ppotw prize explosion

One of the best things I've done this year is join the League of Extraordinary Penpals.  I've met the most amazing, talented, sweet & interesting people and it's been one of the high lights of my day to chat with them online and through snail mail,

Our fearless leader and her partner in crime have a blog, Penpal of the Week that I stalk most regularly because 1) it's fun and 2) Julie makes the most amazing stationery and every week she has a new design for a limited time that I may or may not buy from time to time a lot.  Julie also has an etsy store La Papierre where she sells more of her amazing stationery (aka crack for snail mail addicts) and other mail necessities.

For the ENTIRE month of September PPOTW is giving something away every day!  It's amazing!  Today's giveaway is a very, very cute set of stationery that, if I won, I would have to try very hard not to hoard.

Take a moment and check out Julie's blog and enter her giveaway.  Check out her etsy store too!  I promise you won't be sorry.  And if you're interested in becoming a LEPster you can get info for that here!

i left my ♥ in san francisco

There are times when I just need a break.  I mean, I love my girls and all, but sometimes I want to sell them to my parents or my sister because otherwise, I might just die.

Fourth of July week Ray had off work and so Thursday my parents took the girls overnight and Ray and I spent the entire day in San Francisco.  San Francisco is probably my most favorite thing about living in the Bay Area.  I love the diversity of everything!  The people, the food, the styles...the mix of modern and historical, the smell of the bay, the view of Alcatraz....it's all my favorite.  I feel recharged and excited about everything after being in the city for a day.

We started out our morning heading over to the Ferry Building Market.  Tuesdays and Thursdays are Farmer's Market days and you can get ramen from Hapa Ramen which was my mail reason for going.  The pork and the noodles were delicious, but I could have done without the kale in my broth.

After filling my belly with ramen we wandered around the Ferry Building and walked by Boccalone, but alas, no Chris Cosentino.  Nonetheless, there were lots of things (and people) to look at.  I picked up some postcards to send to my LEPsters and then we wandered out to the Embarcadero shopping area for a bit before making our way to the San Francisco Shopping Centre.

Now, it's basically just a Westfield Shopping mall, but every time I go I have to take a picture of the ceiling.  It's so freaking gorgeous and makes me so happy.

Got some delicious tea from Lupcia after smelling just about every tea they had.  We also stopped in at a very crowded David's Teas, but because it was so crowded (and also because I literally have over 20 different kinds of teas at my house) I decided not to buy anything.

Inside Maido I found they sold Preppy fountain pens and Pilot Petit fountain pens so I bought three of each and some refills.  It was a very exciting moment for me!  The Maido on Santana Row doesn't have any!  We took the longest walk in the entire universe to get to Flax Art store down Market.  It was huge and full of just about every kind of art supply you might need to do whatever project you might do.  I ended up buying just a Stella pen (which I love and will now be buying more of them), but it was worth the 100 mile walk.

I also discovered this mall is more awesome than malls around here for the simple fact that their Hallmark store had the Itty Bitty Batman I haven't been able to find anywhere!!  Isn't he so cute?!  And I couldn't resist the So♥So Happy stickers too.

Then we were off the Japantown, which we didn't realize was going to close up in an hour.  *sad face*

 We did get into Daiso and found the motherload of all the shit I did not need, but needed.  Like these timers which we're using for green, herbal and black tea.  The clerk at Lupcia actually told us about them.  So far they work brilliantly.  Much better than the $15 broken one we got from Teavana.

Mini envelopes I'm going to use for mail tag!  I really did rein myself in here as I wanted to buy a bunch more, but I found other things I wanted to buy.....

Like all this stationery!!!  I bought two of everything!!  $1.50 for 12 sheets, 6 envelopes and 6 stickers.  I'm in love with it all.

 After eating dinner at another ramen joint (which I didn't take a picture of because I was already hungry and eating before I remembered to take a picture, plus the egg was hardboiled.  Seriously.  Booooo) we wandered around the closed shops, sat in Hotel Kabuki for an hour while we waited for our movie at the Kubuki Theater to start.

The Kabuki Theater is part of the Sundance Theaters and so they show a lot of indie or limited release movies.  Our main reason for going was because they have some showings that are 21 and over.  You can order drinks and food from the bar and take them into the theater with you.  So we got our tickets for Chef and got a beer and a vodka cranberry (THAT COST $25!!!!!!) and watched a movie.

The movie was super cute and I loved it.  It was just what I needed and I love watching movies with cooking in it.  Jon Favreau was great, John Leguizamo was adorable (something I never thought I would say), but the star of the movie was 11 year-old Emjay Anthony.  He stole the show for me.

So we drove back home in the middle of the night, sore from walking (buy I did hit 20,000 steps before midnight!), but I felt much better than I had in weeks.  Now my house is clean and I'm back to reading books and writing letters.  Of course, my reply pile is in the double digits, but that's okay!  I'll catch up and send out some surprise happy mail and finish my books and all is good.

snail mail

my first attempt at sewing patterns on envies

About six months ago I filled out my first form to be matched with a pen pal on the International Geek Girls Pen Pal Club.  I was matched up with another Geek Girl who loves Batman & comics and we've exchanged a couple of letters.  While I was on one of the boards there I joined the reading group (shocker) and another member told me I should check out the League of Extraordinary Pen Pals if I wanted to write/receive more letters.

On the outside the main difference between the two is that the IGGPPC is free and LEP exists on a monthly subscription, but really, that's not all.  On IGGPPC, you get paired based on your interests.  Every month they have an open round and when it's over you're paired, they send each of you an email and you take it from there.  Easy, peasy.

With LEP you decide if you want to pay month by month, or from three months, six months or a whole year.  After you've paid you fill out a form that has your pertinent info and interests and you're directed to join the Facebook page, a closed group page for LEPeeps.  After a day or two you are sent an email with the database.  The database contains all the info you will need to start sending letters.  

my workstation.  hello mr. fillion!

LEP has their main FB group, a reading group, a fountain pen lovers group, a yarn crafters group and a flea market group where members can trade or sell stuff.  There are also off shoots.  One member is doing a project for school and started a group with LEP members for research and another member started a group for her traveling Wreck This Journal project.  The group is very close, very active and it's almost as much fun as writing and receiving letters!

my first batch of envies with the envelope punch board

When I first started I was amazed by everyone's beautiful envelopes and stationery art work.  Washi tape, stickers, envelope punch boards are must-haves when you start your snail mail journey.  Well, they're not must-haves, but you will find yourself coveting them and soon enough you'll have a ridiculous collection and you won't really know how it happened!  

washi tape & stickers, your unnecessary must-haves

I really do love writing letters and getting to know people through written word.  It's nice to keep in touch with friends through Facebook, texts and emails, but there is something sweeter about snail mail.  The time it takes someone to write their letter and mail it makes things more precious.

some postcards to send out random happy mail

Every day that you find a pretty piece of mail in your mailbox you feel like a kid on Christmas Day.  You'll find yourself thinking of new ways to decorate your letters & envelopes and just sending random postcards or greeting cards just because.  I have around 36 pen pals.  It sounds crazy, but surprisingly easy to keep up with.  Of course, at times I get behind and my reply pile will be 20+ deep, but when the writing bug hits you get those letters out and a few more surprise happy mail packets.

 a thank you card i made

The best part about all of this is that it's brought out a crafty side I really didn't think I had!  I'm addicted to watching tutorials on youtube and checking out the picture of the mail other LEPeeps post of mail they're sending out to get inspiration.  In addition to writing letters I've been rubber stamping and my Mother's Day present this year was a Big Shot die cutter and embossing machine that has been so much fun to play with!  I also learned to knit this year which was/is so exciting to me!

my first knitting project

With all these new found hobbies I now have I've decided to bow out of a portion of my reading challenges.  It bums me out to do it, but I want to enjoy everything I'm doing and not be stressed about books I need to read.  While I am bummed, I'm also not because I know I had signed up for way too many challenges this year!  So I'll go through and figure out which challenges I'm still going to attempt.  I'm going to lower my overall goal to 200.

So that's what I've been up to lately, which explains the lack of book reviews.  Hopefully, I'll keep up with blogging and go back to doing more non-book posts.  A pen pal has convinced me to try the #100HappyDays project so maybe I'll post about that too, but we all know how well I do with consecutive day photo challenges!

 If you're interested in getting your own pen pal IGGPPC is currently in open round 14 so check them out!