Secret Penpal Scavenger Hunt 2015: Outgoing

It’s the day after reveal day! Which means I’d like to share the packagee I sent out with you guys.

I had so much fun participating in this year’s Secret Penpal Scavenger Hunt and putting together a little package of goodness. For other people’s reveals, take a look at the #SPSH2015 hashtag on Instagram!

I’ve split my reveal into two posts – one containing my own outgoing parcel and one with the incoming parcel. For my incoming, please take a look over here!

My outgoing was heading to head honcho Fab herself, and I’m really hoping she liked it! I should probably warn you right now that this is a very long and picture heavy post, but I had too much fun putting the package together to rein myself in.

One of the things Fab had stated that she liked was teal, so I focused on that for the decoration of the different parcels mixing it up with some bright green and my own favourite neutrals. And a lot of string, you know how I love to wrap things in string.

  

The first thing I decided I was going to include from the list was the Bad Day Survival Kit – I’ve always liked putting together small packages like this for my friends. This time it was a little harder, since I didn’t really know what Fab likes to do on a bad day. So instead I reverted back to what I like to do to make a bad day better: I like to hide away in my room with a good, preferably funny movie, some home made cookies and a warm cup of tea.

I designed a handful of mini-zines with some of my favourite funny movies that are profoundly quotable. The zines all contained why I thought the movie was a good bet, and some fun subtitled screen caps and quotes.

And of course tea for two, since most bad days are better with friends.

The next thing to get gathered and packed up was the Postal Freaks Kit, or in this particular case an Airmail themed letter writing kit.

I included some air mail envelopes, address labels and stickers, and a sheet of Royal Mail air mail labels. I’d also saved an old cover for first class stamps, and turned that into a small booklet where I told her a little about Royal Mail and some of my opinions relating to it, with two small unused vintage definitive stamps.

I wrapped it up in double string, so that she should have enough of it to do the same for two parcels going into those envelopes. By now, you probably know how much I love to have everything be matching a theme…

My third component was Something that represents me.

I decided to include some pretty stationery with to do lists printed onto them. I’m crazy when it comes to lists, I keep making them all the time. It’s the only way I get anything done, and if I don’t have a to do list I forget half the things I need to get done. If I’ve just written my list, I don’t even necessarily have to look at it to remember – something about writing it makes it stick for me.

I also threw in a “Choose Happiness” journal card, since I feel this represents me more and more. I’m less willing to accept anything but happiness, and I make conscious choices to bring more of it into my life. On the back is a quote that’s helped me through inevitable rough spots in life: “In the end, everything will be okay. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.”

For the Something oddly shaped prompt I included an embroidered patch that I’d made.

Since I know Fab likes letters, I went with that theme. The patches are really versatile, and can be either sown onto any fabric, or just attached with a safety pin. One girl I talked to said she was going to put hers as a charm on her Midori closing strap.

My final thing of the list was Something old-fashioned. I got too excited wrapping it up before I’d taken pictures, but I included two envelopes with bits and bobs. On one I’d stamped “Actually Old”, in that one I’d added a number of vintage cigarette cards depicting a variety of different things – including some really old-school inventions. On the other I’d stamped “Fake Old”, and in that were some bits of reproduced vintage ephemera.

Lastly, there was The Gift, selected especially for her with listed preferences in mind. I looked through a number of local shops, but nothing really stood out to me, and the few things that did were out of my budget. Coming up on the final day for send off, I was actually getting a little nervous. In the end, I decided to put together a filofax decoration kit with a bunch of things from my stash – not a bought gift, I admit, but one that was far more personalized to her listed preferences and definitely over the spending limit.

Fab had stated that she like pale yellow and teal, so I scoured my collection for things in those colours. She also said she was using a filofax, and after some stalking I found out it was a pocket size. I’ve seen some people use PL cards as dashboards in those on IG – I only use larger planner sizes, so I couldn’t test it out.

In the kit I included: PL Journalling cards, Washi tape samples, Sticky notes, some of them from Knock Knock, a variety of die cuts for decorating purposes, some paper clips and a PL folder.

And that was it!

My the postman deliver ever in your  favour,
x Alex.