SnailMail Love

Hi there all,

We are getting ready to have a few scorching hot days here in The Netherlands. I hope to get through them well enough with two small kids at home.

I discovered snailmailing last November through Instagram. Snailmail is the word of choice now to describe what used to be, having a pen pall. The art of writing letters and sending them out. The snail of course standing for the slower pace of paper correspondence over that of email. 

The fun bit about snailmail apart from connecting to another person through letter writing is the creativity that you can put into your packages. Next to your letters it's fun (not mandatory) to add little trinkets such as handmade gifts, vintage goodies or stationary supplies the receiver can use on their next snailmail project. Even the envelope used to send out your letter can be handmade. 

Here are some Instagram pictures of snailmail I received.

This is one I send out.

I love maps so I had to make some envelopes out of old maps.

All this snailmailing leaves me some how unable to send out a plain white envelope. But it's all good it allows me to play with my washi tape and masking tape collection.

Well I will be logging off now to work on some snailmail goodies. I will be sharing the results much later just in case my pen palls happen to read my blog I don't want to ruin the surprise.

Bye bye.

Nelly

Reorganizing My Creative Space

Welcome back friends. A few weeks ago with the help of my parents I made a start with reorganising my creative spaces. The clutter was really getting to me to the point that I could not get anything done creatively. Not a good place to be let me tell you. With the pregnancy and birth of our second baby we did not have the time or the energy to do anything to organise the storage space and my craft room/office. They just kept getting worst with overflow from everywhere. Of course we where working on the nursery and RJ's room at the same time and everything that wasn't going to be used for these two rooms got diverted to the storage and craft room.

When organising rooms you really need a game plan. There are loads of tips around the internet on how to tackle this task. Here is one that I found easy to follow.

My step dad tackled the storage space. Here is where I keep my stash of small furniture that needs a face lift and 90% of inventory for my webshop. It started out like this.

Sorry I only have this Instagram picture. Basically you could not even get into the space let alone find stuff.

Now it looks like this. I like being there now.

My mom and I worked on my craft room. That went from this.

To this.

I'm not finished by a long shot but I'm working in there again. After getting rid of stuff and rearranging other stuff I got to see that I still needed places to store papers and craft supplies that currently don't have a place to live. This week I will be taking pictures of things that I will be listing on Marktplaats (our Craigslist) and making a shopping list for things that I need for better storage in my craft room. And let's face it that is the fun part right, making things pretty and organised again.

Till next time,

Nelly

How To Transform An Old Suitcase With Paint, Old Maps and Washi Tape

O my where did this week go. Last week I promised to share a project I did inspired by the book 'Kringloopgeluk' by Ingrid van Willemswaard. I did a review of her book if you've missed it go here to check it out.

I had this old dented suitcase I wanted to transform to use as extra storage in the nursery.

This was the inspiration from the book.

I wanted the inside of the suitcase to be redone just in case I wanted to store clothes in there. That's why I used the old maps on the inside.

I Started out by painting the outside with regular white emulsion paint I had on hand. I did just one coat because I was going for a distressed, weathered or used look. So I did not have to be neat about it. Let your project fully cure and harden for at least 24 hours before continuing on.

Next step was to paint the borders on the inside of the suitcase with this minty acrylic paint before using mode podge to stick the old maps to the inside. Then I applied one topcoat of mod podge over the map to finish it off. 

I grabbed my stash of washi tape to decorate the outside of my suitcase. I had no plans what so ever here. I just randomly stuck the tape to the surface.

Thank you for visiting.

Nelly

Pretty Boxes

Last week my parents came to help us get a handle on our clutter in the garage and my office/craft room. I'm so grateful for their help. Our garage is now totally organised and I can actually walk from one end to the other and find stuff I thought I lost long ago. My mom and I tackled the office that was left neglected and gathering overflow from everywhere since last December. The office needs some furniture changes and additions and most importantly some great storage solutions still. That's how I came to search for pretty and affordable boxes to store craft supplies. These are a few you might like also.

1. Return To Sender - €15,-

2. Geometric Boxes by Rie Eliese Larsen -A4 €23,95

3. Return To Sender - €15,-

4. House Doctor Boxes Olive and Petrol - €15,95 / €19,95

5. Return To Sender - €15,-

6. Kvittra - €5,99

7. Kvittra - €7,99

Nelly

Something I've Learned About Facebook

In the spirit of our blogging community I want to share something I've learned recently about Facebook and it's policies.

Have you notices these like, share and win promotions that have gotten so popular on Facebook recently?  Well for those who don't know what I'm talking about it's the promotions where you can win some cute products when you 'like' the companies Facebook page and share the promotions on your own time line. I have participated in a few of these myself and thought it would be a great idea to do a promotion like that for my own shop for mothers day last month. So I did. I got  a message from a friend warning me about these types of promotions being in breach of Facebook policy. She knew this because she attended a seminar where this was discussed. Well let me tell you I got right on it and went to look up the information here .

Please read the poly and make sure your fan page is not breaking any FB policies. Basically FB can shut down your page if it finds that you are in breach of their policy. Of course FB can change their policies whenever they like and remove pages without reason anyway but why give them one. So be warned and pass it along.

Do you have any tips you want to share with class today? Please feel free and leave a comment.

Till next time.

Nelly