Penpal Goodies Ideas

One of my favourite parts of writing and receiving letters are the goodies! I love to come up with fun ideas for little presents to send to penpals and I get so excited to see what awesome things my penpals have chose to sent me. They are very thoughtful people! Today I'll be showing you lots of ideas for what to send to your penpals so hopefully you'll be inspired to send a lovely letter to someone in the world!

Handmade Teacup Bookmark:
Here's a goodie I made for a penpal. It was for a teaparty themed flipbook that I was making, so I thought it would be perfect! I chose a spare piece of scrapbook paper to make this with. First of all I drew out an outline of a teacup and cut it out, then I used my stamps to create a pattern of the word 'read', after this I punched a hole in the top with a hole punch and finally I attached a piece of string to the bookmark which had a teabag shape attached to it. The string would hang out of the side of a book so you could easily pull it out to get back to reading! By the way, the bits of tape of the photo aren't part of the bookmark!xD


Pretty Gift Tags:
The next item I have to show you are these gorgeous gift tags. I found these particular ones at The Works which had a set of three designs which I think look very boho chic! You can find gift tags in most shops, perhaps you could look in craft shops or card shops? I also love the look of handmade gift tags that I see crafters make! If you want to try making your own gift tags as a goodie for your penpal, you could layer scrapbook papers, washi tape, stickers or any other craft supplies you have to spare.

Teabags:
Lots of people love to receive tea because it's nice to try something new! If you do send tea, then I recommend that you choose something really interesting! The teabag in the picture is a chai tea teabag (this is a great tea for Autumn/Winter and is one of my favourites). This way, your penpal will appreciate the thought behind your unique tea. My chai tea was a Twinings one. The great thing about sending tea is that it is sort of an edible item, which is a type of item you can't normally send, but it is very flat so can be sent easily! You don't have to worry about it melting like chocolate which is always a plus!

Handmade Stickers:
I love to handmake the goodies I send when possible so this is a fun idea! To make my own stickers I take a sheet of sticker paper/label paper and just start drawing! Alternatively, sometimes I print out pictures onto the sheet if I feel like having a more professional looking sticker. In this photo, you can see some teapot and cupcake designs that I drew with black and pastel coloured gel pens. I liked doodling the day away, trying to perfect my mini drawings! I tried out different patterns on each teapot-do you like them? Also, these were for that teaparty themed flipbook that I chatted about earlier!

Decopague pieces:
If you're sending a letter to someone crafty, then you could send them things to craft with. This goodie idea is to send decopague pieces that your penpal can layer to create a kind of 3D picture. There are two types of decopague the first one is the one that I was just talking about (layering pictures until they sort of pop up and look 3D) and the other type of decopague is where you tear up tissue paper (or special decopague) and glue the pieces onto an item.

Handmade Hairclips:
Sometimes I like to send handmade hairclips to penpals. These weren't actually made by me, they were made by Heartfelty (click this link to see her business). However, you can try making your own hairclips if you want! you just need plain clips and crafting supplies such as felt, thread or buttons. Once you've made your design (this one is a teacup design) then you just need to sew it to the clip securely with thread.

Sticky Notes:
Sticky notes are cheap, easy to send yet brilliant goodies that your recipient will appreciate. Most of the time, people will just send 'sticky note samples' of their favourite designs because they want to share them with friends. But you could send a whole pack of sticky notes if you're feeling particularly generous! On this picture, you can see some sticky note samples that were sent to me! I adore the ones on the left because they're so vintage! By the way, sorry that some of the photos are a little blurry, my phone wasn't co-operating! It struggles to focus sometimes!

Handmade Simply Shaped Bookmark:
If you don't feel like making a teacup shaped bookmark, you could make a simply shaped bookmark instead. This is a more traditionally shaped bookmark and is easier to make! This bookmark was sent to me in a flipbook and I really appreciate that they handmade it. I think that they used watercolour to decorate it! I love the pastel colours they chose! There are so many variations of this that you can make. Make it any way you like! This one has corners that are cut at an angle so it could also be made into a gift label if you punched a hole into it and threaded a thread into it!

Project Life Cards:
Project life cards are really great for scrapbooking or creating happy mail with! Unfortunately I haven't found any in shops in the UK, the ones in the picture were sent as a gift. Do any of you know where to buy project life cards in the UK? I would really appreciate your help! I love the colour combination of coral pink and gold on some of these, it's beautiful! You can get project life cards in several sizes so you could use it for several different projects. I'm not sure what the original use of project life cards was or what they're intended to be used for but I use them for anything and everything (or will do when I find them)!

Temporary Tattoos:
Temporary tattoos bring the fun of real tattoos but without the commitment! They're great to wear for a special occasion or party because they are a great alternative to jewellery/accessories. The reason they're perfect to send to penpals is because they are so thin! No extra postage costs! Yippee! There are so many designs to choose from ranging from animals to metallic feathers so you pick out what you think your penpal would like best! These ones in the photo that were sent to me, are metallic bracelet ones!

Washi Tape Samples:
These are my favourite types of goodies to send and receive because I have such an extensive collection of washi tape! It's just so quick and easy to use (and don't forget how super pretty it is)! All you need to do to put together some washi samples, is grab a gift tag, playing card or any sturdy piece of card, then wrap around some washi tape several times. When your letter reaches your penpal then they just unwrap the tape and use it any way they would like to! In this photo the two samples on the left were sent to me and the sample on the right is a goodie from me!

Notebook:
Another cute idea is to send a notebook in the post! You'll have to choose quite a thin, small notebook to fit in the envelope, it might still cost you more than usual because a notebook obviously is thicker than just one piece of paper (most of the other goodies mentioned in this post are a similar thickness to one of two pieces of paper). I bought a set of three small, thin notebooks at a poundshop. There were three cute designs: polka dots, floral pattern and a London pattern! I thought it was quite a bargain so bought it straight away! Here in the photo is one of them in a polka dot design! Penpals can use notebooks for lots of things such as: sketching, creative writing or journalling.

Origami:
Origami is a creative papercraft that anyone can have a go at because there are many ways to fold paper ranging from very easy to complex. I love receiving origami because it shows that the sender has made something especially for me! This origami in the photo was especially cool because it was an origami balloon. An origami balloon can be blown up to look like a balloon or lantern! How fun? It's an awesome idea, I have actually learned how to make origami balloons since receiving this one so I can send them to people too! I think I'll try to improve my origami skills so I can make anything I can think of!



Hairclips:
Earlier I talked about handmade hairclips but if you crafting isn't your thing, you could send hairclips that you bought instead. I absolutely love these hairclips that my penpal sent me! I wear the bow most days to school because it's so cute!Hairclips are great to send because they can be kept forever and used over and over again unlike craft supplies. Hair accessories are some of my favourite things so this was a perfect goodie for me!

Sticker Sheets:
Stickers are simply great! One of the other goodie ideas I mentioned in this post were handmade stickers but if you don't don't have sticker/label paper you can give these instead. Sticker sheets are sold in most craft and stationery shops and are affordable. As a sticker enthusiast, I can tell you that stickers are a great goodie to receive! They're also a nice size to send in the post. These stickers were sent to me and I believe that they're illustrated by Nick Sharrat who illustrates for Jacqueline Wilson so were probably form the Jacqueline Wilson magazine. Magazines often come with little gifts which are perfect as goodies for penpals so I reccommend using them!

I hope I've inspired you all to send a nice letter and goodies to someone! Penpalling is such a fun, rewarding hobby to have and I am thankful to all of my lovely penpals! By the way, sorry if I didn't mention one of your goodies that you sent me, a gorgeous letter just arrived to me in the mail with cute goodies that I love but I had already chosen 15 photos (I thought this post was already really long ha-ha)! I wonder how many times I have said the words 'penpal' and 'goodies' during this post. Has anyone been counting? xD

Over to you...
What goodie ideas do you have or what was your favourite goodie that you received? Or do you not get happy mail? Let me know in the comments!