US Candy Swap

Last month, I organised a sweet swap with a fellow snailmailer & blogger, Amanda ,who's from the United States and today, I wanted to show you what she sent me. Firstly, the packaging she used was awesome! It was decorated in a Halloween theme with lots of washi tape and stickers, and she wrote on 'Trick or Treat, Smell my feet, Give me something good to eat!' which reminds me of my childhood halloween so much. My favourite thing about the packaging was the adorable glittery ghost sticker. 

The rest of this post is going to be quite pic heavy, but 'a picture paints a thousand words' and I want you all to see the great things I received. She sent me a few kinds of snacks that are enjoyed in autumn & around halloween, plus some crafty bits I can use for snailmail or scrapbooking. Here's what was inside:

 This morning, I tried all of the sweets, apart from the candy corn. I couldn't resist eating some as soon as I opened the package a few weeks ago because I've wanted to try candy corn for around 10 years now and it was the only candy I asked for (the rest was all a surprise)! The candy corn was really nice, very sweet and I thought it was quite similar to the soft rock we can get at the seaside. I read online that it has a taste like marshmallow, but I thought it tasted more like vanilla. I can see why it's really popular in the US and I will probably have to buy some online each Halloween now. 

 When I noticed I'd been sent m&m's, I was really excited to try them. I love m&m's and I know in the US, they have so many different flavours. Although we can get some of them here in American candy shops or B&M Bargains, I've never seen these before! The sweets are orange, yellow and white in colour and are filled with white candy corn. The candy corn inside the m&m's tasted different compared to the original candy corn that I was also sent, but they are still yummy. I can't really describe the taste but they were very sweet. I wish we could buy them here!  

The next snack I tried was the Reese's peanut butter cup with pumpkin. I'm not a massive fan of peanut butter but I do like the reese's products and I was quite interested to try this because I've never eaten anything pumpkin flavoured before. I love how in Autumn in the US so many pumpkin flavoured foods are available! The taste of pumpkin in this snack was very subtle and I couldn't really taste much more than peanut butter. I've only ever eaten an original Reese's peanut butter cup once before... I think I should have bought one so I could compare the flavours. I still have some of the pumpkin one left so I will look for Reese's when I next go shopping. 

How cute are candy corns!? (if a sweet can be considered cute haha). I love all the little halloween bits that were added to the package. I am putting my Drawlloween Challenge drawings (see them here) into a scrapbook so I can use all the halloween crafty things for that. The sweets in the photo above are called Goetze's Caramel Creams and at first glance, I thought they would be similar to English dairy fudge. I was wrong, the outside of the sweet is coated in a sticky toffee, the middle is creamy with a little hint of a vanilla flavouring and the rest of the sweet has a similar texture to fudge but tasted like toffee. I enjoyed being able to try these but they are not my cup of tea. 

 
 I really love jellybeans! They are one of my favourite sweets & I was so happy when they started selling Jelly Belly jellybeans in the UK :) the only problem is that they are quite expensive if you want to buy a big bag or jar. I like how these jelly beans come in so many flavours, some are great and some are not so great, but this means there will be at least one flavour to suite everyone's tastes. My favourite ones are french vanilla, strawberry cheesecake, coconut & dr.pepper. I love how colourful they are. Me and my niece enjoyed trying to figure out what each flavour was without looking at the label :) 

Here are some of the lovely crafty things and a postcard I was sent in the package. I'm going to use the paper for writing to-do-lists and put the halloween bits in a scrapbook. I love the funky colourful striped envelope that was filled with even more lovely bits and pieces. Here's a photo of what was inside: 

 

 Everything inside the colourful envelope is so pretty! I can't wait to start using it in some of my penpal letters. Foxes are one of my favourite animals so of course I adore these stickers, and I will probably keep them all to myself instead of using them for snailmail.

 Thankyou Amanda for sending me such a lovely halloween candy package! 

 ♥

I hope you all enjoyed reading this post. 

Have any of you from the UK tried these sweets before?
Which other US sweets can you recommend for me to try? 

I've got mail! #2

I hope you all enjoyed my last incoming mail post (find it here). It's almost the end of October & so I've decided it's time to show you all what I've been sent this month. I haven't received as much mail as I usually do because I've been both ill and busy and so I haven't swapped many postcards with other postcrossers, and the majority of my money has gone towards halloween preparations for the day itself and also the fancy dress party I'm going to. This means I haven't done as much online shopping as I'd have liked, but here's what I got through my letterbox this month...*this post is pic heavy*

Firstly, my first ever Lucky Dip Club box arrived this morning, and the theme this month is Biscuit Box. I'm so excited to open it and I'll be doing a separate post all about it soon :) 

 This adorable puffin postcard was sent to me from Iceland. Quite a few weeks ago now, I spotted a photo on one of the facebook pages dedicated to postcrossing of a group of Icelandic high school students asking for people to send them postcards (and receive one back in return) for their international communication class. I sent the students a postcard of the Robin Hood statue at Nottingham castle that I'd bought when I was still studying at NTU, and in return one of the students sent me this postcard. At the beginning of October, they had collected 580 postcards from lovely people all over the world :) 

How pretty is this fox postcard? I wanted to receive at least one autumn-themed postcard this month so when I saw this one on a fellow postcard swappers instagram, I asked if I could swap. It's really easy to swap postcards online, if you know where to look and you have a nice selection of postcards for people to choose from. I'm really happy to add this adorable postcard to my collection! The stamps used were traditional Chinese art and a cute Beijing olympics 2008 illustration stamp, and lovely swapper also added cute stickers and teddy bear washi tape. 

I did another postcard swap via instagram and we decided to exchange two postcards each because sometimes there's too many awesome postcards to decide on your favourite. I am in love with this adorable shiba inu postcard ♥ I think they have eaten too much food, after researching the meaning of the word 'wagamama'. I love shiba inus, especially their tails! Can you spot the little pug? 

 This is the other postcard from our swap and its so kawaii and awesome! I really really wanted a halloween postcard this year so swapping for this made me so happy. I love all the little details... the oijipan panda dressed as a wizard, the hamsters dressed as a ghost, vampire, mummy and frankenstein, the witch penguin, and my favourite the little witch tortoise! This is one of my favourite postcards that I've received since I started postcrossing. 

 These are the beautiful stamps that came on the two postcards above. I think they are from the 2015 Taiwanese valentine's day collection and I've wanted to be sent some for ages! They are so pretty and colourful, with such lovely illustrations :) 

Lastly, the final mail I received this month are some stamps that I ordered from the Royal Mail website. The other week my mum picked me up some official Royal Mail postcards from one of our local post offices and I decided to buy the matching stamps. I love whenever they release stamps with a nature theme & I always try to get them. In celebration of the new Star Wars Movie (Star Was: The Force Awakens) the Royal Mail have released a Star Wars collection so I just had to buy those, too!

Thanks for reading!

 ♥

Does anyone else collect postcards or stamps? or anything else? I'd love to know! 

Autumn Snail Mail

One of many hobbies is snail mail, which is basically writing letters to penpals. I've been doing it for around 10 years now and it's been a very interesting, educational and fun experience so far. I've had some penpals that I've written to for only a few months, some I've written to about about a year and some that I've writing to now for years and years! Today, I prepared an autumn-themed package for my lovely penpal from Finland (who I started writing to in 2007!) and since I haven't written a post about snail mail yet, I thought this was the perfect opportunity. 

I've always had a huge love for stationary and starting snail mail only heightened this! When I first began writing letters I didn't have a clue where to get cute letter paper so I would use paper from any nice notepads I had and simply cut the edges off where the paper had been attached to the notepad to make it neat. Then I discovered the wonderful world of online shopping and began ordering so much kawaii stationary from China, Taiwan, Korea & Japan. The first online store I used was Janet Store. I now source my snail mail stationary including letter paper, note cards, stickers and washi tape from a variety of places, and there seems to be a lot more pretty stationary available compared to when I started. There's something special about corresponding with someone on paper, especially when nowadays most people communicate using the lastest technologies and social media. Although these modern tools are amazing, it's lovely to participate in letter writing and there's nothing I love more than receiving a beautiful letter, adorned with stickers and filled with stories about someone else's life. It's a great way to make friendships with people all over the world and learn about their everyday lives and cultures ♥

I've spent the last few weeks gathering autumn-themed stationary and was given some animal stickers for my birthday that fit in with the theme well so I was ready to write a reply to my penpal's letter and decorate my letter to reflect the best elements of month of October, with a combination of autumn and halloween inspiration. I've also added a few little gifts because who doesn't love opening a package with surprises inside and I like making my penpals happy! I hope you all enjoy the rest of the photographs showing the contents of the parcel :) 

Thankyou for reading! I'll be mailing this parcel to my penpal tomorrow.

♥

Does anyone else write to penpals? 

If you'd like to see more post about snail mail, 

please let me know or if you want to know where any of the items I've used are from, just ask.  

I've got mail!

I love receiving mail ♥ 

When I'm expecting something to arrive with the post, it makes me so excited to get out of bed in the morning to go and check! There's nothing I love more than finding a pile of mail waiting for me in the living room, which my mum kindly arranges according to who it's addressed to. I've always enjoyed surprises so receiving snailmail is so fun for me! I've been writing to penpals for almost ten years now & love writing letters on pretty paper and using adorable envelopes and stickers :) It's even more delightful when letters I receive have gifts in them or I'm sent packages from my penpals on special occassions. 

As well as writing snailmail, another hobby of mine is postcrossing (swapping postcards with people all over the world) so I usually get a bunch of postcards every week, too. Online shopping has become another love of mine, especially whilst I was at uni as my campus was in the middle of the countryside so it was easier to order online than to travel to and from the city every time I needed something other than food. So here's what I received through my letterbox over the last two weeks...

I kept seeing this book by Zoella (Zoe Sugg) all over instagram. It's not a genre I'm usually into (my favourite books are fantasy) but I thought I'd give it a read because I managed to get it on Amazon for only £3.85 VS the £7.99 retail price. The overall appearance of the book looks lovely; I especially like the pale blue colour of the cover. 

I also bought two books that I've wanted for ages now! I really enjoy 'art journals', such as 'Wreck this Journal', and love how anyone, even if you're not the best at drawing or painting, can still enjoy art with these books. The book is filled with fun ideas and gives creative instructions on each page. I purchased my own copy in June 2014 after spotting people sharing their Wreck this Journal artwork on tumblr & instagram, so I decided to join in :) 

Through following the Wreck this Journal posts, I was introduced to the 'Anti Journal' by David Sinden & Nikalas Catlow, which is similar to the Wreck this Journal and a product I recommend for anyone who enjoys being creative. On the authors instagram page dedicated to Anti Journal, I spotted that they had created another book so I couldn't wait to get my hands on one. 'Don't eat this book' is available on Amazon for £5.24. It looks a lot more aimed at children so would be a great christmas present idea, but I know I'll enjoy filling it in myself! The other book I purchased is by David Sinden & another author, Victoria Kay. It's a mini-version of one of those adult colouring books that are really popular right now. Since I liked David's other books and I, too, have an adult colouring book, I was interested in trying the 'The Little Book of Calm Colouring' (& considering my love of Amazon, I also purchased this there at £3.85).

Postcrossing is a great hobby for anyone who enjoys receiving postcards as much as I do. I have always loved postcards and remember sending them home to myself when I went on holiday as a child and asking my friends to send me postcards from their holidays. Before I was 15 and went on a school trip with my history class, I'd never been abroad and other than Wales, Yorkshire and  Lincolnshire, I'd  never travelled much around the UK either so receiving postcards was exciting. I loved seeing what other towns and cities looked like and hearing about what my friends had done whilst visiting. 

Around 4 years ago, I started swapping postcards using an official website called 'Postcrossing', where you are randomly provided with an address, along with the users profile, to send a postcard to. Some users list the type of postcards they like, which is handy and it's interesting to read a little about the people you're going to write to. For every postcard you send, your address will be randomly sent to another user so you will receive a postcard in return. Not knowing where in the world you'd be sent a postcard from made it more interesting; I received mail from so many different countries! You could also view galleries on the website and message users to organise direct swaps with them, which was fun. I don't use postcrossing anymore and I do all my postcard swapping through instagram, which is full of fellow postcrossers!

Here are some of the lovely stamps used on my incoming postcards: 

 I hope you all enjoyed reading  

♥  

Does anyone like postcrossing or snailmailing? 

Do you own a Wreck this Journal or Anti Journal?