Happy Halloween!

Hi pumpkins! A very happy Halloween to you all! I hope everyone on the East coast of the USA is safe, scary stuff. Saw alot of it on CNN and was shocked by the force of Sandy.
Do you, my readers, celebrate Halloween? And if so, what do you do on this day? Trick or treating?
We don't actually celebrate it here in Holland, but it is gaining popularity. So who knows, one day we will be trick or treating too! I have my outfit ready, that's for sure.

 How cute are these pumpkins?

This tablesetting is pure awesomeness!

I hope you all have a good day my friends!! Let me know how you celebrated Halloween ok?!

Snail mail exchange is here!

Hi my friends! As promised, a new snail mail exchange is here at the end of a lovely snail mail week. I really hope you enjoyed my snail mail posts over the last couple of days. And ever more so, I hope you got inspired to start writing and sending out some snail mail.

In July I held my first snail mail exchange and got alot of positive feedback on that, which was awesome! So what better way to end the snail mail week and start a new season in the year then with a new snail mail exchange?! Here are the 'rules'.

If you want to participate, please be a follower of this blog.
Leave me your emailadress in a comment.
We exchange homeadresses through email and then the fun starts.

You can choose between three options:
1) Receive a postcard/ handmade card from me
2) Receive a letter from me
3) Receive a postcard/handmade card and a letter from me

Whichever of the options you choose, you will have to return the favour. I would love to receive the same from you! And don't worry, we do not have to be life long penpals after this, it's just fun to receive something pretty in the mail right?!

Snail mail week: Pimp my enveloppe.

Hi my friends. Yesterday I showed you some pretty packages and enveloppes. Toaday I will share a few simple ways to make your enveloppe the coolest on the block. They are simple, but very effective. I hope you will try them out, let me know if you will!
Use pretty wrapping paper to prettyfie the inside of the enveloppe.

Use craftpaper to create many small enveloppes. Fold them to make one big enveloppe.

Use pretty seethrough paper to cover your enveloppe.

Use labels, maskingtapes, stamps and selfmade drawings. Mostly...have fun! Tomorrow is the time for the new snail mail exchange so don't miss it!!

Snail mail week: Pretty packages and enveloppes

Hi my friends! In this new post in the snail mail week I want to show you some eye candy. No hot men, but pretty packages and enveloppes. I love getting ideas for my own snail mailing, so the pictures are very inspiring to me and I hope to you as well! Most of these wonderful pictures below are from the two great blogs of Hello Sandwhich and Isthar Olivera.

Photograph Fall result

Hi everyone! A small step away from the snail mail week only for today. Last week I showed you the second of creative challenges. The challenge was to photograph the essence of fall in no more then four pictures. Here are my four photos. I hope you like them! Tomorrow I will not have a challenge, but next week the challenges will continue and I have some fun ones in store!

Snail mail week: Pretty postage stamps

Hi my friends! As a kid I used to collect stamps and some of those I still own today. As part of the snail mail week I would like to show you my favourite stamps from my collection. Because, don't you just love it when a pretty stamp is on a pretty enveloppe?!

The first pictures shows stamps with animals and flowers, my favourite subjects! I love the butterfly one and the black and orange bird. On the second picture I especially love the Espana one which to me looks like a still life painting. Have you ever collected postage stamps as a kid?

Snail mail week: Lovely letters, longtime friendships

Ever since I was a teenager I always had many penpals. I loved writing about my life and loved even more to read about other people and cultures. Some of these penpals are still very good friends of mine, and they don't even live close to me. I had the privilige of meeting some of them over the years, which I will tell more about through these pictures.
This letter is from a dear friend from the UK, Katie. We have been writing for year and years. Last year I visited her in Bristol, England and had an amazing time! She showed me around her town and I got to meet her lovely boyfriend, who took lots of pictures for us. Katie also visited Holland and stayed at my home for a week! At the time we baked lembas bread (we both love Lord of the Rings!), visited the beach, rode bikes and basically had a ton of fun. I am happy she is still in my life as a good friend. And isn't that postage stamp amazingly pretty?!

Katie and me in Bristol

These totally cute drawings are made by my friend from Russia; Zhenya. I always loved receiving letters from her. Although our contact now is mostly through internet, I still treasure her letters alot. It always took a while for our letters to arrive, as Russia is huge! And the mail is quite slow there, but letters did arrive mostly. In 2010, after a long penpalfriendship, I finally got to meet my Russian friend. She lives in Madrid, Spain now and that is where I met her. It was such a joy to meet her and give her a hug! Had a great week with her in the heat of Spain and saw many beautiful things in Madrid. Hopefully I can meet her again soon, maybe in Holland?!

Me and Zhenya in Madrid

One of the best thing that has happened this year; reconnecting with my penpal from the Phillipines, Katrina! On the picture you can see two letters, one from 2002 and one from this week. I was super thrilled to find Katrina again on FaceBook. After sending her a message, she replied so lovely and could not wait to start writing again. And so we picked it back up, as if we had never been apart. It was so cool to find a letter of hers in my mailbox again! Katrina is hoping to visit me in Holland soon, and I can't wait!

Do you have lots of penpals? And have you ever met them? I would love to hear your stories, my friends!

Snail mail week!!

Hi my friends! I have some very exciting things coming up for this week. It's is all dedicated to the wonderful thing that is snail mail!

 



I will have posts about snail mail all week, including pretty letters and pretty postage stamps. A post on how to prettyfie your enveloppe and ofcourse I end this week with my snail mail exchange! The previous snail mail exchange was a great succes, so I cannot wait to see how this one goes. But that is for later this week! First many beautiful posts to hopefully inspire you to write a letter to a friend!

Paper goods in the mail!

 A while ago me and my friend Kelsea from Pink Wonderland decided to hold our own little exchange through snail mail. I sent her a set of Alice in Wonderland stamps, a vintage stickerset and a glitterstickerset in a tin. Not too long ago I received the package Kelsea sent me. It was a surpirse what she got me, so that made it even more exciting! And boy, she did not let me down one bit! I love every single item she got me.

The package included: A smashjournal (yay! We don't have these here in Holland) and a smashpad and smashtabs. A supercute set of three mini journals. Booklabels with vegetables on them and a lovely pad with scrappingpaper! As an little added bonus, she added a totally cute heart ring that Kelsea made herself. I am a happy lady! That's for sure, paper makes me happy.

Creative challenge #2: Photograph fall

Hi my friends! It's friday, so that means it is time for a new creative challenge. Last week I premiered this series of challenges with a draw your day challenge. Which was alot of fun for me! This week I would love to take a look at fall and use our photocamera to capture it. So the challenge is photograph fall!

Rules? Capture the essence of what fall means to you in no more then four pictures. So that could be anything from a tree that is losing it's leafs or a cup of hot chocolate.

 Want to participate? All you have to do is: be a follower of this blog and leave a comment saying you're in!

The challenge starts today and ends on thursday 26th oct (next week!) I will post my result on thursday and you are welcome to share yours too. Leave me a link to your blogpost and I would love to take a look at your result. I hope that you will join me again and remember, these challenges are for us to be creative and mostly to have fun!!

Draw your day result!

Last week I premiered the start of creative challenges on my blog. Draw you day was the challenge of last week. And today is the day I share my result with you all! As you may know by now, I am not great at drawing at all, but I had fun anyway! I drew my tuesday, where I had some fun baking at the icecreamshop. I hope that those who had joined me in this challenge will post a link in the comments so I can see your results too! Tomorrow I will post a new creative challenge, so stay tuned for that.

Switzerland in pictures: Bern city

Last time around I showed you pictures of the zoo in Bern, but we also visited the old city centre. It is very beautiful with old buildings, many flowers and gorgeous fountains. You can just feel the history when you walk there.We even saw the house where Einstein has lived for two years. Bern is German for the word bears, and the bear is symbol for the city. A bear graces their flag and a fountain is dedicated to the bear. I love bears so much, so I couldn't wait to visit this city! I hope you enjoy these pictures and even more so, I hope you all get to go to this impressive city someday!

Help A Heart!

Hi my friends. Today I want to share something about a wonderful cause and a wonderful friend. Kelsea of the blog Pink Wonderland has openly shared her story about Help A Heart, a fundraiser for the American Heart Association and why this is so very important to her. On oktober 20 Kelsea will take part in the Heart Walk to help raise more money for this foundation. But ofcourse, any money or spreading of the word is welcome! Please take a look at this page to see how you can help. Donate a small amount, or you can even buy something cute from Kelsea's Etsy shop. 

 I hope you can help in any way possible. If you can't donate, please help spread the word! Thank so much!

Creative challenge: Draw your day

Hi my friends! Earlier this month I made a post about new ideas for posts. One of them was doing weekly creative challenges, to promote being creative and to have fun together! So here is the first of hopefully many challenges.

 

What to do? Draw your day! How? In any way you want. There is no need to make a whole comicbook or lifestory in drawings. And you don't even have to be good at drawing. I for instance cannot draw to save my life. But hey, I want to try it anyway! Make a drawing or just some dooddling even, of your day, any day of the week. Had a nice cup of tea in the fall sunshine? Draw that, draw a cup and a sun. I would love to see the result, so do let me know if you decide to join me! I will post my result next thursday, so do post a link to your blog and I can even show your result here on my blog too.

 

Remember there are no rules in this challenge. It is just for the sake of being creative and mostly just to have fun! The result doesn't have to be perfect, if you had fun then that is all that matters! I hope you will all join me!

Switzerland in pictures: Bern zoo

During my holiday in Switzerland we also went to the zoo in the city of Bern. Bern comes from the German word for bears, and the bear is the symbol of the city. Now, my favourite animal in the whole wide world is the bear! So I was super excited to go to this zoo. I had a wonderful and unforgettable 'encounter' with two beautiful brown bears. I had never seen bears that close as in the Bern zoo and I was over the moon! So many bear pics in this post. And Hedwig ( Haryy Potter's snowowl) makes an appearance too, or at least a familymember!

 

Animals just love me. This seal was constantly begging for my attention really. Hahaha, kidding ofcourse!  But it was a very fun meeting with him or her!

In the zoo you could follow a bear trail, with bear footprints. Too cool, as a bearloving gal I went kinda cookie here!

Next time: pictures of the old city centre of Bern, which was very impressive! Have a good day my friends!