Life Begins at 40...cards 26-40

All 40 postcards have been sent!

I sent cards to Australia (NSW,TAS,Qld,SA), New Zealand, Holland, Estonia, Canada, England, Latvia, Algeria, Brazil, Switzerland, Finland and America!

I've had a reply from Patty at Just Letter Rip

Card 26 went to April in the USA, April and I wrote to each other a few times then stopped, I'm not sure what happened. So I sent April one of my cards.

Card 27 went to Jenn from Mountains and Musings who sent me a Pantone postcard a while ago.

Sorcha was the recipient of card number 28, Sorcha is also doing a mail project, she's making some fantastic mailart!

Cards 29,30 and 31 all went to members of Bookcrossing who replied to a post in the forums there. Card number 30 went off to Algeria, I don't think I've ever sent a card to Algeria before, not even through Postcrossing.

Card 32 went to Colleen in the USA, like April, Colleen and I used to write and stopped. Maybe I'll find some of my old penpals through this project.

Card 33 I sent to Talita from Brazil whose name I found on the GoodMailDay blog.

And cards 34-40 all went to members of Bookcrossing who had replied to my post in the forums.
Cheating I know but I sent 2 to Finland, 1 to Switzerland, 3 to the USA and 1 to England.

Hopefully some of my 40 postcards made people happy to get a surprise in the mail, much better then a letterbox full of bills!
I enjoyed sending them out and finding people to send them to.

Hopefully over time I will get a few more replies!

In my search for mail projects, I found Love Notes So I joined Jennifer's project and have sent 2 of my Love Notes out so far. Mine are not as artistic as some of the ones Jennifer has posted on her blog, but hopefully my partner has enjoyed them. I haven't received mine in the mail yet.

Here come Santa Claus....

Danielle at Fivelittlereasons posted last week about How to get the best Santa photo and included a photo of her lovely Christmas album that she keeps all their Santa photos in.

I looked around for a similar album and couldn't find anything. So I looked at Kmart in their photo album section and they had nothing that would hold a single photo to a page.

But in the Scrapbooking department I found the perfect album-
A Creativ  brand 8'x8' scrap booking album in Red.

 They were only $5 each and you can buy extra pages to add in. My Kmart didn't have the extra pages so I bought 2 albums as I have photos of my kids with Santa from 1992 onwards, so I needed more then the 20 spaces there are in one album.
I printed the dates on a piece of paper and slipped it in the cover. I kept it plain but you could do something more fancy if you liked.

Much better then before where all our photos were just loose in the paper cards you get with the photos.
This photo was taken in 1992, when I had just one child!

Life begins at 40 ...cards 16-25

I've had a bit of a break in the sending out of the cards due to some family stuff.

Card 16 went off to Zane in Latvia, I don't know Zane, I found his (?) address via the Sendsomething site, I just asked for a random address, the fact that it gave me someone in Latvia was just an added bonus!

Card 17 I sent to Patty from Justletterrip in Virginia in the USA. I've been following Patty's blog for a while.

Card 18 went to Carla at 365letters in Texas USA. Another blog about letters and mail.

 Number 19 I sent to Missivemaven also in the USA, who has lots of lovely links on her blog.

Card 20 went to the Realwall
in the UK which sadly hasn't been updated for a along time but has lots of interesting stuff to look at.

 Half way through!
I've filled all 40 spots now and I'm even considering sending more as I had a lot of replies on the  Bookcrossing forum to my request to fill 40 spots.

Card 21 was mailed off to Limner from Oh,Write me! I love mail blogs, I can waste a whole morning reading through them!

I love the photo of mailboxes on The Penpal Project's blog! I sent card number 22 to Bev, who hasn't updated her blog for a while but has already let me know she received my postcard!

The next card went to Ohio to The Pen Thief

Melissa in Brooklyn was the recipient of card number 24, she has a blog at Viva Snail Mail

And card number 25 I sent to herchelle a lovely Bookcrosser I know in Canada.

I need to buy more stamps so I can send off some more cards, but I also need to mail Christmas cards as well so it might be January before I get the rest in the mail.

I'm gonna get dressed for success, shapin me up for the big time, baby..

My school formal was in 1989. My dress was light green, made by my mum, off the shoulder,noisy rustling taffeta.
I still have it in my wardrobe but my daughter sadly wouldn't wear it for her formal this Friday!
I've no idea why not?

My formal night was like a comedy film. I didn't have a lot of friends in my grade but went to formal anyway.
I went on the bus (due to the no friends thing, so therefore noone to goes shares in a limo with!) and when getting on I stood on the front of my dress and ripped a small hole in the seam.


Our formal was being held at Newstead House in Brisbane (we wanted it to be on The Island but the teachers wouldn't be in that for some reason?).

On the way there, they bus broke down in Fortitude Valley and we ended up sitting in our formal dresses and suits on the stairs of a tiny church. We waited a long time for a replacement bus, everyone who had arrived by limo had already started eating by the time we got there.

The best part of the whole night was being able to go outside and see the river. Newstead house is lovely  and we had photos taken outside with a backdrop of the river and also of the back of  the building.
When the photos came back (back in the time when you had to wait for photos, and there weren't 120 other cameras there) 5 people's photos were not there, of course mine were missing.
My Mum took some photos of me before I left home and while I have one, it's double exposed. 
So I don't have any decent photos of me taken that night with my lovely green eyeshadow. 
I do have one taken at my Grandmothers house the next week.

(Photos of the photos, my scanner is a piece of crap)

I can't remember what we ate and I don't remember dancing but I'm sure they played "Dressed for Success" and "Tucker's Daughter".
I do remember the toilets as I spent some time in there as I started feeling unwell.
I  had lots of mozzie bites on my uncovered shoulder by the end of the night.
I remember the trip back on the bus too, feeling more and more sick.

The next day I woke up covered from head to toe in Chickenpox. I was so sick over the next few days I was delirious and I couldn't attend graduation properly. I missed most of the last week of school.

Hopefully my daughter's formal this Friday will not be quite so eventful!
Here's a photo of her wearing my dress. It fit her back in 2009 when she was 14, doesn't fit her now she's 17. 

Life begins at 40, cards 9,10,11,12,13,14 and 15.

 7 cards all sent out at once. I'm just sending them out as I get stamps. More weird cards, I've no idea what exactly "Dear Internet Citizen" with a picture of a loaf of bread is supposed to mean? The Internet is the best thing since sliced bread perhaps? Who knows!

Card number 9 I sent to Lisa who is one of my more recent penpals. She lives in the USA. I think we foudn each other via Lettersets.
Card number 10 went to Nicola who is my most recent penpal, Nicola is in the UK and also contacted me via Lettersets.
Card number 11 went to Kym in Canada. I can't remember how Kym and I found each other? Kym also enjoys Geocaching like me.
Cari in New York got number 12, Cari is a Bookcrosser I met when she was travelling in Australia a few years ago. We went on a day trip one day with a few other Brisbane Bookcrossers,to Yarraman which is about an hour and a half west of here. We took a lot longer to get back as I showed then a different way to get  back which may not have been the best way back!

Skyring, also a Bookcrosser but from Canberra recieved card number 13. Skyring was among the first Bookcrossers I met when I went to the 1st Australian Bookcrossing convention in 2004 in Sydney.
Number 14 went to Shelita. I went through my box of letters and picked out some addresses to send cards to of people I haven't heard from for a while, so Shelita might be a bit surprised to recieve the postcard.
15 went to Sammie from Box 332  I don't know Sammie but her address is on her new blog at Paperbased.

So that's 15 cards sent out so far. I still have 8 empty spaces in my list of 40, so if you're here reading this and I haven't sent you a card, leave a message and I will add you!

Life begins at 40, cards 4,5,6,7 and 8

Card number 4 I sent to my friend Jay who lives in New Zealand. I met Jay through Bookcrossing. Jay travels around New Zealand for her work (lucky hey!) and she sends me books and I send her postcards or books. Jay is Awesome fun.

Card number 5 went to Kate from Ourlittlesins whose Pantone postcard sendout was where I stole the idea from!

Cards 6 and 7  I sent to Anke and Karin who are both penpals I've been writing to for quite a few years. Anke lives in Holland and Karin in Estonia.

Card 8 I sent to Maxine in Canada, we have been swapping postcards in bulk for a year or 2, but I don't have many decent cards to swap now, I have a lot of lovely postcards from Canada that Maxine has sent me though!

I need to buy stamps before I can send off anymore cards.

Today I received a postcard from Jenn at Jennunger who is also doing a Pantone postcard send out.

Jenn sent me Blossom in a cool envelope made from a refidex page!

And the lucky contestant was sent a whole years supply of buckets of yucky excrement

I love entering competitions and one of my favourite things to win (besides holidays!) is "a years supply" of something.

Some things I've won a years supply of-

Sunscreen (lasted much much longer then a year and I gave away heaps of it!

Green Tomato Sauce. The kids loved this, I found it hard to get past the colour even though it tasted the same as regular sauce!

Dishwasher Tablets, they're a really cheap brand but they were free!

Water. Sparkling water and normal bottled water. We have a box of out of date sparkling water in the garage. I call it my Armegeddon water, if the zombie apocalypse happens, I'm sure I won't care about the date on the water.

Simple face care products, didn't last a year with 2 teenage girls in the house. I've hidden a small amount so I can actually use it myself!

Mentos. Hmm my idea of a years supply is a lot different to theirs!

Icecream. They just sent me a voucher which of course we didn't spend on icecream.

Cereal. It won't last a year but we have a good choice for breakfast at the moment!