Person of Letters
When I was growing up, before everyone had the Internet and when long-distance fees mattered, I used to write letters. Even to people I knew I would see regularly, like my grandparents who lived 20 minutes away. But mostly I wrote letters to my friends Angel and Serena, who moved regularly. Sometimes a letter would come back to me, and I would know that they had moved again, so all I had to do was wait for their letter with their new address on it. We would draw pictures in them, add stickers and photos, and pull pranks on each other by filling the folded note with confetti or glitter. Some were typed, on both typewriters and word processors, some were in code, some were written with invisible ink, and some were folded into little origami creatures.
With the advent of college, Internet and cel phones, the letter-writing stopped. I still wrote the occasional letter to family, but for the most part I quit doing it.
Upon finding the store Kawaii Gifts a bit over a year ago, I noticed their selection of insanely cute Japanese stationery. I remembered how much fun it had been to write letters, and how cool it feels to get a real one in the mail, so I bought one with cute little cartoon seals on it. I used it here and there, but since I had no real place to store the paper and envelopes, they ended up mixed in with a pile of art papers on a desk and were eventually buried, along with a few other sets I acquired along the way.
Recently I've been cleaning and organizing my drawing supplies, and after consolidating some things I ended up with a thin metal tin the PERFECT size for stationery. Having found my letter sets while cleaning, I put them in the tin with their accompanying sealing stickers (Japanese envelopes are not gummed - they use stickers!), along with some mystery stationery that I had never seen before. Now that things are organized, I've had the chance to write a few letters to family and friends, and it was a lot of fun. ^_^
Oddly enough, most of these people are people I could easily write an e-mail to, but for some reason, I really dislike e-mail. Probably because in the back of my mind I'm going, "Dammit, where is the Add Sticker button?! And why can't I write in pale blue glitter?"
And because I like to spread the cute whenever I can... Behold my Massive Missive Melange!
So does anyone else write letters? When's the last time you received one? Is there a letter that you've been meaning to write but haven't gotten around to it? Did I somehow encourage you to write one? ^_^ That would be awesome if I did.
With the advent of college, Internet and cel phones, the letter-writing stopped. I still wrote the occasional letter to family, but for the most part I quit doing it.
Upon finding the store Kawaii Gifts a bit over a year ago, I noticed their selection of insanely cute Japanese stationery. I remembered how much fun it had been to write letters, and how cool it feels to get a real one in the mail, so I bought one with cute little cartoon seals on it. I used it here and there, but since I had no real place to store the paper and envelopes, they ended up mixed in with a pile of art papers on a desk and were eventually buried, along with a few other sets I acquired along the way.
Recently I've been cleaning and organizing my drawing supplies, and after consolidating some things I ended up with a thin metal tin the PERFECT size for stationery. Having found my letter sets while cleaning, I put them in the tin with their accompanying sealing stickers (Japanese envelopes are not gummed - they use stickers!), along with some mystery stationery that I had never seen before. Now that things are organized, I've had the chance to write a few letters to family and friends, and it was a lot of fun. ^_^
Oddly enough, most of these people are people I could easily write an e-mail to, but for some reason, I really dislike e-mail. Probably because in the back of my mind I'm going, "Dammit, where is the Add Sticker button?! And why can't I write in pale blue glitter?"
And because I like to spread the cute whenever I can... Behold my Massive Missive Melange!
So does anyone else write letters? When's the last time you received one? Is there a letter that you've been meaning to write but haven't gotten around to it? Did I somehow encourage you to write one? ^_^ That would be awesome if I did.