^(via)

Well, I have some news - bad, good and really good. I always go with the bad first... as some of you may know my mailbox was murdered beat up on Saturday night. I've mentioned before that I live on a street that runs adjacent to one of the main 'pub streets' in Newcastle and as a result on Wednesday (student night), Friday and Saturday nights there can be some unsavouries walking drunkenly down our street. Usually they're just funny to eavesdrop on and pose no threat, but on Saturday night there was scruffy, drunk shirtless guy wandering around smashing stuff up and screaming down our street and my mailbox was one of two known mailboxes he smashed. The mailbox itself is in reasonable shape but it will be hard to reattach. When it happened I found the whole thing pretty hilarious. I just did a blog post about my mail box and I probably get more mail than anyone in the street, and out of all of the mailboxes he chose mine to knock off. The mailbox murderer looked pretty wrecked and kept coming back to our gate and trying to open it at about 3 in the morning. It felt kind of melodramatic to do so, but we called the police and eventually they sent someone to patrol the street. As I couldn't reattach the mail box I just sat it on our front step this morning so the mail man could see and when he stopped a few minutes ago C ran out to make sure he could see it and told him the mailbox had been smashed off. The only thing he said was "You better get it put back on 'cos youse get a lot of mail" and drove off. Anyway, all is well because I got my mail today and I'll work on reattaching my poor beat up red mailbox.


^ C brought it back inside to save it from any further harm.

Want to hear the good news? My friend Manneh moved into our spare room yesterday and it's been so fun having him here so far. He has something to contribute to my blog today - a rather interesting conversation he had with somebody he's never met on Facebook. Emmanuel is Manneh's real name. Basically, this guy started chatting Manneh up, thinking he was a girl and Manneh went along with it...


:P

And now, for some extra special news... this morning over my marmalade toast and hot chocolate I drew the winner of the 100 Followers Giveaway. I reread through all 85 of the entries and some of the 'dinner party' lists were so good. Thank you so much to everyone who entered. It would have been really hard to choose a winner myself, so I was glad that the random number generator could make the hard decision for me, and it chose a very worthy recipient;

♡ Garci from Chandlerguera



And I think I'd love to be present at her dinner party. I wish I had a bunch of stuff to giveaway, I'd send every person who entered something! I'd love to share some of my favourite dinner party entries sometime. Here's a couple I'd especially like to be present at (really I'd come to any of them);



This giveaway has finished up but I'll be announcing a belated Valentines Day giveaway of a book I rather like this week.

Sent mail;


^ This decorated Ava Gardner magazine page envelope is travelling to Chelsea.


^ A handmade envelope from 'The Dracula Collection' for Milly. I love that the envelope looks normal from the front and then creepy once you turn it over.

Received mail;


^ A sweet little letter from Tejal.


^ And a gorgeous, unexpected postcard from Micaela.

Missive Maven recently did an ode to her letter opener post and a friend sent me the link to this great post at Design*Sponge featuring letter openers that I thought I'd share;


Have a good day!

^ Isn't this just the best piece of mail art you've ever seen? It's from the Mail Me Art project.

Fill In The Blank Friday (inspired by The Little Things We Do);

1. I am hoping my Valentine's day this year includes nothing at all. Waking up next to the person I love every day is lovely enough that I don't think I need to celebrate my love on one day of the year with every other couple in the world.

2. My biggest guilty pleasure is sugar .

3. I am most proud of being happy after being unhappy for a long time .

4. If I could choose one outfit to live in it would be something completely new, I haven't bough an item of clothing in a really long time .

5. People are 72.8% water .

6. I would rather write letters than get drunk . Ha.

7. I love my my boyfriend's cooking more than eating out .

I just sneezed really loudly and I heard someone very clearly say 'bless you', but it wasn't C's voice so I felt confused, it was in fact a stranger walking past our front door. How lovely to be blessed by a stranger passing by. It doesn't feel like a blessing to sneeze a lot, but I do get blessed a lot. At the moment I have the migraine from hell, a sore toe, an almost empty bank account and C and I just rode our bikes to the stadium to watch the Jets lose 1-2. Though it is nice when you realise that the only problems in your life are minor ones. C and I also realised that as it was one of our favourite Jet's player's last home games with the club, it was probably the last game we will watch in the stadium before we move to Tasmania (the season is just about to finish) which made me a little sad. I definitely wasn't a soccer fan this time last year but the energy of being a part of that crowd, knowing every player and their stats and walking home after a loss (or the occasional win) are things I've become accustomed to.

I just came across a gorgeous giveaway (via Rhianne), by Laura from The Madness of Mundanity who is giving away a Lomolito, lomo fotoclips, a pretty polaroid brooch and some sweets, and to enter it requires that you fill in the blanks to the following, check it out, you should enter too;

I always: write back.
I sometimes: wear bright red lipstick.
I never: cook, wake up before 10am, wear heels, skip breakfast (because it's always made for me!).

And, before I go - some sweet mail I got today;



^ Cute see-through envie from Linsey, filled with fun stuff.


^ Handmade magazine envelope with a sweet note from Lauren.


^ Wonderfully hand-stitched envelope and a nice long letter from the gorgeous Carly.


^ My first letter from Patty and it was a great first letter. Sadly it seems the first letter she wrote me succumbed to what all letter writers fear... being lost in the post. I love the hat purse.


^ A lovely note from Chelsea, who is doing a kind of mail experiment, looking forward to replying.


^ A great package from my friend Paige who lives in Sydney. Her envelopes are always some of my favourites.

And last but not least, before the mail was kindly brought to me this morning, I spotted a little brown envelope on my desk already - it contained two tickets to tonight's Jets game, a bottle of my favourite perfume which I had run out of and a very sweet letter from C, all to commemorate a year (roughly) since we started seeing each other. Very sweet :);


^ 'Ank' is the nickname he uses for me.

Now I'm going to eat a cupcake and go bed to rest my weary head!

(via)

Well folks, this is my small contribution to V-Day. I've never really celebrated it and generally don't care much for it, regardless of being in a relationship or not, but these cakes are too good not to share, and being red, very sweet and heart shaped I suppose they can't not be associated with Valentines Day!

I saw this recipe on Whisk-Kid, which is the only food blog that I follow. Her photographs are incredible, her recipes are easy to make and I just enjoy the way she writes. These were so easy to make and were delicious. The silicon cupcake liners I bought yesterday from Aldi for $3 for 6. Sweet little things. I'd never made vegan cupcakes before and now I can't wait for our vegan friend Ash to come stay so I can make him eat 'em! Here's the recipe (with some slight alterations I made);

Vegan Crimson Velveteen Cupcakes originally from the book Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World

♡ 1 cup soy milk
♡ 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
♡ 1 1/4 cup flour
♡ 1 cup sugar
♡ 2 tbls cocoa
♡ 1/2 tsp baking powder
♡ 1/2 tsp baking soda
♡ 1/2 tsp salt
♡ 1/3 cup canola oil
♡ 2 tbls red food coloring liquid (I thought 2tbls was a lot, though I still followed the recipe and felt like it made the batter taste like food dye, next time I'd only use one tbls)
♡ 2 tsp vanilla extract
♡ 1/4 tsp almond extract
♡ 1 tsp chocolate extract

Preheat oven to 350F/180C and line a cupcake tin.

In a medium-sized bowl, combine the soy milk and vinegar and set aside to curdle (this is to imitate buttermilk. It is an important step because the vinegar gives the baking soda something with which it can react!)

In another bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

Add the oil, food coloring and extracts to the curdled soy milk and whisk well to combine. Sift the dry ingredients into the wet and fold to combine, mixing just until large lumps disappear.

Pour into liners and bake 18-20 minutes. Cupcakes should be springy to touch. Allow to cool completely before icing.

Makes 1 dozen.

Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World

♡ 1/4 c margarine, softened
♡ 1/4 c vegan cream cheese, softened
♡ 2 c powdered sugar
♡ 1 tsp vanilla (I added a quarter teaspoon of almond essence too and it was great)

Cream together the margarine and cream cheese just until combined. Sift in the powdered sugar in half-cup batches, whipping thoroughly combined after each addition. Add the vanilla and whip until light and fluffy. Frost cupcakes. Keep in airtight container out of sunlight. Devour!

Again, original recipe posted at Whisk-Kid, all credit to her loveliness! Obviously, I don't have the photographing prowess of this lady, but I reckon the cakes are probably just as delish.

^ This is what the batter looked like after everything was mixed in. C said it looked like congealed blood.


^ These are the silicon cupcake liners I bought. They held their shape pretty well.


^ After I filled 'em up.


^ Fresh outta the oven. I was sceptical about how they'd turned out, but after icing they were grand.


^ The delicious icing. It was hard to keep my fingers out of that bowl.


^ Freshly frosted.


^ Trying to get a shot that does them justice.


^ I'm pretty sure I need a lightbox and a Canon EOS just for photographing cupcakes.


^ And so on and so on.


^ Currently in my Bart Simpson lunch box from high school in my fridge as it's 36°C/96.8°F today! Ick!

When I was in my last year of high school any one who was in the SRC (Student Representative Council) had to help out on Valentines Day - we had stalls the whole week beforehand and for about $5 you could buy ONE rose for your valentine (or like $20 for 5, good rates huh?) and we'd specially deliver it to them on V-day. As well as this, for varying prices you could buy a card that we'd deliver or... *shudders* ...a singing telegram for $8. Well, being school captain certainly had its perks, but it had some major downfalls, like... having to knock on classroom doors and sing 'At Last' a Capella to about a dozen different people in front of whole classrooms. Ha! As well as this, the day/night prior and all day V-day there was de-thorning roses, wrapping and delivering roses and writing hundreds of Valentines cards out for people! And, after all of this I got home to my boyfriend at the time who had slept all day and hadn't remembered it was Valentines Day and I even bought him a gift! Boo!

Also, just in case you were wondering what my cats are up to today - they're melting! That's what C calls what they do on hot days when their bodies spread out as far as they possibly can. I pretty much feel like doing the same thing today;


^ Mesca (do ignore the dirty floor).


^ Rigby (this one is the other one's daughter, and after a year living with the two of them I have recently learned to tell them apart).

^ If you love mail and you don't have this book, you need it!

Carolee and Jenny from Podpost did a wonderful how-to travelling mail art kit in Good Mail Day. I thought I'd show you what goes in my mail art kit when I go away (even for a day or two);


^ A reasonably sized, sturdy bag. This one was a gift from Chandlerguera, it's made by Blue Q.


^ A bunch of mail needing replies.


^ My replies book - to keep track of what letters I've written and what letters I need to write. Just in case you were wondering, '(en)' means I've made an envelope already, ha. C had no idea what this meant and said something like "Does it mean you write those ones in English?".


^ Some addressed envelopes I've already made up for my replies. I usually make an envelope up for a reply as soon as I've received a letter.


^ A couple of different sheets of writing paper and some index cards - they're good for writing short notes.


^ Date stamp, double sided tape, regular tape, glue stick, clear gum glue, letter opener, airmail stickers, stapler, some spare envelopes, two types of labels, post it notes, a few postcards, a red, blue and black pen, a marker.


^ Rubber stamps, stamp pad, scissors, stickers, fountain pen, scrap paper and some tea (I like to include some in my letters).


^ Packed neatly inside.


^ Zipped up. Big enough to fit all of my mail odds and ends inside, but small enough to fit neatly into a suitcase or my handbag.

Anything else you'd include (or exclude) in your own mail art kit?
I think it would be great fun to pick up some cheap supplies and make little mail art kits to send to friends.

Here's a link to Craftside's travelling mail art kit which I spotted via Good Mail Day's post.

Sorry for all of the posts in a short amount of time, I guess the fact that university is about to start is dawning on me and I'm trying to get in as much blogging and letter writing as possible! Today I think I'm going to post a few letters with the last of my change and watch Moulin Rouge (I've never seen it before). I hope you get some lovely mail today!