Envelope Decorator

 I recieved my #Write_On starter kit in the mail last week. I'm terrible I completely forgot about April being National Letter Writing Month, and that I was going to participate in the 30 letters in 30 days campaign. D:
Until I got this in the mail, halfway through the month. Hahaha.
The cards are super cute, as always. though that pink....who picked that? Why? it's so bright, and ugh.
But then again, I am extremely biased against pink colors. So there's that.






I spent a good part of a day writing letters and decorating envelopes last week. It was fun. I normally only have one or two people I write letters to a month, so it was a nice change of pace to have so many.
I limited myself to small cards, and short messages. Some people feel obligated to write back when you write them, and I don't want that. I also don't want to overwhelm people with my entire life story in an envelope. Though one of my friends and I write pages to each other about our lives and thoughts. It's really nice.

Unfortunately I only have 11 letters written. I only have 12 people's addresses total. And some of them it was almost strange to write to because they're people I haven't spoken to in a long time, or feel as if I don't know well. But I think they would still appreciate a small letter saying Hi.
I hope.
One of the letters was to an old coworker, before she was a coworker she was almost a mentor. My friends and I would go to the library one night a week for a teen reading program. She ran the program, and was amazing. We didn't always read a book a month like we were supposed to, but we always came to the program regardless. And we had other books we loved.
I think that was her purpose of the program, to encourage teens to read, to discuss, to have a safe hangout place for them.
So I wrote her a letter telling her she is a beautiful person, because she really is.
But now I need to figure out what I'm going to do about the rest of the letters. :/

Letter Writer

Cute stationary I've bought in Japan (From the Daiso).

Before I joined the military I honestly can't think of when I wrote a letter. With social media, e-mail, text messaging and so on there was never a need. I mean, most teens probably keep blogs now instead of diaries.
But when I joined I spent three months in Boot Camp. The only contact with the outside world we were allowed to have was letters.
And so it began. I wrote religiously in Boot Camp, to everyone I knew, pretty much. I would write on anything I could find, and during whatever time I could sneak and do so.
Once I graduated and I moved onto Combat training, and from there I went to my first duty station in North Carolina I continued to write. I found I enjoyed it. Taking time out of my day to sit and really think about what I wanted to say to my family, reflect on recent happenings in my life. Granted getting my family to write back only happened occasionally, except for when it came to my Grandparents, and my elderly neighbor whom I've known forever (and then later on my mother-in-law). I would say that I keep in touch with my Grandma, Mother in-law and neighbor now more than I do my parents.
Recently even one of my old friends from high school has even started writing me. We went over five years without talking to each other, in person or online. And now we write several times a month. It's amazing.
My mother in-law, Evelyn, is big int arts and crafts. She makes me cards that are incredible.

 Here is just a sample of some of the cards she's made me, that I still have. They're so nice, and pretty much works of art. She custom makes them all for her friends and family.

It definitely gives me the motivation to keep writing, because to receive these and not use them would be a crime.

Her and I write a lot, and she'll send me post cards from places she's at when her and her husband travel. My Husband never writes, and a lot of family doesn't either, so she's always stoked that I do. It's touching. :)









Well, eventually I started accumulating tons of mail, because what do you do with letters after you've read and replied to them? I'd hate to throw them away. So I went to Micheal's and bought a sweet box that looks like a suit case, and I keep all my handmaid cards, stationary, and received letters in it now. It's gotten quite full. Not sure what I'll do when it fills up. I can't just have boxes and boxes of letters sitting around.
I need to come up with a crafts idea for all these...

Well, sometimes I decide I want to do some mail-art as well. I'll occasionally make my own crappy cards, and decorate the envelopes.

Example of most recent envelope decorating here. This is for one of my friends who adores Attack on Titan as much as I do (If not more).
I've definitely gotten out of the habit of drawing as much as I used to. It takes a lot of time, and patience, and doing and re-doing. I don't feel as if I have any of those things much. But sometimes I create pictures and find myself pleased with them. :)

This is one of those times.

I crack myself up. Quite a bit.

The top part of this envelope was inspired by the cards below that I received in the mail recently. 

I received four cards in the mail from a site called Eggpress as part of their Write_On campaign to bring letter writing back. Unfortunately I discovered the campaign at the end of the month. So I didn't participate in it the whole month. But they still sent me some free stationary. I used two of them already. The pink one had an orange version as well, and the blue one had a green version.
The design is simple and the idea behind the campaign is simple, but simple can go a long way.

I've been adamantly writing letters for almost five years now. I've become closer with people more than I would have through simple social media, or writing e-mails weekly. Those things work well for some, but using Facebook all the time to talk to people you become detached from the fact you haven't seen these people in forever. It doesn't occur to you that you haven't actually talked to them personally.  You've posted a status, they posted a status. You then each commented and liked said status.
But if someone doesn't have that sort of media, do you just write them out of your life? Do you call them more often? Do you keep in touch at all?
I do through my letter writing.
I have times where writing can seem like a chore, but keeping in touch and putting thought into what you're doing does take time, and its easy to just put off for months at a time (And typing is so much faster and gives you less hand cramps than writing).
But I don't think letter writing should become a lost art.
So Write_On internet.
Keep in touch.
:)