^ via mrypwrs (click to make big)

Last week I bought my first sewing machine. It is tiny and not terribly hi-tech, but it does everything I need it to and I've had a lot of fun sewing up envelopes and fixing ripped clothes so far, ha. I love its name too - Sew Mini;



My mum and her partner got back from Japan on the weekend and she supplied me with a bunch of cool Japanese paper and a pair of odd-toed geisha socks;



Here are some photos I've been taking for a uni assignment (that I'm fairly certain I'm going to fail);


^ Coorei mountain, Dungog.


^ Barrington Tops.


^ View across Newcastle Harbour to the shipyard.


^ Powerlines leading to Dungog hills.


^ The pattern on my parents' bedroom ceiling.


^ Leadlight colours on my parents' front door.






^ A very cute postcard from Linsey in OK.


^ A very sweet giveaway package from lovely miss Kelly of The Tea Children. It included an awesome little zine by Kirbee Lawler.



Uni doom is upon me, but I pushed it aside to write some quick letters to include with postcard packs;


^ For my childhood friend Sal, who purchased some postcards.


^ For giveaway winner number one, Tiffany.


^ For giveaway winner number two, Beatriz.


^ For giveaway winner number three, Rondy.


^ A letter and a postcard pack for lovely Bree.

Now, back to the uni grindstone. Boo.

^ via.

♡ The Night Starts Here - Stars
♡ Silver - Josh Pyke
♡ Down To The Cemetery - Kid Sam
♡ Can't Fight It - Oh Mercy
♡ Hitler In My Heart - Antony and the Johnsons
♡ The Barber's Son - Jack Ladder
♡ Neon Love - Holiday
♡ Dipped In Vaseline - Mickey Avalon
♡ Take Me To The Riot - Stars
♡ Fire - Kasabian
♡ Baobabs - Regina Spektor
♡ Country Mile - Camera Obscura
♡ Falling Without Knowing - Tilly & The Wall
♡ Marry Me - St Vincent

I decided that Random.org is too boring for drawing out fun giveaways and wrote out the names of each of the 70 entries on paper, cut them out, put them in my mail pencil case and drew out two winners. As I have enough postcards to spare I thought I might give away a third pack to a particularly creative entry, C and I deliberated and chose our favourite;



So, the three very worthy winners are Kittycat, Penpalling and Letters and Call Me Rondy. I'll be in touch to send your packages to you asap!

Of course, to any one who didn't win and would still like some of these postcards, they're for sale here for $5/5-pack or $1.50 each. Thank you so much for entering and participating, I loved reading each answer - I love giveaways and I can't wait to do another.

^ Recovering Lazyholic.

I'm feeling like I can't keep up with anything lately. I am currently suffering through impending uni doom. My parents come home from Japan next week and I'm hoping bringing all my stuff back home will bring some normalcy. I have 41 letters in my pile to reply to, some of them becoming pretty overdue. Each letter has something so special and beautiful about it and thus I really can't bring myself to just sit down and churn out letter after letter in one sitting; they each deserve an equal amount of time, effort and appreciation. I hate the idea of writing a bunch of messy generic impersonal replies. If you're waiting on a letter from me, thank you so much for your patience - I can only hope my late letters will be worth the wait when they arrive!

Incoming;


^ I bought three of these babies from one of my favourite zine writer's Etsy shop - Alex Wreck's Brainscan. I'm not sure who I'm going to share them with yet, but I love them so!


^ A sweet little package from Greta in Lithuania. The postcards were particularly fetching.


^ A grandiose letter from Sarah in South Aus.


^ This envelope beheld a bunch of awesome things. From the very sweet miss Olivia in Montreal. I can't wait to use the 'Bonjour! Je m'appelle' labels.


^ My first letter from Miss Jane Boston and every bit of it was excellent. She included a back issue of her zine Stab Heart, which served as a wonderful introduction to her. She also included a print out of a survey to fill in - I hope she doesn't mind me posting it here, I just thought it was the most wonderful thing to include and I can't wait to fill it out;


^ Click on the images to see them bigger.


^ My first, very sweet letter from Rashel. I can't wait to reply.


^ An awesome little package from Garci filled with goodies. She won my first giveaway and her letter and envelope were covered with stamps I sent her. The vintage stationery she used is so gorgeous.


^ A very sweet handmade birthday card from Ria. Thank you Ria!


^ A brilliant little envelope and letter from Nicola.


^ I purchased some cute postcards from Diana of Our City Lights' Etsy store and she threw in SO MANY sweet goodies. Good mail is such a mood lifter. Even her invoice was so pretty! I highly recommend purchasing her wares - the postcards are fantastic.

And last but not least, Elissa the haiku queen sent me yet another indescribably incredible package, this time as I was a winner in her recent giveaway. Check this stuff;

^ Never ending huh? :D I've been wearing the paper crane necklace and the paper plane brooch every day.

And that's all the mail I received this week! Phew!

I stayed up until 4am the night before last clicking through the amazing posts in these two blogs. I love it when a blog just hooks you from reading a single post. Amazing ladies;



I just purchased these beauties from Vividot. I had her shop open in my browser for days, trying to choose. There are really too many beautiful designs in her shop and way too reasonably priced. I'll definitely be back;


^ Purple bike lane hair clips and Lavender primrose ring.

I've also got my eyes on these;




FYI; The giveaway winners have been drawn - but my camera's batteries are dead and my charger is at my parents', so I can't announce it just yet as I did a funny little photographed drawing names out of a bag exercise. Stay tooned! I can't wait to announce the winners.