Guest post from Jennie of Little Girl Designs
I love sending (and receiving!) good old-fashioned snail mail. Though life moves at lightning speed these days with our access to email, texts, and tweets, I’ve noticed that there is a growing movement of people who long for real mail in their mailboxes.
Last Christmas, as I was brainstorming ideas of what to make for my nieces and nephews, I decided making a craft kit for them would be fun. I assembled elements from my own crafting supplies (scrapbook paper, stickers, glue sticks, etc.) and created individual kits for each child.
To say they loved them would be an understatement. (That made this Auntie so happy!)
Since my family lives in three different states, one of the ways that we keep in touch is through the mail. Because the craft kits were such a hit, I thought it would be fun to assemble another one for each kid that could fit into a regular-sized envelope.
To get started, I took an assessment of what I already had in my craft drawers. If you’re a craft-lover, you probably have elements left over from 100 different projects that you have created in the past. As long as they are flat and light, these elements are exactly what you are looking for in assembling a snail mail craft kit.
If you don’t have many items to spare, you can check out the Dollar Store for ideas as well as Target’s One Spot (my new favorite place to find care package trinkets.)
Assembling the Card Kits
For each craft kit, I cut up several different kinds of construction and scrapbook papers. My nieces and nephews will be able to use this paper to collage, draw on, or paint.
I made two blank mini-books for them because I know they like to make up their own stories and illustrate them. (Here’s a tutorial on how to make a mini-book if you’d like to make one.)
I found a cute piece of fabric and cut out the bird pattern; they could glue that onto a larger card if they would like. I also cut a piece of watercolor paper into small sections and rounded the corners with a punch that I have. These would make really cute gift tags!
I rounded the edges of another strip of watercolor paper so the kids could make that into a mini bookmark.
If you’re the owner of decorative hole punches, you can punch out shapes for your craft kit. I punched out circles using various scrapbook papers. These can be used to assemble in a collage.
I also found some small googly eyes that I thought the kids would love gluing onto their projects.
Finally, I included stickers… because what kid doesn’t love stickers?
All of these pieces fit easily into a business envelope.
Depending on what craft supplies you add, you can change the theme to match pretty much anything you can imagine.
I’ve found that I don’t have to write out instructions on how to use each element, but rather tell the kids that this is a craft kit for them to use to create art. If your little recipient will feel frustrated by all of that freedom, feel free to include ideas of how to get started.
Snail mail doesn’t have to be limited to cards and letters. Take a look into your craft drawer and you might just find there’s a snail mail craft kit waiting for you to make!
Jennie is a craft-lover who writes about DIY craft projects and creativity on her blog, Little Girl Designs. She firmly believes everyone has creativity ingrained in them and how it is expressed is part of the fun of living. She spends her days playing with her toddler, going on walks with her sweet family, and working on craft projects. She has been a maker since childhood and loves the feeling of finishing a project and especially giving it away as a gift.
