Look what I bought!

I bought this for a £10 from a charity shop, but needed to be sanded and re-varnished. May spruce up the inside later.

I have changed the way I store letters... I was using A5 zip wallets but these get quite bulky and also the ends split. So, I decided to go for resealable food bags. These wallets/bags are for those I had yet to reply to.

I bought some ribbon to wrap them up. I don't have enough ribbon for them all. 

Today, I wrote a letter on this lined paper.... slightly smaller than A5, from Santoro. I decided to write on both sides, although the back of the lined paper is plain.... sometimes it seems such a waste to leave the back side blank (but I do not always write on the blank side). 

Last week, I received a letter on this A4 card, folded into quarters and the top edge cut. There were 8 panes, the first side as a nice handmade card design, and my penfriend wrote on the other 7 panes. I like this idea, sometimes writing on A4 leaves gaps and spaces on the right hand side and could be perceived as such a waste of space (some creative arty types might fill those voids with doodles), but using A5 might be more efficient. 

Postage Stamps.....

I was browsing some penpal groups on Facebook yesterday when I came across this post:

I was horrified to read this, from someone I think lives in the US. What a cheek. It comes across as this person wants someone else to pay for her to send letters... The most important part of pen paling is the letter from someone sincere, not from someone who will commit a crime every time they post a letter. If she doesn't have the funds to write to all her penpals then she should cut down on them and or the frequency she sends a letter. 

I agree with the admin of the certain pen pal group and it is illegal to postally reuse postage stamps. A form of fraud or theft, although I haven't heard of any arrests/prosecutions for the crime.

Reading other penpal discussion groups and fora, this is a common practice. It isn't one I subscribe to myself. I buy my stamps from a lovely sub-postmaster and love being able to use the (mostly) wonderful stamp issues Royal Mail have produced to affix for postage.

June stats and more

I received another Europa stamp for 2013... This time from Finland.... My third Europa stamp (I have "noticed")

I sent a letter out with this cheeky comic stamp....

I like writing letters in cafes so here's one, table is a bit low and the sofa is so hard to get off of.

I saw this bureau in a charity shop... I should have snapped it up but I was pondering where to put it (would need to declutter/reorganise)... Anyway, went back a few days later and it had gone....

June Stats:
Letters - 15 received and 15 sent!
Postcards - 22 received and 59 sent!
One other nice item received.