Good Mail For Me and You--Coupon Edition

I've received a bunch of good mail lately so it's time for another good mail post and a chance for you guys to win some good mail from me by leaving a comment.


Missy Claudia sent me this card which involves a Japanese proverb translated into French...only Claudia!


Esther sent me this thank you note for the birthday mix cd I sent her.

Jenn sent me a postcard from her cruise.

Nikole sent me this cute thank you note for the blog prize notecards I sent her.


Kristi sent me a note with a bulging envelope full of coupons (precut!) and several $2 bills to off set the $2 off coupons...so nice.


Kacey sent me a couple personalized notepads to celebrate the season, and I've already been putting them to good use.


Claudia sent me this cute note recently and labeled all the ornaments on the front, they say merry, work, simplicity, surrenderness, gratitude, love, service, open, faith, selfless.


Rebekah kindly sent me a big envelope full of coupons along with a thank you note for the cleaning mix cd I'd sent her, wow that was nice.


Melinda surprised me by dropping off this fabulous roll of polka-dot wrapping paper (I love it!).


Kristi sent a follow-up envelope of coupons a week after she sent the first load.


Elizabeth sent me this note thanking me for the birthday mix cd I sent her.


Nikki sent me this cute thank you note for the birthday mix cd I sent her, and included a sheet of winter stamps (sweet!).

**Have you sent any notes lately?
Do you have these winter stamps?
Do you have wrapping-paper envy?
Do you need any coupons?**

Comment Window Tidbit: I've been avoiding headaches by making sure to drink enough water early in the day, woohoo!

My Kind of Gift

This is the guest blogger post I wrote for Miranda's Handmade Holiday series, but I'm posting it here so I'll have it in my records and because I've got too much to do tonight and don't have fodder for a new post. I will be selecting a few random commenters to win one of my fabulous Christmas-music mixes, so make sure to leave a comment.

When I am going to give someone a gift, my approach is usually to be as thoughtful and personal as possible. I believe this stems from the fact that my Love Language is gifts ("Don’t mistake this love language for materialism; the receiver of gifts thrives on the love, thoughtfulness, and effort behind the gift. If you speak this language, the perfect gift or gesture shows that you are known, you are cared for, and you are prized above whatever was sacrificed to bring the gift to you. A missed birthday, anniversary, or a hasty, thoughtless gift would be disastrous—so would the absence of everyday gestures." --Gary Chapman) so it is a big deal to me to do the best I can for the person I am giving the gift to.

Disclaimer: this is not always possible, especially when giving a gift to my husband who after 16.11 years of marriage is still a mystery wrapped in a riddle and is practically gift-resistant.


But I digress...I have a great love for sending and receiving mail, so several years ago when I participated in a blog swap called Pink Christmas I came up with the idea of making a Good Mail Kit for the woman I was assigned to send a gift to. I didn't know her personally, so the best I could do was to use her color preferences and initials for the cards and labels I made to go inside the kit.


For her kit, I used the medium size of the world's cutest suitcase as the container for the kit. I then took various card/envelope sets (also from Paper Source, but you could make your own or buy generic note cards anywhere) and used rubber stamps and rub-ons to create specific sets of thank you notes, birthday cards, and thinking of you notes. I also included some smaller notes to serve as cards to include with gifts.

Along with the various sets of stationery, I included several of my favorite smooth-writing black pens, a sheet of postage stamps, and some good mail labels (made by me).


I ended up giving this gift two more times as I continued to participate in the Pink Christmas swap (which is no longer happening) and improved upon my idea each year by wrapping each set of note cards in ribbon, because it looks more festive and really, who doesn't love ribbon?

If you were making this gift for someone you know well you could include a small address book or printed copy of family addresses so they could keep everything in the case. You could also make or order address labels so they could just stick them on the envelopes (this may be particularly helpful for those who have a tendency to find excuses for not writing notes).

You may have also spied the cds I included with my Good Mail Kits; those were just a Christmas music mix I included just for fun, but if you know how to make those I'm sure your recipient would welcome a mix from you as well.

I gotta say, this gift just makes me happy. I have a room overflowing in mailing supplies and stationery, yet when I look at these Good Mail Kits I find myself wanting one. Is there a name for this obsession, stationeryitis perhaps? I don't know. But if loving it is wrong, I don't want to be right.

Comment Window Tidbit: So it turns out that the math classes I help in are my favorite classes! Who knew? Mainly that's because those are the classes where the students need the most help, so I stay busy the whole time and get to work one-on-one or one-on two, or one-on-three to help them. I never would have guessed this would be the case.

Good Mail For Me and You

I really have no business posting another Good Mail For Me and You post because I still owe two prizes from my last post (I haven't forgotten, I just started working and have had printer/ink issues). But I promise to send prizes to those who win, so comment on this post to enter.


Kelly sent me this sparkly thank you note for the birthday mix cd I sent her.


Tiana sent me this incredibly kind note regarding my blog. I so appreciate receiving notes like this, and am always thankful when someone takes the time to write and send one to me.


Lisa sent me this note to thank me for the birthday mix cd I sent her.


Erin sent me this to thank me for the Cleaning Mix cd I sent her as a prize from one of my giveaways, and to send me these cool, metal postcards.


My new blogging friend Kelsie sent me this very nice note about my blog, and as a result of her note we were able to meet last week when I took her darling daughters' photos.


Missy Claudia sent me a sweet little note to let me know she was thinking of me and our new jobs (she recently started working too).


Lisa rocked my world last week by sending me a nice note congratulating me on my new job, a generous gift card for gas (my first one ever), a mix cd from her girlfriends' weekend, and a quote magnet. It was so thoughtful and well timed, truly touching.


I enjoyed the good mail label she put on the front of the envelope; this is particularly funny because Lisa hates cats.


Melinda sent me this nice card in response to a card I recently sent her; don't you just love black and white polka dots?


Missy Claudia sent me this big postcard from one of her very favorite places.

**Have you received or sent any nice notes lately?
Do you enjoy black and white polka dots?
Have you ever had a giftcard for gas?
Have you been to The Hotel Coronado?
Do you like cats?**

Comment Window Tidbit: I ended up having 5 hours and 10 minutes of freedom at home after work yesterday (before having to go to a presidency meeting) and it was glorious!

Good Mail For Me and You--Halloween Edition

Don't forget to comment on this post to be entered to win good mail from me. I'm going to be selecting the winners tomorrow night so I can work on the prizes when I have Creative Friday by myself this week (Michelle is going to Colorado tomorrow).


My visiting teachers came to see me the first week of the month and brought me this little bag of goodies. I'm such a sucker for anything like this, it must bring out my inner 6 year old or something because I normally wouldn't be excited about a teeny bag of pretzels and a couple salt water taffies, but wrapped up cute like this and given to me out of the blue is delightful.


Becca sent me this super soft and cozy Halloween bootie socks, some cute cards and some chocolate caramels. I have only ever had these kind of bootie socks as gifts from bloggers but I love them in the Fall and Winter and wear them until they're hole-filled.


Blog lurker/sometime commenter Tiffany sent me this thank you note for a cd I sent her.


Another blog lurker/sometime commenter Kathleen sent me this thank you card for some good mail I sent her last year. She was apologizing for the delay (she originally wrote the tiny thank you card in January), but my policy (yes, I have a policy) is that it's NEVER TOO LATE to send a note, especially if it's something you keep thinking about. I mean really, who wouldn't want to get a nice note in the mail no matter how late it was? She also sent me this big photo corner style bookmark, which I had never seen before but think is pretty cool.


Courtney saved the day and sent me (in a cute Fall decorated envelope) my beloved Colorstay Lipstick! She just happened to have a tube of it on hand that hadn't worked for her, but that she had kept. She emailed me to ask if I wanted it, and of course I did! It never ceases to amaze me how much blogging blesses my life!


Amanda L. sent me this cute postcard to thank me for the birthday mix cd I sent her.


Linda sent me this fun, Halloween themed package. She is always so on top of seasonal good mail and always surprises me.


Lori sent me this thank you note for the birthday collage I made her.


This mysterious package arrived in today's mail without a note inside. I hope the sender was just too busy to enclose a note but will comment here because it's kind of freaking me out.

Edited to add: It turns out RANDY ordered this tape off ebay! I'm not sure if it's weirder that a mystery person could have sent it or that Randy actually ordered it and invited me to watch it with him.

Brooke sent me this nice thank you note for a cd I made her.

**Do you enjoy little gift bags like this?
Have you done your visiting teachings?
Do you have cozy bootie socks?
Have you ever gotten a random package without a note?
Do you have a policy?**

Comment Window Tidbit: I had to pee so badly today that I barely made it home, and haven't been able to stop thinking about the extreme relief I experienced. That sort of thing just stays with a person.

Good Mail Winners

"What a lot we lost when we stopped writing letters.
You can't reread a phone call."
--Liz Carpenter

Congratulations to these blog commenters, please email me (stuart_jill@hotmail.com) with your mailing info if I don't already have it.

9--Brooke (I need your address)
27--Shelly (I need your address)
19--Kelly (Flab Be Gone Blog) (I need your address)
14--Jenn
29--Emily J.

These are the winners of last month's Good Mail For Me and You --Paris Style post

22--Kelly N.
1--Linda
20--Kath (I need your address again)
9--Lene
35--Alana (I need your address)

**Will you send something this week?
Have you won before?**

Comment Window Tidbit: I cleaned the garage today and found much evidence of mouse-life going on out there. I may have to consider going with the neck-crushing route of extermination. I will not tolerate infestation!

Winners

I relied on Random.org to choose the 5 winners for my good mail giveaway.

23--Robyn
19--Nikki
29--Amy (I need your mailing info)

3--Lisa
18--Melanie

A couple of you mentioned that you were hesitant to comment because you didn't want to lessen someone else's chances to win or you didn't want me to think you were commenting just because you wanted to win something. To this I say, pshaw! I WANT you to win, so comment away and one of these times you will win and we'll both be happy abut it.

**Did you NOT comment that post on purpose?
When was the last time you said, pshaw?**

Comment Window Tidbit: Why must they be doing construction on every street right now?? Even the detours are a mess. I would like to think it takes more than bad traffic to make me come undone, but it doesn't.

Creative Friday--SYTYCD Edition

This is a Creative Friday flashback post because I wasn't able to get it done in a timely manner due to my computer woes, but they were resolved in 5 minutes today when the internet guy (I believe that's his title) came over and declared our router corrupt. Woohoo, I can upload pictures speedily once more!! It's so liberating. I feel like doing a jig.

Michelle and her kids came over on August 6th for Creative Friday (though it was a Thursday) because their power had gone out the evening before and they'd missed most of So You Think You Can Dance. Landon and I were very happy to watch it with them (his 2nd time, my first).


We all camped out in the family room to watch the 2 hours of heaven, complete with popcorn and m&ms. We all love this show so much and were very happy with the final two dancers and winner!!


Later we taught them the new game we'd learned on our family camp out. It turns out a bowl of full of Flips goes much faster when shared with 5 people instead of 2.


Eva had Tang Mouth thanks to our lovely treat of pebble ice and Tang.

Doesn't Michelle look rather angelic in this picture?

Michelle won!

We also played Bananagrams for awhile and were entertained by Eva's desire to yell "Peel" each time we needed to draw a new letter from the pile. Even when she ended up leaving the table to play nearby we'd say, "Eva say it" and she'd yell "Peel!".

It's a very rare Creative Friday that doesn't involve actual creativity, but it ended up being fun anyway.

Our self-portrait from the day.

Give Away: I have the July, August, September and October 2009 issues of Creating Keepsakes Magazine that I don't want. I will mail them to you if you're interested.

**Have you ever had a router go bad?
Can you feel my excitement?
Do you ever do catch-up posts?**