Seventeen Postcards and Counting

Snail mail will never get old. From Moscow, Barcelona, Kyiv, Zagreb, Oulo, Minsk, Szczecinek, Chisinau, Brussels, Taipei, Gironde, Nokia, Schwabach, Bremen and Leipzig - some vaguely familiar, some completely new to me. 

From these exchanges I learned Nokia is not only a famous Finnish cellphone brand but an actual place; martisor is a Romanian festival in celebration of spring; that it can go down to about -25 degrees Celsius in Finland; that Croatia is quite an interesting country to go to besides the fact that Mario Ancic is from there, etc. 

I joined Postcrossing for the mere curiosity and thrill of receiving snail mail, but now I'm even more invested in it because of the tidbits of new things I learn from so many people living across the world. I may not be actually sitting on a plane heading to these exotic places, but through these cards I get to enjoy the best thing about travel - new people, new cultures, new places to learn and dream of! 

On Postcards and Postcrossing

I've recently gotten into the hobby of collecting postcards and sending them out to random people living all over the world. It's a wonderful means to make simple connections with other people doing the same thing, writing them random thoughts or tidbits of information about the city I live in, or explaining why I chose a certain postcard for them to receive. I've sent some out to Belarus, Russia, China and Poland, and in return I've gotten beautiful postcards from Finland, Spain, Ukraine and Germany. Now every time I go collect mail from the mailbox, there's always the wonderful possibility of receiving another postcard from a country. It's made the simple task of mail collecting exciting!

Some postcards I've sent out have come from this wonderful collection from one of my favorite local photographers, Aleyn, who's called this set of photo postcards "Windswept Letters". This beautiful package came in the mail by the time I arrived in Manila, and unwrapping it was such a delight.

Most if not all of these postcards have found themselves in far-flung parts of Europe, and now I have about one or two to keep for myself, if I don't intend to send them out in the future. 

In any case, my postcard collection has grown to seventeen beautiful postcards! Soon I'll post some snapshots of them, some gorgeous, some quirky, some with very cool stamps and more. 

Windswept Letters can be purchased from Aleyn Comprendio. 

Hearts on Cupcakes and Cards

My good friend Carissa is baking her yummy red velvet cupcakes again! This time, they're topped with red candy hearts, teehee. <3 

Order a box of twelve for PHP480.

Order one cupcake for PHP45.

Contact her at 09178233239 or send her an email at carissa.kitchen@gmail.com. 

Better if you give a hearts card along with a cupcake to your special someone. ;) 

Get a hearts note card here for PHP25! Get a set of six for PHP120. :)

Email me at carlambcruz@yahoo.com for orders!

Valentine's Day/Love Hearts Note Cards for sale :)

Heee. Yes, yes, I shouldn't be blogging, but I finally picked up the cards I had made last December today, and I'm so happy to present them to you. :) Designed by yours truly (it's very minimalist, and do notice the two pink hearts in the middle, teehee!) for a special day of hearts, whether or not it's in February. Send these out to friends, to family, to special someones, etc. :) 

For more inquiries and pictures, check this post out! 

Photographs and Postcards for Sale :)

My creative juices went to this project instead of thesis work this Christmas break, and though I'm a bit regretful of that, it's all gooooood. I've always wanted to do this anyway, and I have now, finally. Still looking for the perfect printer company/shop for postcards (unbelievably, it is hard to find one who does unique prints!), but for now, I printed the photographs as photographs in dependable Picture City. 

And good news! You can order a stack of ten photos for yourself! I hope you're quite the old soul and paper-product-lover like me! :) For more pictures and details, click here. 

I've three sets so far (two of Paris and one of the sea), and I'm waiting for Valentine's greeting cards to arrive from where I printed them. Unfortunately, the shop said I'll be receiving them by next Wednesday (late!), so I'll have to be patient. Still, I'm excited for that too, so watch out for that! :)

P.S. YAY, played with Curves to process these pictures and finally came up with one that suited me and my style! Thanks very much, Chai, for the inspiration. :)

Happy Things in the Mail Part II

More stuff for the giveaway arrived this week in snail mail from three awesome stores: Nikita Accessories, The Fab Grab and The Clothes Basket! I am so in love with the items they sent me that I wish I could just keep them all for myself, hihi. But of course I won't do that. :D 

Nike's as sweet as her accessories! She included this short note in her enveloped package, which contained the cutest crochet accessories I've seen.

Her calling card and flyer! 

The sneak peek, hihi. If I were evil, I'd stash this away for myself. But alas, the cute colors must be shared!

This was a teeny surprise she included in the package for me! It's so adorable!

I think I'm going to wear it everywhere now, especially since it'll match everything. YAY! Thank you, Nike! ;)

The second package I opened came from Rorie of Clothes Basket. Guess what? This awesome soft tote is part of the giveaway!

YAY! Thank you, Rorie! 

Look at all those textures, prints and details. :) I guarantee their softness and prettiness in person.

And this came all the way from Cebu, thanks to Malou of The Fab Grab! Her packaging was so neat and pretty, I didn't want to open them for fear of destroying the organized prettiness. :)

Teehee, for the dainty lady. ;) Thank you, Malou!

And yesterday, Daphne of FBTL Manila e-mailed me something awesome! Hihi! :">

Obviously not the real thing, but you get the idea. GCs! Woohooooooo.

Ah, I love giveaways. You meet all sorts of people, and they turn out to be the awesome-est! It's like I've gained new friends or something, and it makes me cheery. YAY! :) Thank you, Nike, Rorie, Malou and Daphne! I'm so excited for next Saturday!

Post-birthday post: on shoes, cookies and bags

What I'm hoping is the final thesis submission for this semester is done and finished (whew!) and I have overcome the very spontaneous pre-deliberations with nothing close to flying colors. But I would like to say it went well, and I'm only hoping I do 100483288238138x better next semester! I'm recharged from a good twelve-hour sleep last night, and I can finally set aside a few minutes for blogging (the purpose of which is to plug awesome online stores) before I go on to study for two more exams tomorrow. *cheers*

My birthday has come and gone, quietly and happily. This year I had contemplated on asking for an iPod (my first generation nano had died earlier this year; if it turned on, its battery drained completely at one swirl around the circular navigation thing that the classic iPods had). That eventually went down the drain, because I didn't want my parents spending too much on me after getting me a better replacement cellphone earlier this year for the one I lost last December. 

So I asked for shoes. YAAAAAAAY. 

These cute flats came from Muji, which I plan to use for everyday activities. They're very comfortable, and I had the chance to try them in the rain yesterday; solid fit and durable against water, YAY! :D

These cute aquamarine ones, on the other hand, I ordered from Ziggy and Zooey on Facebook. They've got about ten or twelve colors for this style, and while I can't use them on a rainy day, they're an awesome fit for a ton of outfits. WOOOOOOOT. The sellers were also very nice and accommodating; I was eight pesos short of the total payment (memory fail!), but they didn't mind. :) So awesome.

My friend Carissa came by on Sunday to drop off the red velvet cupcakes ordered by my roommate (a note to the reader: she makes awesome cupcakes and brazo de mercedes, so should you want to order a certain baked item, feel free to contact me :D), and to my surprise, she brought me cookies for my birthday gift. YAAAAAY.

She kept them in this cute paper bag, with a birthday note that reminded me that I've been friends with her since the age of fourteen. FOURTEEN! We're almost near a decade of friendship, Caddy. :)

Finally, this bag here came from one of my favorite bag shops online, Izzo Shop. Last summer I finally bought a camera bag for Duccio, and for my birthday, Joseph bought this pretty laptop tote. It might come off as a bit too simple for others' tastes, but I suppose simplicity and reliability are the reasons why the Longchamp bags are so popular today - hence my soft spot for this bag from Izzo. Hee. :> 

There's a pretty print in the interiors of the bag, somewhat reminiscent of A.A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh illustrations, and I love that should the time come, I can fit in my laptop into this bag. Heeee. 

Happy happy. And now, off to work.