Grey Moggie Greetings

Alphabet swap: B (buttons & books)

This time around for Alphabet Swap I went with a craft I’ve been doing for a while (mini books) and a new craft (crochet). When Kendra was here in January we had a conversation about books, particularly how she finds it hard to read non-school books as a full-time student. However, she graduates after the semester so she may have time to read books again soon.

I put together a little book where she can keep notes on the books she’ll read, and for now keep lists of books she wants to read later. I’ve had a subscription to The New Yorker for years now and I rarely throw away an issue. Before this last move, I neatly removed the covers from all of the issues and only the covers made it to the new place. I’ve been hoping for some inspiration as to what to do with them. A few of the covers were book and reading related so I used them for this book. The inside pages are graph paper and printouts of some of the photos from this fabulous tumblr blog (I Love Reading & Writing). The photos are backed with woodgrain patterned contact paper.

I also included a couple crocheted headbands with cute buttons. I got an amazing button stash on etsy a few weeks ago and knew they’d be part of the B project. I’ve been seeing these cute crocheted headbands all over the crafty blogs lately and there was a tutorial on Style School so I made some of my own to give to Kendra. (also a photo of Pony & me and some bookmarks I made.) I can’t wait to see her take on the letter B!

alphabet swap: A

Alphabet swap is off and running.

Aerros & Arrowplanes

I sent Kendra a package filled with blue paper airplanes strung on some blue yarn. And many paper arrows adorned with song lyrics about airplanes.

Age

My package from Kendra arrived on a day when I was home sick from work. I was feeling pretty miserable, but then the mail arrived. Not only did she send my first alphabet swap package, but also the Polaroid camera from my last post. Her package was based on the theme age, and she drew on conversations she’d had with other friends when they turned 30 to create age-inspired art on two mini canvases. They are beautiful and I can’t wait to find the perfect spot to hang them.  

A [alphabet swap]

an A-themed package is on it’s way! more photos to come…

Yay, K! (and A, and B, and C, and...)

My friend, Kendra, is in town for the week. She used to live in this neighborhood a few years ago so we have plans to see what’s changed since then and visit some old favorites. And I start the new job. So it’s an exciting week!

Kendra and I have a fun project we’re working on together in 2010. We’re doing an alphabet swap. She’s lived in Austin for the last year and a half and in that time we’ve been pretty solid pen pals, both with snail mail and email. I credit her partly with getting me through studying for the bar exam; I would email rants and complaints about my summer and she would email back about her wonderful internship in Geneva. A few weeks ago when I was spending late nights getting ready for my first craft fair and she was writing grad school papers, we’d keep each other motivated over email to stay up working just. one. more. hour.

(a postcard in a fun mail package from Kendra)

Right. The alphabet swap. I read something somewhere about an alphabet swap, and I have no idea what it is, but we made up our own version. Every other week we’ll send each other little packages based on a letter of the alphabet. During the first two weeks of 2010 we’ll exchange letter-“A”-themed parcels, then “B,” and so on throughout the year. Yay indeed.