Snail Mail

Here's some old fashioned kind of fun!

Pip from Meet Me At Mikes is holding a lovely competition wherein you send her an envelope full of crafty bits and bobs you happen to have lying around.  She will take photos of the envelope and contents as they come in and all the envelopes will be hung in the window display of her shop.  You can be as crafty or as quick with your envelope and contents as you like.  At the end of the competition, she will randomly draw one envelope and that person will get ALL the crafty goodies!!  Score!  If you want more info, just click on the button in my sidebar.  (WOW. A button.  In a sidebar.  I actually sound like I know what I'm doing around here!)

So anyway, I just couldn't resist this.  It takes me way back to being a kid and posting all sorts of stuff in lumpy envelopes to pen pals and school friends!   Did you ever do that?  And it was so much fun receiving something back.  Sadly, I don't have any pen pals anymore but I aim to change that soon...more on that later.

Anyway, it took me all week to sort out my envelope and troll through my mountains of crafty goodness (read: mess) to find things that would fit in my envelope.  Then I got all creative and made things too!!  There is even a tiny note for Pip - I hope she gets it!  I know I could have just chucked it all in a postpak but being me I had to create a perfect envelope and make it extra beautiful.  After all, people would be seeing it!  Yes, people!!  My brain might just leak out my ears if I sent in anything less that something extra special! Eeeeeee!  Ha ha...ahem.

So, I really hope it gets to Fitzroy in one piece without having bits ripped off it or getting torn apart in Australia Post's sorting machines!  (Do they have sorting machines?  Who knows!)

So just in case, here's a little record of my envelope and all the lovely stuff inside...I hope whoever wins loves it all!

The front side of the envelope...I made the envelope from some lovely stitched wrapping paper I had.   The big "M" was from a pack of el cheapo rub on's that wouldn't!  So I just cut it out and glued it instead.  Just in case anyone thinks I don't know how to use them, I really, actually do!  Also, now I'm way too smart to buy rub ons from cheapy stores.

 Next, the envelope and all the delicious crafty stuff...the things I made myself are the two handpainted birds, two granny sqaures in my fave colour scheme of the moment, three bears gift tags, map envelopes and giftwrap envelopes (tied with string...arn't things so much lovlier when they are tied with string?) and a rainbow friendship band.  Other contents include a postcard (of Converse shoes, I have me a craving for buying a pair!), a set of four tiny envelopes (again with the string!) 2 sets of butterfly sticky tags (great for marking magazine pages and recipes with), a little bag of alphabet beads (one of each letter) and a tiny peg, set of four pretty mini-tags, another little bag containing some buttons and two more pegs and finally, two bird stamp stickers.  Phew!

Some close-ups...you can see my note (attatched to a granny square) and also the little "Three Bears" tags that I'm a bit sad to be sending away!  Oh well, share the love and all that.  Also, hopefully noone will think it dreadfully cheeky of me to plaster my blog URL over a few things.  New visitors, ahoy!

Here's a better view of the Three Bears tags.  I made them with some images from a Golden Book of The Three Bears I found the other day in a thrift shop for 50c. Some of the pages were torn inside so I didn't feel bad for chopping out these little pictures.  Well not dreadfully bad anyway.  Arn't they darling?

And here's a good view of the friendship band.  Remember those?  My hubby was incredibly impressed when he saw this and told me it "looks just like a real one!"  Thanks, sweetheart...I think.  I worked out that the last time I made one of these was 22years ago!  Wow.  Way to go making myself feel ancient.

Here's the back of the envelope...no, you don't get to see where I live : )

And some close ups of my watercolour birdies on the envelope.  While I was inking in the outline of the wing on one of the first ones I did, I put a HUGE blot of ink on it and had to redo the entire thing!  They are a bit fiddly when they are this tiny.

Here's the envelope stuffed full...

And finally, sealed and ready to go.  Hopefully I havn't included any crumbs off the floor from the photoshoot.

I had to glue that sucker shut so I sure hope Pip and her helpers have a sharp letter opener to split the top of it with, otherwise I have no idea how they will get inside!

Hooray for all that envelopey fun!!