Outgoing to Poland

Most of the time when I’m making something I’m balancing between two sets of visual styles which both really appeal and inspire me: the vintage/retro sensibility or bright colours and bold lines and patterns. Often, I end up mixing the two.

This letter, which I sent off to Maria in Poland, fell much more on the vintage side of things than many other letters I’ve sent recently. It also arrived super fast, which is why I can share it with you so soon. Yay! A fair warning – I really liked the way this letter turned out, so there are quite a few pictures below because I got crazy with my camera.

The theme for this came from the Puffin postcard. I bought a box of 100 Puffin postcards (which all look like their various vintage book covers) on sale a little while ago and I’m absolutely loving them. They’re a good thick quality to them too, so not flimsy like they are in some other postcard boxes.

It was important to me to include a variety of small goodies – some because they are fun things to get, and others because they pushed the theme or colour scheme.

The vintage definitive stamps are all in colours you can find in other parts of the parcel. The envelope has a note on what mail tag is and a first prompt list. The washi samples are just some of the ones I really like, which also fit the colour scheme. On the back of the retro tag is a note about how I’m not going to be in England over Christmas, so it’s got my Swedish address. Finally, the vintage cigarette card is of Charles Dickens, for those of you who don’t recognise him, and has information about him on the back.

I wrapped it all up in string – opting for a blue bakers twine since it gave a nice contrast to the various red to purple hues.

It was fun figuring out how to place everything within the wrapping so that it could be seen and contribute to the overall feel, while still being fairly set in it’s place so it wouldn’t fall out.

For the envelope, I once more used a paper bag. I think they make for really fun, colourful envelopes. Since I had a bunch of commemorative stamps arrive just a few days ago, I chose to use a bundle of those, picking the ones that where mostly in line with either theme or colour.

All in all this letter was a blast to put together, and I was very glad to hear that Maria enjoyed it!

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