Parcels from far and wide

 It has been a busy month for my post box and has cost me far more money than my budget allowed,so I will be curbing my future swapping for a while.

My first three Pocket Letter are on their way. One was  for a private swap on Swapbot, the other two for swaps on Pocket Letter Pals. the one was a colour swap (left) and my partner chose black, which was  challenging for me as I had to be quite creative. The other was a dog theme
 ( right), which I really enjoyed . I think they came out quite well considering they are my first attempts at Pocket Letters. I also received my first Pocket Letter in the above mentioned Swapbot private swap. It had lots of fun goodies and lovely cat artwork.

 There were quite a few postcards that arrived for me from Postcrossings. for those of you who do not know, Postcrossings is a community of people who swap and collect postcards worldwide. Once you join you are allowed to send a randomly selected person a postcard and then your name is put in to be selected for someone else to send you a postcard. I enjoy this website as I never know when or from who I will receive a postcard. It is like playing mailbox Lotto.

It is a great way of meeting new people and discovering new cultures. One postcard was written in Russian and another in Chinese.

This lovely quote on the left was part of a swap I received on Swapbot.

 I also received two lovely handmade magnets from another swap all the way from Canada.

Bird bookmark from New Zealand

Random swaps

I received a bird bookmark all the way from New Zealand with a matching postcard.


 I sent a large number of postcards and other swaps out but forgot to take pictures (sorry). Three Lord of the Rings themed bookmarks went our for a Redditgifts swap as well as a very South African cookbook with recipes from the Karoo. I really like this swap site but with postage being what it is I do not think I will be taking part in to many of their swaps as it is just too expensive.

viva la snailmail swap on Swapbot

This lovely parcel above was posted in September 2014  but only arrived in my postbox this week. It was a swap on Swapbot called Viva la Snail mail and was a lovely goodie bag of pretty handmade paper,postcards, bookmark and ink and a stamp. I had such fun unpacking it as I really thought it had gotten lost in the post due to last years horrendous 4 month postal strike. 

handmade bookmark

This beautiful bookmark above was handmade by the person who sent it, also for a Swapbot Bookmarker swap. I am almost ( but not quite) too scared to use it as it is so pretty and unique. I just love getting bookmarks as I am an avid reader and normally use whatever is lying around ( my glasses, a tissue, a scrap of paper).

Talking of reading, my Livinglesh Summer book Swap  parcel, as I wrote about in my previous post, is on it's way to South America. My swap partner lives in Brazil and with our postal system I have no idea how long our parcels will take but am really looking forward to the books that are coming. My parcel included After Dead by Charlaine Harris, as requested by my swap partner, as well as a surprise book and one or two book goodies.

I got some great news this week. Alli, over at Very Berry Handmade , has posted her next textile ATC swap. I had such fun with the last two swaps and had to join this swap. The theme is  "My Favourite..." and I cannot wait to start putting my thoughts together to make this new ATC. I want to try a vase of flowers or the Knysna Heads. I will definitely post my finished ATC before sending it out. I am really enjoying making the textile ATC's. I prefer the material to paper.

That is all for now.  Happy swapping and Viva la Snailmail