Thompson Family-Life

Last Call for Happy Mail Kit Printables & Customer Testimonials

If you are interested in purchasing one of these kits or printables for a holiday gift, the last day I'll be taking orders is this Friday, December 2nd. 

Details about this kit/printable:

This is a fantastic gift for those beloved kiddos in your life (I've also had a few adults purchase this for themselves!). If you're like me, you might often find yourself feeling overwhelmed by the amount of toys (and junk!) that your kids get for the holidays (or birthdays!).

What I love about this printable, is that it isn't a plastic toy they'll just end up not using. And this kit encourages so many positive things like writing letters the old-fashioned way, sending mail, practicing handwriting and learning about new cultures and people through pen-pal communication!

These can be printed at home or at your local printer. I include printing tips for both.

Here are some really lovely testimonials from customers:

"From the moment I saw Danielle's custom correspondence sets, I was in love! My nephew's birthday was just around the corner, so I quickly got in touch with her, and before I knew it, I had my set ready to gift. I packaged the set up in a cute box, complete with pencils & some fun rubber stamps. When he opened it up at his birthday party, it was a huge hit! He had just turned 6 and was excited to practice his cursive handwriting with his new kit. Now I am getting one for my daughter for Christmas! :) Thanks, Danielle for sharing your creativity with the world!" - Summer

"My daughter loved her very own personalized stationary set. It was a huge hit - she enjoys sending letters to her grandparents and even started a pen pal. Thanks so much!" - Trace-Ann

"I loved the printable stationery that I bought from you! It's easy to customize and print out. I got it for my 5 year old daughter and she is just thrilled about it! She writes to a little girl through the pen pal service you recommended. I put it in a nice folder to keep it from getting raided and she is always extremely excited when it's time to get it out. Thank you for such an adorable design and a lovely stationery set! It's perfect!" - Rachel 

"I love the printable set. It is so cute and not in a "too cute for a boy" kind of way either. The design is awesome and I love that it is custom for Hunter. I have to say that I love that you had plenty of instruction included and the information on where to get labels, etc. Hunter has used the papers to write his dad in Afghanistan and we've used the note card style for thank you's." - Sara
 

Hunter below writing to his Dad (heart swell!)
 

"This is one of the cutest things i have seen for the emerging writer. It has everything they need to create the perfect letter. The Pre-k sheets have lined paper to help the child. I am not very computer savvy at all and it was so easy to put together. We bought this as a gift for a friend and my own 5 year old could not help but create her own letters on her friend's stationery. Thanks again and i need to place my order for my daughter." - Susan

"We absolutely love the custom correspondence kit that we ordered from you. My son loves sitting down and writing letters to people now that he has his own stationary. Its so much prettier than plain old lined paper. I can't really think of anything you can do to improve it because the kit is so awesome to begin with." - Nakia

 

There are two options available for this printable:

No. 1: A Fully-Customized PDF with your child's likeness, name and address added to all the elements in this printable kit. It is ready for you to print at home or print at your local print/copy shop.

No. 2: If you are very familiar with Photoshop, you can purchase the Partially-Customized Kit in which  I give you the illustration with your child's likeness that YOU add to all of the appropriate materals. You also add name and address. This is the more economical version for those that are very familiar with Photoshop. (If you are not well-versed in Photoshop, I do not recommend this version.)

Go to the shop to see them both!

See this post for even more photos. Sorry, the Earlybird sale/discount has ended.

Start early with your holiday shopping (& get a discount)!

I released this printable kit in March of this year, and in case you missed it, I wanted to share it again. This is a fantastic gift for those beloved kiddos in your life (I've also had a few adults purchase this for themselves!). If you're like me, you might often find yourself feeling overwhelmed by the amount of toys (and junk!) that your kids get for the holidays (or birthdays!).

What I love about this printable, is that it isn't a plastic toy they'll just end up not using. And this kit encourages so many positive things like writing letters the old-fashioned way, sending mail, practicing handwriting and learning about new cultures and people through pen-pal communication!

These can be printed at home or at your local printer. I include printing tips for both.

I'm offering a special discount for a limited time for Earlybird Holiday Shoppers! You might have multiple kids you want to buy for - the more you buy, the more you save. (these coupon codes only apply to the FULLY CUSTOMIZED Printable version. Not the PARTIALLY customized version. Read below for more details.)

HOW IT WORKS:

For example: If you want to buy 3 printables for 3 different kids, just contact me through Etsy letting me know, include all the description information for each child, and I'll create a Custom Reserved Listing for you. Then you input your "20happymail" code at checkout. Easy-peasy. If you're just buying one, then you can go ahead and purchase the listing in my shop and input your "10happymail" code then.

As you can see above, you have lots of options for "building" your child in his/her likeness.

There are two options available for this printable:

No. 1: A Fully-Customized PDF with your child's likeness, name and address added to all the elements in this printable kit. It is ready for you to print at home or print at your local print/copy shop.

No. 2: If you are very familiar with Photoshop, you can purchase the Partially-Customized Kit in which  I give you the illustration with your child's likeness that YOU add to all of the appropriate materals. You also add name and address. This is the more economical version for those that are very familiar with Photoshop. (If you are not well-versed in Photoshop, I do not recommend this version.)

Go to the shop to see them both!

Below are some sample gift Pen-Pal sets I put together so you can see all of the possibilities: one for a girl, one for a boy. (Details on where I bought everything are included in the printable.)

  I'm putting together some customer testimonials on their experiences with this printable... those coming soon!

Sugar Balloon is open!

My friend April's Etsy Shop Sugar Balloon is open! I posted about our Blythe Headband Collaboration here if you'd like to learn more. Supporting Sugar Balloon means you're supporting me, too! : ) April has done a stellar job on these headbands and her adorable embellished T's. There are still some left, so don't miss them!

Be sure to follow April on Twitter and also me for updates on when new headbands will be available. :)

 

Exciting News: Tiny Bazaar + Sugar Balloon Collaboration

I'm so excited to share some news with you! If you've been following my blog for a while, you know that I have designed headbands for Blythe dolls in the past. I even sold some at the very first BlytheCon right here in Atlanta a couple years ago (so fun!). Unfortunately I haven't had the spare time to devote to them. :( It has always made me sad because I do enjoy making them.. but they are A LOT of work. Making these headbands always reminded me how much I admire artists that make things for a living. There's just something about making tangible items, shipping them, etc, etc. It is a lot of work. It is not for the faint of heart. I admire handmade artists tremendously.

There really were various reasons why I couldn't make time for them, so many other projects that I needed to make my priority, not to mention family obligations. It was just one of those things that kept slipping down the priority list. It always made me sad because I did SO enjoy making them and even more, I loved how they made so many Blythe owners happy! : ) Every time I made them they'd fly off the virtual shelves. I was always so thankful for that, that people loved them so much.

I've felt conflicted about it for while, knowing the design and construction secrets were just kind of sitting here with me. It always made me sad that they weren't being made.

THEN, enter April Puchala! She was one of the vendors at the original BlytheCon, so I met her there originally, but knew her on Flickr. She contacted me several weeks ago about taking over the reigns on these headbands so to speak! She sent me this long thoughtful email about it and to make a long story short, I agreed, and I'm just so, SO thrilled. : )

You can see her new designs above. Many of the supplies she used were personally chosen by me (she bought some of my supplies that I had purchased a while back), so these are a true collaboration between the two of us. April's wonderful craftmanship, hard work and fantastic design sense really shine through in these and I couldn't be happier. (I got to design her logo which was seriously fun. Loved the concept of the balloons and pull cords!)

I have more to say about it, but I wanted to let you know that she will be doing a GIVEAWAY of one headband and one of her *adorable* embellished Blythe T's on her blog tomorrow (Friday, June 3rd). Don't miss it! Then on Monday, she hopes to launch her shop with lots of new headband designs and more. So you can get your hands on one there! : )

More details to come, but don't miss that giveaway! :D

some Happy Mail friends

Here are some new little friends that have joined the Happy Mail team the past couple weeks. These are seriously so much fun to make! I love the enthusiasm their parents have for this printable and the idea of their kids writing some good old fashioned letters. Makes me happy! A couple of people have bought them as birthday gifts for their daughter or niece, and a couple adults have bought them for themselves!

This kid-at-heart (wink) preferred the boy's background, so we went with that! If there are any girls out there that prefer the not-so-girly-girl look, this is certainly an option. It really turned out cute!

A few people have left great feedback on Etsy about their experience with this printable. If you purchase this printable, please feel free to give me some feedback by emailing me at thousandclowns(AT)yahoo.com. I would love to hear. Thank-you for your support!  You can find the Fully Customized version here and the Partially Customized one here.

Sorry it's been a bit quiet around the ole blog. I'm FINALLY feeling better after a full week of feeling under the weather. I went to the doctor and they think I might have had food poisoning. (fun times) Finally feeling like myself again and I'm ready to catch up on a lot of work including THREE sponsor features that involve giveaways and special coupon codes just for you! YIPPEE! Check back for those sometime today.

I also have a cute crochet project to share with you that I started and finished last night (it's an itty bitty one!) that was inspired by the fabulous Miss Twinkie Chan. I adore that lady.

Oh! We picked up my new vintage hutch (craigslist find) yesterday and it's so beautiful. It will be going in my new studio (i.e. the boys' old nursery room). I have some ideas of what I'm going to do with it (the first of which includes getting rid of the smoke smell!) that include vintage wallpaper. I'm thinking of preserving the beautiful wood by NOT painting it (for now) but adding color and brightness with wallpaper.

I asked my Flickr Friends to give their vote on painting or not and there was quite the discussion! Never underestimate the power of public opinion.. I got a really great idea out of it. I love how helpful people can be! The way I see it, I can always paint it later if I change my mind. (which can definitely happen with me!)

More soon!