Lovely Holidays!

Hello all!
Have you all had a lovely time and holiday season?  I never intended to take so much time off from blogging, but between travel, work, and the holiday season, it was very nice to have one less thing on the to do list. 
What the new year holds for this blog, I have yet to decide.  I do know there will be changes, but what? 

Anyway, I hope you all had a terrific Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, Winter Solstice, and have an extremely Happy New Year! 
I have decided I will make 2014 the best year to date despite the challenges sent my way! 

More in the new year!
-Becky

Taking Some Time

Hello all!
I just wanted to put up a quick post.  I have been needed to work more hours and quite frankly between that, preparing for a long trip soon to see the family and just the general need to get back to creating fabulous mail, I am taking a vacation from blogging.  I have one small post I prepared and will try to get up during this time, but otherwise I am going to enjoy my mini-vacation for the computer and try to get back in the proverbial saddle again with correspondence.  Until then, those in the USA enjoy the food, family, and shopping, (if you dare)!

I would also like to take a moment to tidy up two things.
1) Lily (aka fatty foster cat) is down 4 pounds!  Man, she can move now when she wants to get away!

2) If you want your letter to become a song, consider watching this video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rdUmmUGGyo

For whatever reason I cannot get the link to open a window player, but it looks like a neat project. 

With that said, I will be back soon with many ideas and projects!
-b

Flat Daisy and a Mailing Adventure

Hello all!
I have a guest who will be heading out soon!  Meet Flat Daisy!

She's friends with Flat Stanley who has books all about his mail adventures.  Well Daisy has bee having adventures too!  She was sent to me via my long, long time friend Courtney via her little cousin along with a letter introducing me to the project.

address was on the back, so sorry I did not show it.

 

I had originally photographed these so that the address was hidden, but (and this is a big BUT!), I emailed the teacher about a mail call.  The teacher was surprised and okay with the concept.  So I would love it extend the opportunity to all of you to send postcards or notes from your section of the world and educate these youngsters on the amazing connectivity of mail! 

Here's the address and please share this with others!

Pianta Bella Elementary School
P.O. Box 397
Butler, IN 46721
USA

Please mention seeing Flat Stanley when you were out doing things and remember this is a very young and impressionable audience.  One we can all take a part in turning to the bright side of mail and pen palling!  May we infect many with the mail bug!

I am also looking for some hosts as she now has a passport.  Her next few stops have already been slated and I am sure that she will be glad to say good bye to the Pennsylvania cold as she travels across the ocean to Nice, France!

One of the pictures of our adventures together!  She needed a sweater that day as it was rather chilly.  But I have to say nothing seems to crush Miss Flat Daisy's spirits and may she be an example for us all when it comes to having adventures in mailing!
Thank you!
-Becky

More Mail

I hope to get a few posts in over the next few days of all the lovely October mail received, so please stay tuned!

 A lovely postcard made from original artwork by the sender.  A USA postcrossing

 A Postcrossing from Germany showing a brew house.

 A spices postcard and I forget which country it hails from

 A nice letter from Georgette, Congrats on your stickers making ingenunity!

 

 A great card from the Netherlands showing a vintage slogan.

 A postcrossing from the Netherlands that the sender made from photos

 A nice postcrossing from China with undeciphered poetry.

 A postcrossing from Russia of a local view per sender.

 Views along the river that runs through Berlin, a German postcrossing.

A postcrossing from Germany showing one of their national parks.

 A Canadian postcrossing of a local view per the sender.

 From the Nethlerlands, this is a crew that makes tasty pastries.

 Some hand made goodies from MC from SendSomething

 A Japanese card by way of Canada.

 A postcrossing from China also lacking any true translation other that this is an old poem.

More to come!
 

Make Something Monday: Circle Seed Envelopes

I found this cool project in a book from the library called the Artful Card.
I find the triangle shape to be very interesting and appealing especially since it folds out into a perfect circle.  The authors had made these envelopes out of glassine paper, and I am not 100% certain where to locate this type of paper, so I decided to experiment with a variety of papers.

 Now a disclaimer, you will need to use very basic geometry to make your templates! Sorry, but this will give you the freedom to make an envelope the size you want.  The book gave me a small template and recommended to blow it up to a 6 inch circle, but an internet search found me a video on how to make and isosceles triangle within a circle which was extremely easy and again, gives you the freedom to design your own thing.

You will need a protractor or a pin tied to string tied to a pencil, scissors, a variety of lighter weight (thin) paper.  Optional: a circle cutter and ruler
I was going to try to explain the how and I will still do the step by steps below, but first consider watching this short video as it explains so much so easily.

Now, I will go over it again in 3 pictures.

 1) Draw a circle with the center marked and a line through it.

 2) Find the distance from the center to the edge and draw a line where it intersects with the edges of the circle. 

 3) Connect those points and I would recommend you do this step twice so you end up with a circle and triangle template.  Although I found after creating a few of these, I did not need the templates and just used a ruler to fold the edges.

 Here's my first template.

 Once you cut your paper, you can insert the triangle in to fold the sides.

 Is that not pretty?  I will update this post later with the cost to mail these.

 I then used the triangle template to make a card that fits within the envelope.  You will need to shave this card a bit so it fits better.

On the back of the card, I used another envelope so I had a built in pocket to mail things!

I hope you enjoy this project because I sure did.  I think the person who opens this will be in love with the shapes.  Plus, once you do it one, you will find it to be very, very simple.

-b