Happy New Year!

It is not yet New Year's here in Florida but in many other parts of the world it already is! Even so, I wanted to wish you all a very happy 2012 full of many wonderful prospects and of course many more letters from pals the world over! I hope that I may share more of my pen palling journey with you all soon and bring you more fantastic ideas for how to optimize your pen palling adventure.

May 2012 bring you much prosperity, love and joy!

Fireworks over Sydney Harbour Bridge. Photo: Chrissie Thoo. bbc.co.uk 

A little bit of paper...

By now I am sure you all know that I love anything to do with paper! I was recently rearranging my paper collection (it's enormous!) and found some scraps that I had saved which of course I had to put to some good use so I'd like to share some photos with you:

First up, I found some scraps of winter/Christmas word paper and cut out the
individual phrases and then made this cute little envelope from some scrap red
paper and cut out individual letters and words from remaining scraps and also
snowflakes from some wrapping paper scraps. This is for my pen pal Christelle.
What do you all think of these? I also cut a few for my pen pal Maria Laura. 

Maria Laura's little word pack looks like this:

For this one I used a security envelope I'd decorated with swirls, each hand-drawn
and colored with markers, and wrote the message by hand in a gel pen I got at Target.

Lastly, I used up a few scraps making little paper hearts and Valentine's ephemera for the next big holiday. I love cutting hearts out and using up as much of my scrap paper as possible. Here are the hearts:

Those are just a few of the things I made, you can also check out some of the little paper scraps I decorated with small drawings on my other blog, Mes Petites Creations. Going through my scraps helped me to find more bits of paper to share with pen pals, make some extra stationery/cards, and see what supplies I have to use and also helped me see what else I needed to acquire. 

This New Year 2012 promises to be a very creative one for me! I can't wait to share more of these times with you!

Happy New Year 2012!

Love,

Nadia Marie

Haul out the holly...Christmas is near!

It's that time of year again and I've already received some beautiful cards and lovely little trinkets from pen pals (which means I need to get on the ball with the cards I am to send)! I just adore seeing what each person comes up with and was so excited to arrive home from work yesterday afternoon to see that I had received two gorgeous packages full of awesome paper goodies!

First let me show you what my friend Maria Laura sent me that made me all giddy inside! She and I both have such a love for paper crafts and items that we are always sending each other little finds...

My dear friend Christelle from France sent me this delicious eye-candy smorgasbord of paper goods, postcards, magnets, teas, and trinkets as a wonderful surprise too! Just look at the wonderful little things she sent me:

A package of delights: Parisian postcards, quote cards, samples, a lovely necklace
with two charms, lots of paper ephemera, personalised magnets, and teas! Thanks
to Christelle for such a beautiful surprise present!

I really do have some of the best pen pals in the world! I have received 5 beautiful Christmas cards so far as well! I would love to share with you some snap shots of these cards so you can see the diverse paperie that exists in this world...

Clockwise from left: Happy Holidays card from Maria Laura (US), Christmas Wishes
card from Andy (UK), Santa Claus card from Jenny (US) and Feliz Navidad card from Fany (Spain).

The last card is from my newest pen pal in Argentina, Caty and shows how diverse Christmas greetings can be from country to country. 

We've displayed them in the china cabinet along with all the other decorations for Christmas which I will also share with you here:

Well, I am sure I will have more to show you all in the very near future! Happy preparing for the holidays! May it be joyous and merry!

Kind Regards,

Nadia Marie

On my desk at this present moment...

I have always been one of those people who is working on 10 things at once and since I have a high volume of letters arriving each week I often have to put things aside to write back and then pick them up again. Here I show you a few things I have in progress.

I enjoy creativity and finding things to make for my pen pals such as the decorated paper clips pictured above and featured in my crafting blog Mes Petites Creations. What little things inspire you to be creative? What sorts of projects are your favorites?