Hiatus

Hey guys! Sorry it's been awhile since the last post and I have more bad news! When I was out of town this past weekend visiting friends my computer decided to go on the fritz! I am still able to use my computer (for now, and on the guest account) but I don't want to add new files to the computer as I am concerned that I may lose them. I think it may be something with the hard drive? First I had a blue screen of death and then I had a black screen, so I went and accessed my guest account and put it as admin so I would be able to work on the problem. So when I restarted it, I found that my regular account was working but I am no longer able to make it an admin or run google chrome (I found out that chrome only works on one account at a time, but I can't seem to make it work at all on it) So now my guest account is stuck as the admin ugh! Annoying! This is in addition to some kind of hard drive issue!

If anyone has any ideas on how to help me, knows someone/somewhere that could fix it, or can recommend any new pc laptops let me know!

I really want to be able to start blogging again as soon as possible so hopefully this all gets sorted out soon so I can share the great antique treasures that I found this weekend!

Sunday to Tuesday mail haul!

Not so much mail this week since I've been trying to cut back to focus on job hunting (while working almost full time!) But good news! I just got my schedule for the next few weeks and I will have more time off so I can blog and do some more swaps! =D


OUTGOING

Postcard for a quirky postcard swap!

A completed Fb that I found in my pile to be sent home!

some fun tape I put on said FB's envelope

Halloween costume packages filled with FBs for a swap!

A letter for a pen friend! I am lazy about photoshoping addresses haha

Another pen friend letter!

INCOMING!

two in one day!? *glee* The goat is from a pen pal =)

The package was filled with notecards and other paper goodies from a swap

More paper goodies! I'm going to have to find a use for them on my many days off!

Incoming/out going

Here's the mail I got this week!

a very cute stationery set was used for an ATC swap on swap bot

Birds were appropriate as it was the theme for the ATC swap

BIRDS

She added a bonus card for me!

Friendship book swap with fellow blogger Desirae at Pen Pal Express.

I won a raffle on Wreck this Girl's Mailbox! I got three very cute postcards that she designed!

Even her business card and memo are well designed!

MUSTACHE KIT! AWESOME

And a very sweet card from my brother for graduating in the spring. I loved pooh bear as a kid!

Out going mail this week!

Two postcards for postcrossing!

One for a college friend!

And one for swap bot!

I think I'm in to sending postcards this week! I should really write some letters this week if I'm not too busy. Any exciting mail this week for you all?

Quick Craft of the week!!

I finally had a good idea for all my fabric book samples! I have hundreds of sample fabrics and books that were going to be thrown away at various places, but naturally I couldn't let them go to the landfill!

SO my idea that I woke up with one morning, which is probably an obvious idea for most fabric crafters, was to make drawstring pouches! I randomly decided at 10 last night to start the project without really drawing anything out or planning. I just grabbed the first sample fabric I found, some ribbon for the drawstring, and a needle with sturdy silk beading thread. (yes I know I'm unusual) Since I did so well at planning out this project, I don't have any process pictures! But this is what it looks like when it is finished! It is all hand sewn and took me about an hour total to make but it would probably go much faster on a sewing machine. I wish I had used different ribbons, but this was what I had on hand so it works well enough!

Its prettier blue than it's coming up as, I swear!

 I am thinking that they would be good to use as gift bags for the holidays (they're coming up!) and they're reusable too!

If I am persistent enough I might make a bunch more and put them up in my Etsy shop. What do you think? Do you make any reusable types of gift wrapping?

Incoming/Outgoing for the week

I got many nice postcards last week and today! I also got a package of friendship books from a swap on swapbot.

Package of Friendship books! Aiieee so many!

Private swap on postcrossing from Russia!

pretty stamps!

From China

A drawing instead of words! Awesome skills =)

From Portugal!

Towards the end of the week I got a letter from one of my best friends and 3 ATC's from a swap I did on ATCs for All for an alphabet swap. Funny the only letters I have are J K and L so I guess I need to swap more for those? ATCs for all is a really great site if you're just interesting in ATC's. It's really easy to set up one on one trades with people on the site and you can get cards that fit in your collection since you can pick them out in the gallery. On swap bot as well as the themed group swaps on Atcs for all it's a random selection on what you will get. The biggest between the way two sites handles the swaps is that on Swap-bot, the coordinator just hits a button and the partners are sorted out and each person sends directly to their partner. On Atcs for All, the cards are all sent to the coordinater (often times with a spare envelope and usable stamps) and the coordinator manually chooses which cards go to whom often trying to match like efforts together. Both are great  websites and it's really up to you! I like Atc's for all because I can look through each person's gallery to see their style, but I haven't been using it as much lately because it's annoying to upload photos to the site. I always have to "resize" each image so it takes alot of time.

JKL!

My ATC Collection binder made with a salvaged binder and salvaged fabric!

really fancy/expensive toile!

OUTGOING!

Took a picture and ran to meet my mailman at the mailbox!

The mail lady at the post office said I made pretty packages =)

Made with outdated atlas pages! Filled with paper goods and on its way to Austria!

trying to use my stamps!

this is one of the ones that I got from etsy

Anyone find surprises in their mail today?