Sunday, 28 February 2016

Pocket letters

Very recently I happened to come accross a novel form of snail mail, you gotta love Pinterest! Well if I'm honest I was pretty sure my pen pal days were well gone, I don't even get time to send as many cards as I'd like, but these looked intriguing. Basically pocket letters, if you haven't already come across them, comprise of a 9 pocket plastic wallet filled to the brim with crafty lovelies, tea bags and personal messages.

Pocket letters started in America by the lovely Janette Lane, She was very keen to try Project Life (A way to journal your life) but she couldn't afford all the cards and files etc to do them so, thinking outside the box, she found some old baseball card wallets and tried to journal on a budget.... But.... They became pocket letters! Here is her first video explaining all about them here. Well I have to say I watched this and wanted to find out more! I pinned like a crazy woman and joined a couple of fb groups.  I chose ones who swapped in the UK.

First things first, get online and order some pockets!  I bough a set of 10 on Amazon, (I didn't want to commit to more in case I didn't like it).  As soon as they arrived I set about creating my first pocket letter!  The papers I used came free in a magazine,  I never know what to use them for so a perfect opportunity!
Here is a little video of my first ever pocket letter.



So I had made this thing, it was fun but now what?? Well I posted my little video on the Facebook group and two people wanted to swap straight away!  Sooo excited (big happy dance) I sent this one off to the first person who contacted me and I now have another to make for the other.  I was also contacted by someone living in America to do a swap!  Ooo.  Now l am not someone who is good at keeping up with things if I'm honest but the joy of these is you don't have to strike up new pen pals for life, you can just do swaps.  I can't wait to receive my first one! 

Well I am off to share over at Handmade Monday, hopefully I Will see you over there checking out all the crafty goodness!

Bye for now and if you fancy giving pocket letters a go or even want to swap give me a yell.  I am thinking it is a great way to use up scraps!

8 comments:

  1. I love this idea but I'm so swamped with other things at the moment I can't join in. My heart wants to say yes but my head is saying "are you crazy - you have to fit in eating and sleeping too!"
    Maybe later if you really get into it...

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    1. Oh I do know what you mean, I'm not sure I really have time either to be honest but thought it might be fun. I think I will have to limit myself. The first one took hours, I guess because I really didn't know what I was doing, hopefully following ones will be much quicker. Xx

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  2. What a charming idea! I am terrible at keeping up with letter writing but really love the 'slow down' pace of it in our 'gotta have it/ know it all now' world. One of my yearly rituals is still to sit down and write and post Christmas cards each December. I dont do it to get mail back, but for the joy of letting people know Im thinking of them the old fashioned way! Although they usually then send me a facebook msg thanking me for the card and wishing me a merry christmas!

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    1. There is something so lovely about a bit of snail mail isn't there. I wish I was able to give my Christmas cards tha attention they deserve xx

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  3. What a charming idea! I am terrible at keeping up with letter writing but really love the 'slow down' pace of it in our 'gotta have it/ know it all now' world. One of my yearly rituals is still to sit down and write and post Christmas cards each December. I dont do it to get mail back, but for the joy of letting people know Im thinking of them the old fashioned way! Although they usually then send me a facebook msg thanking me for the card and wishing me a merry christmas!

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  4. Love this idea and we have loads of the T/C plastic pockets, may have to dig them out to use. . I tend to email rather than write which is such a shame really

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    1. Ooo, well if you do and fancy a swap let me know. As much as I love the convenience of technology I usually do prefer pen and paper. Your so right though, tech can be quick and let's others know your thinking of them straight away. X

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  5. It's a lovely idea - I remember with fondness years of corresponding with my pen pal pre the Internet era:)

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