a challenge! But after reading it over and over again, checking her blog and other accounts I sort of got an idea what to do and ended up with these wrapped parcels!

1. A letter writing kit
I've made stationary from music books since she studies music: envelopes, little bags and notecards. And I've made a stamp of some music notes which I glued onto an old stampholder. I stamped away on the little brown bag!

3. Something of fabric
I've made a pencilholder, since Fangni likes to draw I thought this would become handy some day!

3. A happy day kit
I googled what Kawaii actually means, since Fangni's blog is called cutekawaii96. "Kawaii is the quality of cuteness in the context of Japanese culture." I hope this tin sort of turned out like Kawaii. I've put some hearts inside, a lollipop, a bag of confetti and a bracelet with a little heart and a music note.

2. A mailart kit
I've stuffed a plastic bag full of mailart stuff to the max! Stickers, ribbon, tags, labels, postagestamps, doilies,  etc.

5. Something quirky
A fake moustache is kinda quirky! And quirky moustache tape.

6. A present
A Facebook like and dislike stamp.

7. A letter
I've made some stationary on which I wrote a letter and found a Manga postcard from the wereldmuseum we visited this summer where was an exhibition about Manga. I found out that Fangni loves drawing Manga style.

Fangni received her parcel and was really happy with it!!!! Yay! I'm so glad she liked it! Hopefully I will receive my secret parcel some time soon, can't wait!

Incoming: a brief moment in time

Lovely mail as ever from Janien. Her style is alway spot on! A bit of vintage and a bit of art. And then combined. I just love everything she manages to come up with. And how right is this text on the print: "And our paths have crossed for this brief moment in time". And it's so true. That's what happens in mail, in a brief moment in time, you connect of cross paths.

Incoming: Pay it Forward

I received a PiF (Pay it Forward) from mimstasjes. I had a bad day at work and I wrote her an email about my day. She send me these lovely small parcels! A long letter, a nursing keychain and a stamp. She is amazing at carving stamps. She teaches stampcarving aswelll! Check out her blog for really nice custum carved stamps.
The keychain went straight onto my work key cord. I have some paediatric patients who will love this! And it will be a good distraction for them while I do my nursing thing.
Really, I'm a bit jealous of her fine crafting skills. I can never carve a stamp like this or crochet so tiny. It would be a mess.
But thank you thank you Mim! You made my day!

Outgoing: Double Happiness

My little give away went to Carin from Moosetravelling! She had given me good feedback on my blog, which I found really helpfull. I sort of just started this blog without really thinking about it. There was no big plan or something, it just sort of developed. And then suddenly I wanted something different, but what exactly I didn't know yet. And I still don't know really. I've given myself a whole year to find out. I've sent the Chinese calender I promised I would give away. Although January is on its way now, it's still a funky calender! I enjoy looking at ours since it's on the wall right next to our fridge.

I thought I give this stamp carving another go to try to make Chinese stationary. On the chopsticks package was this sign I thought I could carve. I had no idea what it meant though. Via Instagram I found out it meant: "double happiness". Thank God for that! For all I knew it could have meant "made in China" or "Peking duck". Turns out I'm not really good at carving stamps.

Carin commented somewhere on my blog she likes matchboxes as much as I do! She has made matchboxes with little books inside them, really cool MIMB's (message in matchbox)! Go check it out! But I made a little people chinese mail matchbox for Carin.

Incoming: Mail from Marieke

I received this colourful envelope from Marieke and it was just stuffed with presents. Some were for me, and some were for one of our lovely guinea pigs who celebrated it's third birthday. Marieke is the former owner of our lovely cuddly animals, who stayed permanently with us after we looked after them while she was on holiday.

And here's the lucky recipient! She even got her own birthday card! Although she doesn't look very happy at her new nail clippers Marieke sent. But then again, she is a bit ill at the moment, the poor thing. These nailclippers will come in handy with their ever growing nails though!

But also some stuff for me. A Superman magnet! Well, I'm a superman magnet myself (ahum), no not really. But Marieke and I share a love for Superman! And a card which says "why women are always right". Well, that's stating the obvious!

A really cute stamp of a castle.

A wooden heart (love!) and a reflector heart.

And a belated vintage Christmas card with some small cards.

And last but not least glitter gel pens! These are always the gel pens that the kids get, but these are mine! And a thank you card from Marieke, to thank for the mail I've sent her. But now I thank her for this mail!

Incoming: Feathers from Australia

Mail from Australia! It took a whole month to arrive, but when it did it was pure joy! A lovely handmade envelope (very nice) landed in my mailbox. Teneille contacted me since she was interested in becoming penpals. And wow! How she managed to find the time to write is so amazing since she just gave birth to her second child, is doing a graduate in botany, owns tree horses and has done a degree in animal science. Triple points for Teneille! I have a lot of neighbours who own horses, and they are always quite busy with them. I know I'm always busy with the kids, house, work, or something else, so if I had horses as well I would have no time at all! That's why we own two guinea pigs :-)
But what a lovely mail! A lovely postcard with air balloons which reminds me of our favourite holiday spot in Italy and le Petit Prince postage stamps stickers! I just love the feathers she has put inside! So lovely! Just to imagine on the other side of the world Teneille has collected these feathers on her parents farm, took them home, thought of me and decided to put them into an envelope which travelled half way around the world to my mailbox. And that's why sharing and connecting trough mail is so amazing!

Inspiration: How to make beautiful stationary

You need a stamp, ink, paper and an envelope. That's all. I've used a clear stamp from Kaiserkraft (they have such beautiful stamps!) and a non acid waterproof ink.

I've put the clear stamp on the acrylic block and stamped carefully onto the envelope and the paper.

And easy piesy, here you go. Lovely stationary.

The only thing that's left now, is to write a letter. Done.

Outgoing: Birds!

I've sent this to Tanja. She was doing a 365 drawing a day challenge, but time caught up with her. She changed it into a 52 weeks challenge. I can totally imagine that, time is always catching up on me as well. To much I want to get done, so little time to get it done. There is always something else that needs to be done around our house. People need to eat and have clean clothes, I have to work or collect kids from somewhere, or something else to do. In the spare time I got left, I or pass out on the couch or do some crafting stuff which I find rather relaxing by the way.

I've sent Tanja my favourite drawing pen. It's such a great pen, the ink flows fluidly and smoothly while drawing. It's also a great pen to write with (but still I prefer a fountain pen for writing). It's from Pentel and a few years ago I ordered a whole box of them. Just because this always happens, I find a great drawing pen, and when I need a new one, they are just nowhere to be found again or they run out of stock or something.

I included some other goodies: wooden birds, tickets and some Project Life cards.

And with my own pen I drew some birds (Regulus regulus) on a label.

Outgoing; Vintage mail to Belgium

A mail went out to Yves. He had sent me this beautiful letter with his calligraphic Spencerian handwriting (so jealous). So I searched for my old dip pen I knew had to be somewhere amongst my stuff. But when I found it, there was no ink to be found! The nib of my dip pen was full of old ink I couldn't get of any more unfortunately. But still I didn't know if I could write with it. I always used it to make drawings. There's just something about dipping your pen in a ink pot.
Couple of days later I found some black ink at a bookstore and tucked away on the same shelf was this pot of brown ink. The saleswomen stated that really no one bought ink any more these last years, so that pot of brown ink could have been there for years and years! It's that brown ink that I used to write a letter with my dip pen. Not a great succes. The nib was to full of old ink (maybe twenty years old ink) and my handwriting was still as terrible as ever. I tried to make a drawing with the dip pen on a huge tag. Turned out I was a lot better at that.

I used my calligraphy stamp, also with brown ink to stamp the letter and the envelope.

I found these botanical vintage prints at a thrift shop last year. And included them in to the small parcel.

I also included a vintage needle book and a button holder (I think that is what it was) for Yves' wife. I follow her on Instagram and she has such a beautiful vintage taste!

Next time I'm just going to put a string to the label I wrote the adress on and tie it around the envelope. That would look so much better. Well, next time hey!

Inspiration: While the kids are away, the parents are out to play (part 2)

Next day without the kids we went out to Amsterdam. It was freezing cold! So after we got out of the metro, the first thing we did was pay a visit to the Hermitage.

The Hermitage is an annex from the famous Hermitage museum in St Petersburg. I found it a bit disappointing though. But inside there was no freezing cold wind and we did spend more time at the museum shop as in the museum itself. Everything was really expensive. But I found a postcard book full of birds for a good price. And I wished I bought more of them now.

After our hands were feeling warm again we ventured out to find a shop called de Vlieger. It's a paper shop and full of beautiful paper! I found a really beautiful pack of Japanese table mats. Such beautiful prints and perfect for a bit of paper crafting. I bought some other stuff and nice washi tape. The angels and Mexican game are from another shop by the way (Kitsch Kitchen). 

At Sissy-boy Homeland I found these lovely cards from designer Jurianne Matter. These are small notecards with pop up trees, I wanted them for ages but found them a bit expensive, but they were on sale now! And only two packs left (with 10 in each pack). So I bought both of them of course, but I'm a bit ashamed to admit that I would probably not ever use them, they are just so pretty! I can make my own Jurianne Matter forest now!

And having a bit of a glow around me from all the beautiful paper I found already, we ended up in a typical Amsterdam bar to have a sandwich with a typical Dutch kroket and mustard. And not soon after we settled, a family walked in. A family with kids. And we were secretly having fun listening to the parents negotiating with the kids about their order after one of the kids got in a bit of a tantrum, so we just smiled with that smile only parents know how to. And ordered another cappuccino. We wandered out again into the cold and stumbled upon a store called Kitsch Kitchen. I love the colourful stuff they have! Found some funky plastic bowls that would be great for all my washing tape!

After a whole day of strutting about our capital city in the cold freezing wind we called it a day. Our hands were sore from all the bags we were carying. So we treated ourselves to a lovely meal and secretly enjoyed our time without kids but also secretly missed them.