When I was in
primary school I got REALLY into penpals. I had at least ten and I
was writing and receiving letters pretty much every single day. Not surprisingly, this is when my love for stationery started, too!
Ads for penpals were usually at the back of kids magazines but I also
roped kids I met on holiday into becoming my penpals. Even when
everyone was on the internet, I was exchanging snail mail with people
I knew online. I loved writing the letters and making my own
envelopes, adding stickers and little details. And I LOVED receiving
post, too - I still do!
Nowadays I rarely
have the time or patience to write proper letters, partly due to
being busy and partly because after drawing all day I don't feel like
also using my hand to write (plus, I write super slowly). But I
still love sending birthday presents to friends in other countries -
including lots of little gifts, wrapping them, decorating the box,
etc.
It's similar with my
Etsy orders, I love making everything cute so that when you open your
order it's like receiving a gift!
Why am I telling you
all this? Because these were the things I was thinking about when I
decided to start my newsletter. I don't want it to be just list of
'news'. I want it to be like sending a letter/present to a friend.
With lots of care about the details so that it's really fun to
receive and open my emails.
It doesn't have to
be one-sided if you don't want it to be - you can email me back with
comments, suggestions and questions. After ten years of being an
illustrator some things can seem really obvious even when they're
not. So don't hesitate sending in your questions and I'll do my best
to answer your questions and include a Q&A at the bottom of each
newsletter.
In addition to that,
I want the newsletter to be about motivation and productivity because
I love those topics and many people joined in my '100 Days Of
Productivity' challenge which I didn't expect! I think they're useful
topics for everyone, whether you have a lot of projects you would
love to do or whether you just want to get stuff done efficiently so
you can have more time off.
That's why I've
illustrated a free printable Motivation Poster for you, wohoo! If you
sign up to my newsletter you will be taken to a page with the free
downloads, there's both a colour and a b&w (which looks cool on coloured paper, I think) version. I hope you
like it and I'm excited to start sending you my newsletters soon!
