These Are a Few of My Favorite Things - Handwritten Post

Vintage Stamp Postcard by constellationco on Etsy

I have recently discovered the joy of sending and receiving handwritten mail. Not that there is anything wrong with emails or text or even a facebook message - they are eco-friendly, fast, efficient, and you know most people read their ast once a day - but there is something to be said about the thrill of receiving a handwritten card in the mail. I love figuring out who has sent it to me, and what might be in the envelope - an invitation to a wedding, or a birth announcement, or a postcard from a pretty place, or dear friend saying hello.

A handwritten note says "you are special to me, I took some effort to choose this card/ stationary especially for you. I could have sent you an email, but I care about you so I took some time off my busy schedule and wrote to you." Handwritten post is enduring - one can collect it in a little shoebox and read it years later.

It is as much fun to send a handwritten note, as it is to receive it. I am obsessed with pretty paper and stationary, so writing and sending letters through the post kind of justifies my crazy stationary purchases. I sometimes even buy specific stationary/notecards just so that I can match them to the receivers' specific personality! I am like a kid in a candy store in a paper store!!

I must admit that despite my love for handwritten post, I have not been very good at mailing letters/ notes out - I write them and they lie on my desk only to be thrown in to the trash months later. I have been trying to be prompt about mailing things and I think this might just be the incentive I need. 

52 weeks of mail is an Etsy project that encourages people to send handwritten mail once every week. It started October 9, 2011 and will end a year later in 2012. I am really excited about the project, and I hope I can commit to it completely. I plan to mail a letter randomly to a different friend or a family member every week, and I hope I receive some as soon as we have a mailing address in Norway!

XOXOXO

Ms. Sunshine