What to mail: Clutter

I recently was looking around the web for some things about what we call “dejunking” I.e. getting rid of the junk we have accumulated.  Well, I was presently surprised when this video referenced mailing something.  Actually this is a great idea!!!  He is discussing old photos we don’t need but others in the photos might enjoy seeing.  Recently a lady we went to church with decades ago came across a photo of me as a little girl in her class and sent it to my mom, and we really enjoyed seeing it.  In the digital age we may not have so many hard copies laying around, but we may have inherited one, or been saving a digital copy to share and not got around to doing it, well, this is a great encouragement to do so!

And, there’s no need to limit this to photos!  We recently cleaned out our cookbooks and decided we didn’t need the soup one anymore.  I’m not too fond of most soup, but my aunt is, so I stuck it in an envelope with a couple stamps and sent it off.  She had something she could enjoy & knew I was thinking of her and we pared down our possessions!  Obviously don’t send unwanted/needed things, but “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure”. 

Hand drawn envelopes

I haven’t been doing that well with decorating envelopes, the mood/inspiration just hasn’t struck me.  But this month I got a couple ideas that I think turned out kind of neat (considering I’m not that great at drawing) so I thought I’d blog them:

I did this one as a tribute to the flower show at a county fair

And this one was for a fall card.  The snowflakes in the winter quarter didn’t show up too well in this photo as they were in silver ink.

Monthly Mail~November 2013

Last month was a very good month for mail for us.  As far as receiving, for me it was my birthday and probably the best year in some time for cards:

Not only in volume, but a couple were really a perfect fit.  Sometimes one wonders how much effort went into picking the card, did they really like what it said about you , or did they just get it?  Well there were a couple this year that  I could really tell why they picked it.  It was a good inspiration/encouragement for me to try harder myself in the future to get perfect cards. 

And then there was Thanksgiving which we also got more than normal:

For sending it was good as we sent both Thanksgiving and most of our Christmas cards sent. 

For November of 2013 the final numbers were:

With my family, I:

Sent:          61 -Cards/notes

Received:    6 -Cards

Personally, I:

Sent:        4  -Cards/notes

2 –Letters

Received:   8 -Cards

1-Package

Smiles Sent Saturday~November 16

This week’s a little different.  In stead of something I mailed through the Postal Service.  This is about the shoeboxes I sent through Operation Christmas Child.

Our family packed  nearly a dozen boxes and we’ll be packing 100+ more with our church.  My mom is posting on her blog Simply Shoe Boxes about our “Spur of the Moment OCC Packing Party”.  But I thought I’d share photos of the 4 I packed.
The first one was for a 2 to 4 year old boy:

I hope he likes dinosaurs!

Smiles Sent Saturday~November 9

We got the last of our Thanksgiving cards out today.  We sent a total of 15.  This is something of an increase over past years.  We are trying to send cards to all seven of my parents’ aunts.  In the past we’d just sent cards to the one or two we were closest to.  My grandmother lives with us and it always seems to brighten her day when she gets a card from one of her nieces or nephews.  So, we decided to try to do that for our aunts (now, just to be clear, we’re not leaving the uncles out, it’s just that, sadly, there are no uncles left).  I’d like to encourage my readers to think of a couple elderly family members or friends they could add to their mailing list, or even if you don’t send many holiday cards, do it for them.  They can be quite lonely, and I’m sure it would brighten their day to be remembered, especially as with their age, mail may mean more to them.  Well, now I’ll get off my soap box and share some of the envelopes I sent (and hope none of the recipients stumble across them here, first.)

A number of the envelopes this year were colored

Or brown (which I guess is a color) which I found nice as a simple rubber stamp…

…or label was enough to make it look special.

On some others plain ones I used a marker to draw either my old, standby, pumpkin…

and some fall branches.

If you’d like to see more, you can see my old posts Thanksgiving Envelopes 1 & Thanksgiving Envelopes 2

The name “Smiles Sent Saturday” denotes my hope these things I mailed cause the people who receive them to smile.

Smiles Sent Saturday~November 2

Since it’s fall, and I’m working on this year’s Thanksgiving cards, and I thought I’d post some of the ones I did last year for inspiration for me now.

This one was just a colored line and some scallops.

Just some colored lines and a sticker, it’s amazing how even a small thing can really dress up an envelope.

This may be one of my favorites: my impression of a fence with cornstalk stack and a pumpkin.  I also like the fall/turkey/West Virginia stamp. I find it hard to find stamps that work well for Thanksgiving cards, but this one worked out well!

Just a simple pumpkin, thought it turned out pretty well.

And, finally this one, that I just added a little stenciled feather to.

Here’s a link if you’d like to see more of my decorated Thanksgiving envelopes.

The name “Smiles Sent Saturday” denotes my hope these things I mailed made the people who got them smile.

Monthly Mail~October 2013

I keep track of ever piece of mail I or my family sends.  I like to be able to refer back to see how recently I wrote someone (it tends to either be longer, or not as long as I think!).  I decided to do a monthly post of the numbers, in part so I can look back and see how I've done.  For October of 2013 the final numbers were:

With my family, I:

Sent:           2-Cards/notes

 

Personally, I:

Sent:        2-Cards/notes

5-Letters

Received:    1-Cards/notes

2-Packages

(including USPS, and other carriers)

 

So, a total of 9 sent and 3 received.  Not great numbers for sending-half as much as last month, but hopefully I’ll do better next month with Thanksgiving cards.  And, I should get more, too, as my birthday is next month!

Smiles Sent Saturday~October 26

One way I like to embellish envelopes is to use sticky notes as address labels.  Now,  obviously, one can’t just stick it on there, it will come off in the mail long before it safely arrives at one’s recipient!  What I do is squeeze a little Elmer’s Glue-All ® on a scrap piece of paper than apply a thin layer to the back of the note with a cotton swab.  I’ve heard some people use glue sticks to apply paper embellishments to envelopes, so that may work, too, but I haven’t really tried it yet, and with it being the address, I hate to take any chances!  Well, enough explanations, on to a couple examples:

This one you can’t see too well with blurring out the address, but it went with a sunflower card, so I thought it was a great way to customize the envelope.  The stamp was one of the “Nature of America” stamp series, miss that series, it was really pretty and unique!

 

This one looked like it had stitching around the edge, so I thought it went well with this paper that looked like material (I actually made the envelope, too. Probably the first I made).

The name “Smiles Sent Saturday” denotes my hope these things I mailed made the people who got them smile.

Smiles Sent Saturday~October 19

This week’s post is a little different. It’s not about mail I send someone, but sending someone the tools to write for themselves.   For years my family has enjoyed sending shoeboxes to needy children world wide through Operation Christmas Child.  We always include school supplies: paper, pens, etc.  This year, for the plain paper (I always like to put in plain paper for then to draw) I used free paper and cheap report covers from Office Max to make a booklet.  I got thinking, maybe I should put in some of my extra sheets of stationery paper in the front and back pockets for them to use:

I looked through my stash and was able to find quite a few kinds of paper from my stash that I had enough to share, plus some envelopes, each of the three boxes I did this for got something a little different.

I even had stickers to put in this one:

I think it turned out well, and is a gift I’d enjoy getting!  I was really glad I thought of doing it as my mom had read a story somewhere about kids in an orphanage being really happy about the paper in their shoeboxes as they could then write their siblings in another orphanage!

 

EDIT:  Added these photos to show how it fit in the shoebox.   The first is how it is when the shoebox is open, the second is how it fits with the lid down and rubber banded.  I found it bent better when the open side was up.  If the shoebox was a little shorter the long way I guess you could cut it down some.

 

The name “Smiles Sent Saturday” denotes my hope these things I mailed made the people who got them smile.

Smiles Sent Saturday~October 12

So, I decided for today to share some envelopes I’ve decorated for male family members.  If you’re like me you probably find it harder to find cards for men, let alone decorate envelopes.  It’s not like they’d really appreciate you drawing flowers on the envelopes!

This one actually had a package attached (hence the tape around the edges).  I did the snow scene by making a stencil from a piece of paper:  cutting out the slope + some hole punches, then spray painted it.

This was for the London Olympics, I had some Olympic paper, so I used it..  The stamp was surprise, I found it in some childhood paper stuff, must have been saving it, but was really glad to be able to make use of it.  I glued on a paper clock and drew “Big Ben” around it.

This is a simpler one I did-just cut a label with zigzag scissors and paired it with a seal and tried to dress up the name font a little.

This final one may be one of my favorites.  I got this wrapping paper on clearance a few years ago, I just traced an envelope and taped/glued it.

The name “Smiles Sent Saturday” denotes my hope these things I mailed made the people who got them smile.