Lots of incoming letters

How have you been doing lately? I am pretty good actually, just very tired... but oh well, who isn't, right?
Anyways, I had lots of incoming mail since I last posted! Today I didn't receive anything, but the other mail delivery days (tuesday and wednesday) I received three letters every day :) Do you also want to receive more mail? Well, there's the famous "send mail - get mail back", but you have another option these days! Laura is offering letters to anyone who comments on her blog here, so if you'd like to receive a letter, head over there and leave your address (or send her your address via email) and soon you'll have a happy mailbox :) Laura sends some lovely mail :)
 
So, I know you all want the mail pictures...

I guess one reason of why the mail seems so much to me, is that I got many first letters in the last days!

On tuesday, I received a letter from Jennifer,

Letter from Jennifer

 an intro letter from Destiny from the US

Letter from Destiny

 and a first letter from Almanté in Lithuania!

Letter from Almanté

 Isn't this an awesome stamp?

Lithuanian stamp

I have already finished some replies and will send them out this weekend, I didn't really have time to spend on the envelopes and stuff...

Later, on wednesday, I received this letter from Abbye in the morning...

Letter from Abbye

and went back to my P.O.Box in the evening, "just in case", you know?

And I got two more letters! One is a first letter from Bee in the Czech Republic,

First letter from Bee

Czech Stamp!

and the other one is the first reply to my massive sendout of first letters. Dilshani in Sri Lanka sent me a letter :)

Letter coming all the way from Dilshani, Sri Lanka

So, as you see, I have many letters to reply to this weekend :) As I said, some are already finished (or halfway through).

Don't forget that you can still enter my giveaway!

Take care and
alles Liebe,
Caddi

Magic Carpets and a Giveaway :)

What are your plans for this long weekend (those of you who'll have a free monday tomorrow)? And do you say something like "Happy Pentecost" or anything like that? Over here in Germany you are wishing each other "Frohe Pfingsten!"

Let's get to the mail of the last days.
First the incoming...
I received my membership card from the LETTER WRITERS ALLIANCE. Are you guys members? 

Letter Writers Alliance

I really did like the stamp they used! Are there more of these? If so and if you are sending me a letter from the USA, I'd really appreciate it if you'd use one of them :) I am very into animals on stamps (even though I rather like the "wild" animals than domestic animals).

Fantastic Stamp

On the same day, I got a letter from A. from the Czech Republic - a very short one, but it was good hearing from her again :)

Letter from A.

Yesterday I got this letter from M. from the Netherlands - great as usual. It has been ages since I received an air mail envelope! I think the last time was when I was 16 - my back-then pen pals from Africa somehow all used them.

Great letter from M.

As I said above, I'm into animal stamps - so I took part in one of the stamp tags at the postcrossing forum and asked for animal stamps. I got this letter from a German user and it was great! I am planning to put some stamps together as a "Wimmelbild" - I don't know that word in English and won't bother to check, yet that I'm almost certain I'll still like the German word better :) A Wimmelbild is a picture where there are lots of things to see and to discover - just like in the Wally-books. What do you do with your stamps apart from putting them into albums? (Mention the word stamp in your answer below to make sure you are taking part in the giveaway - so I know you read all this rambling... :) )

Animal stamps!

On to the outgoing mail :)
I sent this postcard to my dad, to tell him some things that have happened in my life recently.

Postcard to my dad

And this postcard to my godmother, to hear if she's allright.

Postcard to my godmother

These two postcards went out earlier this week, whereas this bunch was mailed yesterday! Two envelopes with stamps for the stamps tag, a letter to my grandma and three pen pal letters....

Bunch that went out yesterday

Among them this letter to Olivia...

Letter to Olivia

and this letter to Shelby...

Letter to Shelby

I printed some stationery, and I really like it :) It has zebras, bikes, airplanes, leopards...

I guess you already saw where the "magic carpets" in the title came from :) I got a catalogue of turkish carpets (they gave it away at university and I grabbed it) and they are the perfect size for envelopes! I love using them, it reminds me of the possibilities one has in "Dreamland" of flying on magic carpets and doing lots of awesome things :) Where would you go if you had the possibility to fly a magic carpet to some place in the universe?

Anyways, I have reached 50 followers! Yay! A giveaway! So, I saw this little book in a store a few days ago and I had to buy it. It has a world map and some stamps and cancellation marks on it! I actually bought two, and I think I'll make a pen pal book out of mine - with the addresses of everybody I write to (one page per person, where I can also put information about them) and maybe also keep the stats of whom I sent a letter when and when I received a letter from whom.

Lovely DIN A 6 notebook.

I don't know about you, but I can't go without these pockets in notebooks - if they don't have one, I'll put one there myself (oh yes, I do have lots of envelopes...). I'll use it to put stamps there so that I'll have addresses and stamps in one place. The notebook even has a pencil-holder! Yay for good mail stuff :)

Pocket filled with used stamps

Well, what I want to do is to send this little notebook (of course with the Madonna stamp...) to one of my readers. It'll be that notebook (filled with stamps, just like in the above picture) plus more stuff until it's 500 grams. The "more stuff" could be anything from stationery to sweets (how about some German chocolate?) and I'll send it out on the fifth of June. So you'll have until the 4th of June to tell me:

*Where are you from? (I'd love to hear from those shy readers)
*What do you like about letter writing?
and
*Which country is going to win the European Football Championship? (or, if you'd rather like, who will win the Olympics in the discipline of synchronized swimming? :D )

Good luck :) 

Alles Liebe,
Caddi

Good mail day, good news!

Hello dear readers,
I hope you are all enjoying some sun :)

Yesterday I received great mail! Such a good way to start a week, don't you think?

4 letters I received yesterday

This is the letter I received from Shelby - lots of great stuff! A letter, stamps for me, a postcard of Arkansas and also some facts and information about Arkansas. Great mail :) Thank you Shelby!

Letter from Shelby

Next was a letter from Olivia - I really like the stationery she used :) Plus, the envelope is made of a map - always a bonus point ;)

Letter from Olivia

Then, there was this letter from Stephanie. I love her long, chatty letters :) I am already working on my reply! Oh, and do you see that cherry-blossom-stamps? Awesome, right?

Letter from Stephanie

The fourth letter was from Patricia, a first letter. It felt so strange to receive a first letter instead of writing it ;)

Letter from Patricia

Stephanie did put lots of cute drawings in her letter - I will only share this one with you as this is how I feel right now :) I'm looking forward to reply to you all!

Cute drawing

Oh, and I also have good news - I will tell you in a letter :) I wish you a happy mail week and lots of good news these days!

Alles Liebe,
Caddi

Incahuasi Island, Uyuni Salt Flats, Altiplano Boliviano, Bolivia

Happy sunday to all of you :)

Who of you reads the sunday secrets?

Today I just have two pieces of mail to share with you - the replies to the letters I received on friday.

First, let's have a look at the letter going to Lucas. That's one of my favourite envelopes :) You can find an explanation of the picture below...

INCAHUASI ISLAND, UYUNI SALT FLATS, ALTIPLANO BOLIVIANO, BOLIVIA. On the remote Bolivian high plateau, things are often made of the materials at hand. This toilet was carved from the trunk of a dried cactus which is the only abundant material here other than salt. For comfort's sake, all its needles have been removed. Situated along the hiking trail that circles the island, the toilet sits over a hole dug in the ground.

This is the letter going out to F. in Italy.

Letter on its way to F. in Italy

The stamps I used this time are both those I bought on friday - it feels strange only sticking one stamp to the envelope, but I have to admit it's very comfortable :)

The stamps I used this time.

I hope you have equally as much sun we have over here!

Alles Liebe,
Caddi

Who could resist?

How have you been?
This week my mail days have been better than the last week :)
You already saw the mail I received on Monday, and the replies to the two letters from Abbye and Jennifer have been sent out on wednesday in the evening - amazingly, the letter to Jennifer already arrived in the UK! 

Letters to Jennifer and Abbye

Well, here you'll have to imagine a letter from Laura in the US, which I got on wednesday and I didn't take a picture of (and just realized now and now I'm too lazy), as well as my reply to her and two postcards I sent out for two guys at sendsomething. Imagined everything? Great :)

Here's my incoming mail of today!

A letter from F. in Italy

As you can see above, F. didn't use a real stamp this time.... but the post got confused with her address label on the back! As you can see, they thought it to be a stamp :)

Cute owl with a stamp cancellation

I also received a letter from Lucas from the US. Thank you!

Letter from Lucas

In order to send the letters and postcards of today, I had to buy new stamps. So, I bought these.

Sorry for the blurry picture...

And then the clerk (at the philatelic counter, of course...) offered me this stamp - now seriously, how could I resist? It shows the Sistine Madonna to celebrate the 500 years of existance. That stamp is HUGE! I don't know if I can bear to send it to someone... Well, I'll have to see.

In comparison to the other stamps... I don't know how you're supposed to get that huge paper on an envelope, yet that the stamp already is envelope-sized...

How have your mail days been? And would you also have bought the stamp?

Alles Liebe,
Caddi

Paris envelopes!

Hello all,
before I start showing you the mail I received yesterday, I will show you two more postcards that went out yesterday together with the other bunch I already showed you.

a postcard to my dad

a happy-birthday postcard

Such a cute stamp! I really like train stamps, and this one is awesome in my opinion :)

On to the incoming mail!
One postcard from the US, which was sent to me via sendsomething. I really do like it and it has a nice message on the back, too!

New York postcard via sendsomething

An incoming letter from Jennifer in the UK. The stationery is really cute! And I like the airmail stickers :) The two on the right are both German ones, but sadly they don't produce the blue and red one which says Luftpost any longer, just the priority one. I liked the older one more.

Letter from Jennifer

The next letter waiting for me was sent from Northern Ireland, from Abbye. She has such a pretty handwriting! And for some reason, this is the second letter I got from her and none of the stamps she used has been cancelled until now... Hm... I already have been thinking of sending the envelope back to that person if something like that happens so that they can use them again, but then on the other hand, I like to keep the envelopes with the corresponding letters :) What do you think?

Letter from Abbye

I also got a big envelope from Aya over at Travel by postcards and letters! She had offered to send envelopes and I saw that she had some Paris envelopes so I said YEEESSSS!!!! I have some pen pals who happen to love Paris, and so do I. 

So, I got this wonderful package yesterday!

Package from Japan

Exitement!

She also enclosed a lovely note, some stickers and a neat postcard! I really do like the colors of the postcard and don't you think the note paper she used is awesome?

Extras

Aaaaaand.... here they are! I got a total of 40 envelopes! Can you believe it? I was so happy glaring at all of them, and to be honest, I don't know if I can send all of them out... I think I'll have to keep some for myself for a bit more time. They are just so pretty :) I'll show you some of my favourites beneath.

envelopes!

Isn't this one great?

lovely!

very very cute!

I really really like this one!

But I did wonder why this statement was on there....

this one is awesome, too!

I love all the things that you can see on the envelopes

This one is very simple but yet so cute!

They somehow make me want to travel somewhere and creating an awesome photo-book afterwards!

Just like this one.

And this one has German writing!

Well, I'm sorry for the picture overload... but I was so exited :) I hope you don't mind ;)

Oh by the way, I was just checking my calendar and realized I don't really have a clue of your birthdays (well, I know some, but not all...). So if you want to be kind, please leave a comment with your date of birth so I can make sure to send you my congratulations via mail :)

Take care!!

Alles Liebe,
Caddi