Hello dear readers. It's been some time since I last came here, and I apologize.
I've been absent for a while, and failing with some of you - I know. Anyhow, things haven't turned out the way I expected along the beginning of the present year of 2016. I didn't asked for too much, this time. All I ever wanted for this year were all the simple things and getting + enjoying my life on the right track, for good. But life also happens sometimes, and soon I knew this year was going to be scarred, and leave me broken at some point.
Today, I'm bringing to you another beautiful caption found among the lovely contributions, through our main hashtag #senditforwardp. I've seen this picture some time ago, and really wanted to highlight it on the blog because it really reminded me some of my own afternoons aging paper. Ana Kalline is a very creative snailmailer, so she surely keeps many snail mail stories, as you might imagine. In this post, you can read one.
Snailmail is... It's able to touch people personally can not touch. It's the struggle to make the world a better place to live with pen and paper in place of the sword.
I wish to send forward... I get many strong letters from people who were lost somehow in a bad thought. I SHIP hope that these thoughts stole them. Sending smiles, good stories of overcoming and of course, my life.
One story, something good that happened wich was provided by the joy of letter writing.
In September 2014 I discovered that was with leukemia and was the only time of my life that I felt disheartened. I abandoned the snailmail and other things I really liked to do. I gave satisfaction to my friends and said that would not more writing. And then began to reach many letters here where I live today and in the house of my parents. arrived numerous letters per week of people sending me strength. People that not know me, people I had never talked... These letters spoke" do not give up"," I am with you"," You are not alone"," You inspire me and I do not want to miss it.".. Still in the same year began to prepare holiday cards for those who had me writing these letters and was emerging in me a force that I did not know where vines. I felt much pain at first, but then felt that there was an energy that I carried. I thought the time in return to write and decorate my letters as I liked to do. Today I got over and I am cured, but strongly believe that if I had not received so hard during this situation I would not be as I am today. They were more than 500 letters of support I received during the time I spent sick. This is supernatural.
Feel free to join the community + Keep tagging your pictures with our hashtag #senditforwardp for a chance to get featured.
With love,
M.
This is a very dangerous and delicate topic, I guess. But I tried to tell my views on it.
What are
the main reasons for leaving a pen pal?
Sometimes
we are too busy in life such as new stages, new schools, new jobs, new
families. Sometimes it’s hard to manage everything and we tend to quit stuff
instead of doing it in halves. Also, there are moments when we simply don’t
feel like writing, we lack of curiosity, motivation and/or means.
It's time for another highlight chosen from the amazing archive of our main tag #senditforwardp, and this time I'm presenting you Diana, who as just found her first pen pal throughout our community!
Snailmail is... more than just writing a letter, it’s putting your heart and soul to create a OOAK (one of a kind) letter or even “mini project” that will make the recipient of your letter feel special. It’s also called “happy mail”, well, that’s the aim of the envelope. The contents of the letter really depends on your relationship with the recipient, I have a variety of different pen pals at the moment, I started very recently so I can’t say I’ve built a deep relationship with anyone at the moment, but I do have really qualified candidates! I don’t mind accepting all kinds of people because I think as a style of life guide line , you should always talk about what brings you together, not about what separates you. I put this in practice in the snail mail community too, and no matter the age or country or religion or tastes, I will always find a topic in common! Otherwise wouldn’t it be a tiny minded world? Diversity is fun.
I wish to send forward... creative letters designed and customized to fit the recipients personality and taste but that’s not that easy, you have to get to know the person you are writing to, it takes time but that's also the aim of snail mailing!
One story, something good that happened wich was provided by the joy of letter writing.
The other day I had fun making an Alice in Wonderland themed letter and a random instagram user told me she loved Alice in Wonderland and I read on her bio she war really fan of it, so I wrote her a DM and told her I would be sending her my letter, I knew it was going to be something special for her and she would appreciate it more than anyone. She was really happy for that unexpected gift. I hope it reaches her safety!
Feel free to join the community + Keep tagging your pictures with our hashtag #senditforwardp for a chance to get featured.
With love,
M.
 |
| Day 4: Leaf |
We all know how much I love nature details. And here is my fourth draw for my creative challenge.
Hello everyone! I’m here
for another week of snail mail tips!
Today I’ll tell about packages and/or parcels.
It is very
common to find snail mailers exchanging and swapping creative packages and
collection things. People sometimes ask me what I send or what I like to
receive when it comes to small parcels. Whenever it's not for specific items/collection swaps, I personally prefer
that my pen pals find their ways to surprise me. It is often used as way of sending for
instance some 'higher' scale goodies, some contribution for a pen pal collection
or a birthday gift. I often do send these as well, not only for specific swaps
(especially with tea and/or stamps) but also to surprise those important pen
pals that come across us and stay forever. We all love to surprise others!
Hi everyone! I'm still fighting against the flu, but who can stay in bed for days without doing a thing? Today I bring you day 3 of my recent creative challenge: envelopes.
It was an "easy" theme of course, but useful for keeping some ideas for next letters! :)
You can check all post about this 31 draws in 31 days challenge, here.
With love, M.
I started my 31 draws in 31 days challenge. I told a little about it. If you haven't read it yet, you'll find it here. Anyways, today's day 2 of my creative challenge, and the theme is teacup. Here's mine:
With love,
M.
Hello dear friends! Today I'm here to tell you about something that I started for myself but wanted to share with all of you. Every time I have some time for myself I really like to use it wisely to invest in the things I like. Well, most of the things I like are actually work, so I end up surrounded by computers and cameras all the time. I do love what I do, but we all need a break sometimes.
I can't tell you how much I feared for Claudia's letter, while I was in Porto for holidays. I kept reminding my boyfriend to look for it in our building, everyday. When it reached me, it really was one of the highest points I had for a whole week, and it mean a lot to me to be blessed with so much love in such a hard time. I really was looking forward to do something special for this lovely lady, and thought a booklet wouldn't be such a bad idea. I used one of my handmade postcards as a cover, added an envelope with my leter, and several paper bags with some surprises for her. I also included a handmade wooden yellow butterfly part of a small collection my mother gave my years ago in a kind gesture that made me smile. I added some craft supplies that I hope she'll find useful and some stickers to challenge her for our tag. And I was finally able to gladly recover one of Coimbra's old bus traveling tickets for her collection!
I hope the parcel will reach her soon, but mostly safe and sound.
With love,
M.
Hello everyone! Hope you are all enjoying this cold days writing lots of loving letters. As for me, I've been enjoying my cat's company while working on my delayed tasks. One of these days I've decided to take a little poll among our Facebook group, about what themes would readers love to find on the blog, and the most chosen were snail mail tips. In fact, it makes sense, and its kind of odd that I never started it before. Anyways, I'll try to come every week, to give you my snail mail related tips, based on my journey and personal experience with letter writing. I'll start today by telling you about first letters: Presentation Letters!
It's nice to find that good people are meeting and finding nice friendships throughout letter writing. I couldn't be more happy when I saw that Shonazee had received a kind letter from Rita, that she cared to share with all of us. I decided to ask her those three usual things. Lets see what she shared :)
Snailmail is... is like a journal. You open up to people you've never met about things that matter to you the most. Your life, goals, dreams, disappointments, regrets, hopes. It's beautiful and poetic. And the fact that those words, travel such long distance to reach you makes it even more special.
I'd like to send forward words. Happy, sad, exciting, dull, various combinations of them. Just to see the face of the person receiving it, light up with a smile :)
One story, something good that happened wich was provided by the joy of letterwriting.
I'm very new to pen-palling. Ive hardly exchanged a couple of letters with my penpals so far, so I don't have many exciting stories as of now. But one that I can think of is the letter I got after 6 months of it being posted. One draw back of snail mail is that the letters sometimes are lost, so when I never received this letter from my beloved pen pal Bahanur, I thought it was lost. But no, it found it's way to me after SIX months. Such unexpected happiness is what snail mail is all about and I'm very much glad to be a part of this wonderful community :D
Feel free to join the community + Keep tagging your pictures with our hashtag #senditforwardp for a chance to get featured.
With love,
M.
Today is about giving away some postcards + freebies because I just can't help myself on send cute useful things.
I can't hide my excitement when it comes to old postcards. Every week I try to take some time between shopping groceries and going to post office, and go in the search for the most unique vintage postcards I can find. I'm almost sure I have bought at least five postcards in every local store downtown, and I always like to share them with a few friends and penpals who are, as me, postcard hunters. I found these in one of those local shops, but the most special one. This only sells antique stuff, not only postcards, so you might imagine the handful of treasures you can discover in that little corner store.
I started by sending one to Maggie, the most lovely girl I've had the pleasure to meet via instagram, actually. But turned out to be the most nice company for coffee and treats. I had already sent her another postcard recently, but since we both thought it was forever lost, I prepared this one.
Last, but not least, I also wrote something to my dear mother in Porto. Added some tea and a Portuguese lottery - an inside family joke :P I decorated her envelope with this cute pictures of paper sculptures, and a page of a Literature schoolbook.
I'm praying these letters will reach their rightful owners safe and sound, and sooner the best! Hope it'll put a big smile on your pretty faces :) Wish you a lovely week!
With love, M.
Hello everyone! I could not be more happier to finally be writing to you about my collective ongoing work: a travelling notebook. Have you heard about these?
Words matter a lot,, from since we can remember. And nowadays, despite electronic contact, writen words matter not only on snailmail world. This is not a recent movement and I've already tried this before within my project contact list, but it is the first time I'm taking it to this level. Well, a travelling notebook is nothing more than a blank notebook that will travel from one to another, regardless their gender, age, country, ... There can be a theme, for example, and each person writes/draws something. Then they send the notebook to the next person. In the end it will be back to his home, hopefully. Many people are trying this recently; some of my own pen pals are making their own travelling notebooks fly from mailbox to mailbox. So, I decided to make a new one of my one, to travel along the year.
I wanted to chose a meaningful theme, and was struggling among all type of ideas. But then, it crossed me that it should be a letter - since I wanted it to be related to my own snail mail project - and who/what should we write to?
There was a time (around 2010) I started to include the phrase "Write a letter to the world" in my project's challenges. Not many people came up with writing that letter, in fact. But those who did really said some surprising things. I kept using this as a part of my challenge, but now found it was a nice way of actually gather a genuine archive of letters to the world written by genuine people who meant to participate.
Also I've decided to invite some people I know- and some that I don't - but who I admire to be a part of it too. I chose those that seem to have something meaningful to say, and the proven will of wanting to change the world in every step they take.
I made a notebook nature inspired, of course. And every page states "for you" in the end. I want you to keep in mind that this book is not for me, is for all of us.
For those who felt insterested in joining this travelling notebook, but don't know how to do it, please e-mail me via psenditforward@gmail.com
With love,
M.
I like to start every year by doing some good. There's something motivational on giving away smiles and love. Besides letters, I now some of the participants of my project are very much in love with crafts and decors. First kit packages are ready to fly to their awesome future owners. I hope everyone find this modest package a useful resource for 2016 first sendings :)
Nícia shared with us her upcoming challenges for this early 2016. I asked her to share "the" three things with all of us, and she took the opportunity.
Snailmail is... to rediscover myself while connectint to others. It is to find myself on others while I find new stuff in me. It's an incredible joy!
I wish to send forward... words of happiness. (Do you know a way which I can do this?)
One story, something good that happened wich was provided by the joy of letterwriting.
Once I messaged a very sweet girl asking to be penpals. When it was my birthday, and we didn't have yet share correspondence, she sent me some small gifts. Along with them she wrote me some words in a postcard, wishing me well. I was very touched by this because we weren't friends yet and I already felt a great love coming her way. She have put so much care on that package that it blew my mind.
Once I messaged a very sweet girl asking to be penpals. When it was my birthday, and we didn't have yet share correspondence, she sent me some small gifts. Along with them she wrote me some words in a postcard, wishing me well. I was very touched by this because we weren't friends yet and I already felt a great love coming her way. She have put so much care on that package that it blew my mind.
Let's hope she'll later tell us what ways she found to accomplish her challenges. Want to be a part of the game? Join in "The Random pen pal" section + Keep tagging your pictures with our hashtag #senditforwardp for a chance to get featured.
With love,
M.
Or what I was doing for the past weeks.
Most of you might already seen some of my handmade items, but I decided to show the most special order I've had, wich brought a happy feeling while creating and crafting.
I don't do equals except when I'm specifically asked to. I feel that our place for words must be as unique as the words itself. I love to draw with marker instead of printing, and have the most joyful moments while sketching stickers with ink and aquarelles.
And the best part, because these where Christmas gifts, I has the chance to over-create a little, and decorated the packages with handmade roses and other cuties.
I am a notebook collector, so "having a notebook" of ours is something that I see as a very special connection between us, memory, what we live today and somehow wish to leave for tomorrow. Well, maybe I'm not making any sense, but as notebook addict, trust me when I say it is the best to have a notebook that reflects a bit of who we are, and what we eager to be, I am wrong?
Well, but I'm not here only to show this little word keepers. I'm also here to bring you a new letter set, that I really hope you'll like and find useful. This set includes three examples of letter pages, one of them ruled, and also an envelope! You can download both here and here.
I'm always open to your ideas and tips, feel free to share it with me! :)
I'm always open to your ideas and tips, feel free to share it with me! :)
With love,
M.
I can't find the right words to describe how I hate post services during holidays. That's why I decided to send letters addressed to Portugal only after Christmas. Well, this one is for Rita, and arrived in her mailbox today!
The postcard is a painting of Palamós, her summer village and the most lovely heart shaped papercut that reminds me the portuguese typical ones. So beautiful!
Nowadays I'm a bit behind in all sorts of things. I have some letters in my pile, some pictures to be finished and some orders to be shipped. I'm hoping to find the time I need to catch up with this lovely young lady, as soon as I can. And I hope someday we'll be able to share a nice talk+walk, a hug and the delicious treats - that I miss so much - from "la Boqueria" :)
With love,
M.
This was sent a while ago, but I had some troubles with my computer. For some reason we didn't seem to be recognizing my SD memory card - panic situation for any wannabe photographer. Finally, my mum was able to recover my USB cable. Because later is better than never, and because it's the kind intention that matters, here I am showing what I made for our dear Nícia.
