Mail Time

Last week was a good week for me. Two friends of mine sent me packages! I love mail. It's probably one of my favorite things in the world. I got my first pen pal when I was around 10 or 12 from a J-14 magazine, which I embarrassingly filled out hoping I'd be paired with Aaron Carter. When I went to Florida in 5th grade I seriously think I sent about 20 postcards to friends because I couldn't leave anyone out. A few years ago my friend, Mackenzie, and I sent watercolor paintings to each other for fun, which we need to do again when I return. Finally, Remember this post from all the way back in 2012? Yeah, I go a little overboard with sending packages. I'm surprised how much of this I've documented.

The first package (pictured above) came from my friend, Katherine, at 8 Months in Ukraine. I don't really know how it came about, but I think I saw one of her posts where she received letters from friends and I thought, I should send her stuff from Russia, since she lived in Ukraine, has been to Russia, and studies Russian. She messaged me back saying we should be pen pals and a new friendship blossomed. She sent me such a cute assortment of stuff and, most importantly, Sour Patch Kids. I had intentions of saving a few for A to try, but that didn't happen.

The next package came from my friend, Ariana, who is currently living in South Korea, and blogging about her experiences at ArianaImnida. Ariana and I actually met in our TESOL courses at Cleveland State. She has the coolest style, and when I met her I thought, "I have to be friends with this girl!" but she seemed too cool for me. :) Since our CSU days we've stayed in touch, and I'm so glad she started a blog. A while back she wrote a post about her Korean beauty haul which inspired this post. I think after she saw that post she sent me a message saying she wanted to send me Korean beauty products. I realized that it was a great idea and that I should send her a package from Russia, minus beauty supplies because I would have no idea what to get. Plus, are there any Russian brands? Please comment below if you know of any.

A went with me to pick up the package since it was delivered to a different post office. I think he was more excited for it to come than I was. We weren't even a foot out the door when he made me stop to take pictures of the box. Then he kept begging me to open it while we were walking. We stopped in the middle of the sidewalk to try to open the darn thing, and I think Ariana knew that would happen because she had everything in the adorable bag below. I was able to leave the box in a garbage can and easily carry everything else.

I can't wait to try everything, especially the Clio Conceal-dation because I need a good concealer. My skin is absolutely terrible and nothing I've tried covers the imperfections well enough. Remember when my biggest problem was hating my freckles? Oh, I'd take back the days when I didn't break out like I'm 13. Maybe I'll do a post later on what products I like and didn't like. Not that it would really matter since I don't live in Korea, but maybe it'll be something when I lack inspiration for new posts.

I wish I had money to send everyone packages, but, unfortunately I don't. Do you like sending and receiving mail?

Watercolor Experiment: Pattern

I've really been slacking on these posts. This watercolor experiment was from several months ago. Oops. The theme of this one is pattern. For my watercolor design I tried experimenting with blending corners. It was a fun process.

Previous Experiments: 1 | 2

Watercolor Experiment: Built

Mackenzie picked the topic this week. I love what she came up with for her idea of "built." Mine just looks like a 5 year old did it. I really like how she blends her colors. That's something I need to learn to do. I feel like my paintings are more like acrylic paintings than watercolors. But I guess this is why we are doing this!

Previous Experiments: 1

Watercolor Experiment: Night Sky

I've been meaning to blog a lot, but I just bought a mac and I have yet to put Windows Live Writer on it. I also had a hard time figuring out Photoshop (I upgraded from Photoshop Essentials! yay!) and how to put pictures onto this Mac. Whoever said Macs were easier than a PC has never actually used a PC. I knew how to work a PC like it was my job. But I'm getting better at learning this Mac, thanks to my friend, Rosendo!

If you can think back to that my 24 before 25 blog post, which I feel like I wrote ages ago but actually didn't, I had make a watercoloring down as number 15. Mackenzie, one of my really good friends, who lives on the other side of the country, sent me an e-mail saying we should send each other a watercoloring based on the same theme. I thought it was an awesome idea! I have a really hard time motivating myself, so this was a great way to get me going. Plus, who doesn't love old fashioned snail mail. Honestly, I'd prefer a handwritten letter over an e-mail or Facebook message any day. But, alas, times have changed. Also, it's a good way to stay in contact and be intentional with friends in a world where a text message takes almost no time to compose.

Anyways, I chose the theme "night sky" because I love the night sky and have wanted to make this watercoloring for some time based on an item I saw in an Etsy shop. (Top: Mine, Bottom: Mackenzie)

One thing I really love about this idea is how different our ideas can be for the same topic. I love the uniqueness in how we look at the world. Not just me and Mackenzie, but just in general. Mackenzie and I had the same exact theme but chose almost drastically different ways to express that theme. I think that's why I like being a teacher so much. I love seeing the different ways students can interpret information. We aren't made to be robots.

What do you think of this idea of sending watercolorings? Do you do something similar with friends or family?

Jasilyn Claus Sends Christmas Packages

I knew for a few months that I was going to send out Christmas packages to my friends. I wanted them to be handmade gifts because that is more me and it's more fun! So, eventually I decided what I was going to do. I started off with:

I wanted to send something that was original to Cleveland but I didn't know what. Most of  the ideas I could come up with were Great Lakes Brewing Company or the Christmas Story house but I couldn't send those. Then it hit me... Malley's Chocolate! I also made cinnamon apple sauce ornaments which I read about on a blog and used gift bags I had bought a while ago.

I put the small chocolates in the little bag.

Then I put all of the chocolate and the ornaments in the big bag.

I made Christmas cards by cutting out a stencil and spray painting card stock with silver paint.

I wrote personal messages to my friends on the back, but they are personal so I'm not showing them. :)

Then I made a cd of some of my favorite Christmas songs. Unfortunately I didn't have N*Sync's Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays. But you can listen to it here! :)

I made each of my friends infinity scarves. You know that scarf I posted about here!

I folded the scarf so it would fit in the box. I put the cd on top if it so it wouldn't scratch in the mail. I put the bag of chocolate on top and wrapped the gift together with a name tag so it would look more like a Christmas present!

Then I strategically placed it in the box which was much harder to do than it looks.

I topped it with  winter colored tissue paper to, again, make it seem more like opening up a Christmas present. I also did it to keep the package from moving around too much while it was being shipped. I was really scared that the ornaments were going to break in the mail because they are really fragile.

I finally topped it with my homemade card so that would be the first thing my friends would see when they opened it up!

Finally, I addressed and taped up my Christmas boxes and shipped them out!