Thursday, May 25, 2017

Pocket Letters

What is a pocket letter, exactly?  Before I take this any further, the creator of Pocket Letters was Janette Lane, and you can find where I got my information on pocket letters by clicking here to go to the Janette Lane Blog.

Most of you have probably heard about them by now.  Or perhaps you are still trying to figure them out...Or maybe you have even already tried making one; and either you liked it or you did not.  Lets say that hypothetically that you have made one and that you did not like making one if you have tried to.  And so if you did not enjoy making it, I can understand why, they are some one intimidating, and if you have received a beautiful bulky pocket letter that someone sent you and its chock full of goodies that you may or may not have and to boot has cost the sender a small fortune to mail it to you.

The very first one I made was described as above, and I did not make another pocket letter for a very long time after that for a few years in fact.  That is, until recently a good friend got me curious about them once again.  So I made a couple of more, one was too bulky and far too many goodies, and the other was not near good enough and not near as many goodies as they should have been.

Good grief, how do we come up with a happy medium?  Quite frankly in my opinion if the pocket letters are too big and bulky it becomes far too costly to send and that people who send them as such have missed the boat. (Pardon my expression)  Especially if you are sending over seas...a small fortune perhaps? Likely.  So I went to Janette's site and found this...

On her site, there is a brief explanation of what each pocket is for.  So I went ahead and made my own template for my own use which looks like this...


I have since changed a few things but I will explain what I have come up with for each section, pocket by pocket.

The very first step I make is I choose a colour or pattern of paper that you think your pocket letter pal might like, it can be a solid colour or a pattern of what you think it should be.  It could be a theme or not, So for example, if you know your pal loves to travel, you might want to make the front of the pocket letter using travel themed paper...but the beauty is that it can be whatever YOU want it to be, as ultimately it is YOUR choice because you are the one sending it.


For this pocket letter, which I just finished yesterday;  it looks like it could be for a theme.  But whether it is or it isn't doesn't matter., what matters is the rest of it which is in the back.


Pocket # 1 - is simply a "letter", it does not have to be long, it can be hand written or typed out, my penmanship is terrible, so I type mine, and I used a general form letter so I don't have to keep writing or typing out the same thing over and over. I don't send out that many pocket letters anyway and I change whatever I need to in the form letter as I go.  And I label the front of that pocket simply LETTER. You can put the label right on the paper in that pocket which is what I do or right on the outside of the plastic sleeve, I have done that too.  But by trial and error, I like it on the paper and inside the pocket.

Pocket # 2 - Janette has this pocket labelled for ephemera (for pockets 2 & 3 is doesn't really matter which order these go in.   So I have # 2 labelled as "Stickers". If your pal is crafty and you know what things they collect or like, such as used postage stamps, or die cuts, you can put them here.  If your pal is non crafty and your not sure what they like you can put something useful in this pocket like decorative bandaids.

Pocket # 3 - Janette has this pocket labelled stickers, but I have it labelled as "ephemera."  Again, for these two pockets it doesn't matter which order they are in.  It just so happened that I mixed them up by mistake and didn't want to waste what I have done.  Other things that you can tuck in here might be single wet ones, or band aids (that is if you did not use them in Pocket # 2) perhaps an ATC made by you, a poem, a photograph, a keychain, mini notepad, flat makeup samples, coupons, etc.

Pocket # 4 - This pocket is a little bit more involved.  Janette suggests calling this pocket a "mail tag" and make the tag so that will fit in the pocket.  But I have decided to change this to About You in an attempt to keep it simple.  She also suggests to pick a few short questions to ask your pal.  So is what I have done to both the front and the back of the tag.

                                 

As you can see, its quite a simple design of a stamp, a sticker and a butterfly die cut on the front and on the back I have pre-typed the questions using font size 7 or 8, cut them out and glued them on the back.  I also used a couple of cute little stickers here to decorate it.

Pocket # 5 - This pocket is simple what I have done is googled popular 3 word "quotes" and chose 9.  Then I manipulated them in my open office to ensure that they were all 2.5 x 3.5 in size, and then cut them down to fit the pocket.  I only put one in per pocket so I have others for future use.  You can see the sample of this on the numbered photo above.  Its the centre pocket.

Pocket # 6 -  For this pocket what I have done is similar to what I did for the tag pocket.  Janette calls this one, "About Me".  So what I have changed here, is I simply answer the questions, that I ask my pal in pocket # 4 ...the about you...pocket. Why repeat anything that might be in your letter which is in pocket # 1.

Pocket # 7 - This pocket is called "Misc."  I suppose that miscellaneous is kind of the english word for "ephemera".  things that you can tuck in here might be single wet ones, or band aids (that is if you did not use them in Pocket # 2 or 3) perhaps an ATC made by you, a poem, a photograph, a keychain, mini notepad, flat makeup samples, coupons, cute sticky notes etc.

Pocket # 8 - I call this pocket, "What is a Pocket Letter?" For what Janette suggests here, I would think it would mainly be for people who do not know what a pocket letter is or have never received one or is not crafty.  She has a free printable here.  But what I have done is similar to the about you and about me pockets, I have pre copied and pasted onto one page in Word so that all I have to do it print on pretty paper, cut it down so it will fit the pocket. I have 8 left to use for future pocket letters.

Pocket # 9 - And finally the last pocket is saved for a flat pack of tea, or a flat pack of coffee sample.  I call this pocket, "coffee or tea on me" I am seriously considering getting a couple of Tim Horton gift cards with just enough money on them for one coffee or tea to keep the package as flat as possible.

So here you have it...my complete dissection of how to make a pocket letter so that they not only look great, but are quick and painless to create.

cheers

Dar



Saturday, May 6, 2017

Accountability List

Here is an update of my ever growing accountability list of stuff to do.

✔1)  Make a spring flip book for Bev Pisko over on Swap-Bot, which should actually get done today and in the mail tomorrow.  Its due May 5th and should have already been worked on. - CHECK!!!  Done and Mailed on May 3, 2017

2)  Finish Bonnie's pocket letter and mail the dies to her from Bev.

3)  Make 4 Mona Lisa ATC's for ATC Exchange Circle

4)  Make a pocket letter for Michelle Phillips on the Canadian Pocket Letter Group.

5)  Make a pocket letter for my Mom.

6)  Make a pocket letter for Laura. 

7)  Make a pocket letter for Aunt Linda.

8) Word die cuts for my partner in pre cut die cut swap group.

9) Get Pat's pocket letter ready to send.

10)  I have fallen so far behind on the Heart Art Project that I don't know if I will be able to get caught up.

11)  I also have a WHOLE WHACK of die cutting to do especially for my good friend Bev.

12)  Cat or Dog ATC.

13)  Cow or Horse ATC.

14)  Cut up all card board boxes down to ATC size to use for backings.

15)  Get back into water colour painting!  I love it so much but I have been getting artist block.

16)  Sorting all paper work we have into order by date for tax purposes.

17)  Update my profile on Swap-Bot

18)  Get caught up on Heart Art

19)  HALLOWEEN HOWL DUE AUGUST 31

20)  On going sorting and putting all ATCs into order by artist in binders.

21)   Collecting all of our contacts and info and writing them all down by hand and putting them into the roster manually...just in case if there is ever an information hiway crash...but for the real reason is that Google is messing around with our info believe it or not...

22)  Going through all of our photos and burning them on to dvd's

23)  On going sorting my craft stuff and keeping it reasonably tidy.  For example sorting whatever clear stamps I have that are not in binders and put them into binders.

24)  Being a better house keeper.

25)  Collect all the paper work necessary for an important meeting this week.

26)  Scan All of my available to trade ATCs to trade individually and put them in my files on Sharon's group, and the big group.

27)  Trade more on Sharon's group.

28)  On top of all of this I need to spend more time again on the lessons I am taking over at the learning hub.

29)  Over all being more creative especially on rainy days!  And making sure that I am completely all caught up on my promises!

30)  Exercising little by little everyday either doing the moving easy program, walking or jogging around the house, or playing fetch with Spencer.

31)  Clean Desk - always on going.

32)  Make home made embellishments

I am slowly plugging away at my list....I will get there sooner or later...never a dull moment.

Tuesday, May 2, 2017

Flip Books

My sister in art Bev and I have been chatting a lot recently about Flip books.  I've done a lot of different things in art but I have never made a flip book.  She sent me a few links to look at some ideas for what a flip book is.  Then I tried this video, not sure if it was one of her links or not.  So I tried it...and actually loved the challenge of making this one.  Here are the photo's of how they looked.


The photo of the page with the birds is the front of the book.  The photo of the page with the flowers is the back of the book.  The photo of the stacked envelopes are actually the inside of the book.


I was kind of disappointed that none of the pages lined up properly, but then this was my first ever attempt not only a flip book, but also binding one...which the below photo shows you how that looks.


Pretty impressive looking for my first home made bound book, right?  Well in the end, I decided not to use this one because I had absolutely NO CLUE how to decorate it or what to put in the envelopes. I will however try this one again sometime, but will decorate the envelopes before actually binding them into a book format.

Then I took out my friend, another sister in art, Carmen's flip book as I was her partner for the Flip Book Swap on Swap Bot, and basically just kind of followed her pattern for my partner Bev.  I really hope she likes it.  Here are the photos of what I came up with.

 

 

 

 

This was a lot of fun to make.  I thoroughly enjoyed it....I just hope that Bev will like it.

Aloha!

Dar