It's in the mail...

With the advent of the electronic age, it's very rare we find something special arriving in the normal surface mail. We never seem to have that feeling of knowing something special is on it's way...unless you are an especially regular online shopper. The feeling of waiting for the parcel to arrive, wondering what's in there! Unless, of course if you bought it, then you'd know...

This month, I decided to take part in the 'Sunshine in the Mail Swap' over here at 'Seaweed and Raine'...

Having missed out on a mail swap earlier in the year with the Creative Collective, this was a great opportunity for me to use some of those ideas floating around in my head, AND for a recipient to have a parcel arrive in the mail (and not just those window faced envelopes!)

Sheree from Seaweed and Raine put the call out about a month ago. I'm not sure how many people signed on for the activity, but we all now have the name and address of the person we are preparing our little surprises for!

We each have been allocated a different person to receive the Mail Swap, so our special gifts are for someone other than the person who is making one for us/me! What a great idea!

With the rain that's been hanging around (we've just had a down pour), it's been the right type of weekend to drag out the cutters, the glue, the printer, the sewing machine. Oh...how I long to be able to spend my days just doing this!!

Now that I have a grandson on the way, he'll be here sometime in October, all of my skills and passion for creativity are champing at the bit. I can't wait to see what Mum and Dad-to-be have chosen for the baby's room!

Pinterest is getting a workout! and my blog projects are up there too...Some of the things I've been doing this weekend are for potential new ideas for my Made it store as well.

How about a bit of a look at what I've been making?

The lady I am sending my gifts to, is Greta from 'On top of a Lilypad' across the ditch in New Zealand. How cool that it's 'overseas', well, over one sea anyway! NZ is so close they could be part of us anyway, or maybe they think AUS should be a part of NZ. (The rivalry continues...)

For the swap, we were asked to do a few things or all of the 5 activities, if we wanted to..

Sheree asked us:

... to choose 3 things (more if you feel like totally spoiling your partner!). It's preferred if you could hand make some of it (or purchase from someone who does).

1. Stationery OR  note cards with envelopes.

2. 1 Handmade postcard.

3. Something you have made.

4. Something that makes you think of Spring.

5. A surprise for your partner

My package will include the following:

A HANDMANDE NOTE CARD WITH ENVELOPE

A HANDMADE POSTCARD

This is from a selection of postcards I made earlier in the year for another project by the 

Creative Collective and I've sort of kept it as a bit of a 'signature' for some of my 

'designed to a T' poster/stationary items.

{Photo isn't great sorry, this was during the downpour and I had no light basically}

SOMETHING I HAVE MADE

A few tags using stickers, bakers twine and Washi tape - This tape is one of my favs 

at the moment, it has the days of the week on it - in 3 different colours!

 and

A SURPRISE FOR YOUR MAIL SWAP PARTNER

This is an A4 poster with the quote I used from last week's 'Weekend Thoughts' 

'Don't wish to be anything except what you are!'

Here's the actual graphic for it...I'm going to send it with the clipboard too. This is a great way to showcase art work, especially if you have children. You can change the item regularly and even have some hooks on the wall for a row of 3 or 4 pictures. They look fantastic and are really a cheap way to display. I bought these from Officeworks for a few dollars each...bargain!

I couldn't think of anything to do that reminded me of Spring, but I still have time. The parcels are scheduled to arrive by the start of Spring, September 1. I have some floral fabric in my stash...I'll think of something...

Stay tuned for some more of what I've been making this weekend...