Happy Mail For Tabby! February 2016

I'm really getting into the swing of things with creating happy mail. I've always loved doing it, but I just haven't always had the time to sit down and do it. I've made it a personal goal to put a lot more effort back into my penpal letters! I have all these things to use, to create something beautiful, but because I'm worried about getting behind with replies I rush through them and forget about the whole reason I started sending snailmail. I haven't been taking on anymore penpals recently, and have also agreed to stop writing to a couple as I don't want to let them down. I feel like I've now got a nice amount of penpals to continue with this little snailmail journey without feeling too much pressure.

You may have already seen the video I did for this happy mail, if you haven't then it will be at the bottom of this blogpost so you can watch it there. But I have added a few things to it after I stopped recording, sometimes that just happens. I will record the process,  pack everything away, and then realise that actually I wanted to add something, or something doesn't feel 'complete'. Even though I'm dedicated to creating a good video, I'm not going to set my camera & lighting back up to film me putting down a strip of washi tape and a couple of stickers, so I hope you guys can understand that!

So I did go with a colour scheme for this one as you can tell. I didn't choose the colour scheme straight away, I picked out some card I wanted to use and then chose everything else to go with them.

If you aren't sure about how to choose a colour scheme then doing it this way might help you. The card is the bread of your happy mail sandwich!!

I did debate whether to write straight onto the card when replying to the letter part of the happy mail, but I didn't want it too look too busy. Instead I chose to staple a band one of the middle section, and just tuck the letter behind it. I used my Technique Tuesday Stamps to write 'HEY TABBY' (definitely my new favourite alphabet stamp set hehe). I stamped the date above this as I had kind of slanted the text a bit when stamping, so the date helped to fill this space above and it didn't look as wonky.

If you didn't want any of the written letter showing, you could always pop it in a mini envelope and tuck that behind it instead. It'd look just as cute!

I tend to write the mail tag part on an actual tag in my letters, as long as I have some tags hanging about in my stash. I feel like it's just a little bit more fun and something different to have in the letter. I attached some twine to the top, and stapled it to the card. Instead of cutting off the twine in line with the card I decided to leave it long, trim the end and add a sticky not to the top! I folded it round and cut a triangle out of the end to make it kind of look like a flag. It adds a little extra interest to the happy mail when you have things popping out the sides. Obviously being string it can easily be tucked in, to fit inside the envelope.

Under the mail tag I stuck down a journaling card to help fill in the blank space. I then answered the mail tag questions Tabby sent me, and on the end flap I added lots of paperclips which kind of went with the colour scheme I had going on.

Before starting this happy mail I did rummage through my stash and pull out a few things that I thought might go well with the colour scheme. I scattered bold text throughout the mail, as the colours I went with were all very similar to one another, so contrasting them with the bold make it all pop a lot better! If I'd gone with yellow/orange/red coloured text or a more 'floaty' style font, then it would have all blended into a big happy mail soup. Of course there's nothing wrong with this, but I prefer things to just POP!!

So there you go! That's my most recent piece of happy mail for my penpal Tabby!

I'm really really enjoying creating happy mail again, I can't wait to move so I will have more time to create! 

If you want to see the process video, you can do so here:

You will find a full list of supplies used, in the video description, so if you were wondering where things are from take a look there.

Speak to you all soon!!

- Daisy X

Fancy Paperie Etsy Shop Share!

So recently I was sent a beautiful package of paper goodies to share with you guys from Fancy Paperie!

 I featured them in my recent Collective Haul video, you can see that here.

Amanda, who is the owner of Fancy Paperie sent me a variety of products to show you, all of which she designed herself. She has a pretty unique style which is one of the things I really loved about her products. They have a lovely hand painted feel, and the colours used are so beautiful!

Above is the Pastel Floral letter set, included in this set are x6 green envelopes, x12 sheets of card stock to write on, and then x6 letter seal stickers. I was surprised that the cards you write on were in fact card not paper! It's definitely different to any other writing set I've had before, and I was really impressed with the quality of the card.

The stickers have been hand cut so they aren't 'perfect', but again I think that adds to the handmade feel of all the products.

The Fancy Floral postcard set was definitely my favourite out of everything I was sent!

I think I just preferred the pattern and colours used on these, plus I'm a bit of a sucker for pretty postcards. You get six in a pack, and they are completely blank on the back. These are also the only product I received which have a glossy finish to them, which I definitely prefer to the matt finish of all the other products.

Above is the Hello Doll Floral Greeting card, this was completely blank on the inside so it can be used for any occasion. I tend to use cards like this a lot when I'm sending RAK's or when I want to add a little note in a giveaway package. Alternatively if you want to write a letter to a penpal on something other than a letter set, greeting cards are just as lovely to use. 

The last thing Amanda sent me was one of the cards from her Holiday Greeting cards collection. Again this card is blank on the inside, so it is more versatile. You can buy this card in a pack of ten, you get x5 of this design, and then you'll receive x5 of the white fox design! They all come with a brown kraft envelope.

Overall I am impressed with Amanda's designs, they are beautifully unique and I can't wait to start using them! I feel like the print on the postcards is much better quality than the rest, I'm not sure whether this is just because they have a glossy finish or what. But they are just much more crisp than the other designs.

Saying that though, her prices are very reasonable for the products you receive. The postage is a little pricey to the UK, so definitely keep that in mind if you aren't from the US.

Overall I definitely encourage you to check out Amandas shop and social media links, all of which I will leave below for you:

Etsy Shop

Storenvy

Twitter

Instagram

Thanks so much for reading!

- Daisy X