subject lines from my 10 most recent emails

1. Biggest Saving in 25 years on windows and doors, get your free quote here
2. Lower your Life Cover costs
3. It’s really happening
4. Roden: 013 — Vipassana Meditation, Leica M10, Acceptably Beautiful Books
5. The Corrective Clinic Physiotherapy Appointment Reminder
6. 60th Birthday
7. Sealink Feedback Invitation
8. Your order has been shipped
9. Artweek Auckland 2017
10. Your Origin electricity bill

So, of the above 10 emails, three are spam, two are from mailing lists, three contain information, one wants something from me and only one is from a friend.

My digital mailbox is now littered with stuff the same way our physical mailbox used to be. With loads of things like spam, mailing lists, electronic bills and shipping notifications and very few messages from friends saying “Hey! How are you? I miss you. Let’s chat.”

I miss friendly emails, and letters, and cards turning up in the postbox unexpectedly (though I do have three friends in the UK who do surprise me now and again with a card), and I want to change that. So, I’m going to make a concerted effort to fill friends and families digital mailboxes with cards over the coming months.

Winter Solstice has just passed and I’m thinking ahead to summer time when we can invite friends over for trips to the beach and lazy afternoons in the sunshine followed by BBQs that continue into the evenings. I’m thinking about coming out of hibernation and hosting more storytelling sundays, games afternoons and taco fridays.

Since I don’t use Facebook (I know!), I’ve decided I’m going to use Paperless Post to send my invitations and “thinking of you” cards. Its a product I’m familiar with as I’ve used them before to send party invitations, festive greetings to friends around the world and as digital wedding cards with gift notifications attached. Very often now I don’t have physical addresses for friends, but I do usually have up-to-date email information. They have loads of different card designs to choose from, I can preview my card before I send it, customise envelopes and fonts and play around with adding my own photos to them as well. I love this flexibility and the fact that I can start making a card on my phone as soon as I think of it, then finish it later on my ipad or laptop before I send it. They also now have paper versions of the cards, so I can make actual cards to send to people as well. There’s loads of free card options, as well as ones for which you need digital coins to add modifications and custom envelope designs and I can happily waste time playing around with various options before I end up with my finished item.

I was browsing their site recently looking for ideas and favourited a heap that I found and really love.

Here’s some I plan to use in the coming months …
* for any of my friends & family reading this, I made up events and dates for these examples, they are not real event dates!

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For Event Invitations

I love the simplicity of this place setting design because of the hand-drawn-ness of it.

I have locally made pottery bowls that are wonky, and a collection of silverware scavenged from second hand stores
so it appeals to my aesthetic immensely.

I also saved this gorgeous invitation to use for a beach time and bbq invite later in the year.

I’m thinking of doing an amateur wine-tasting night and would definitely use the You had me at Merlot card for that,
and I’m also trying to invent occasions to use this Cocktails & Conversation card, as well as this lovely little Cucumber Lemon Vodka card.

+ More invitations here +

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For Just Because…

I have loads of friends in the UK and USA and, despite all efforts to keep in touch, gaps between Skype dates are often as vast as the physical distance that separates us. It doesn’t mean I’m not thinking of people, just that it’s often hard to schedule a time that works because timezones are hard. So, in those liminal spaces between one Skype date and the next, there’s a few cards I’ll be using to let people know I”m holding them in my heart.

I really like the simplicity of this Always card,

and the friendly insults on this Really Real Search Results card will definitely appeal to some of my friends,

and this Hello Sunrise card from Darling Clementine to some others

+ More Just Because cards here +

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This post in collaboration with Paperless Post.

I received a stack of digital coins in exchange for writing about a product I already know and use.
All thoughts and opinions are my very own.