Amongst the popcorn...

Another one of my wee envelopes left amongs the popcorn in Blockbuster. I think a few people saw it while I was there but I didn't see anyone pick it up..hopefully soon though..

That is actually a photocopy of a card not a really a card stuck to the envelope...pretty good photocopy though eh?

To my readers...

I'm so sorry due to my rubbish blogger skills I didn't have my comments set as: 'available to all to comment', I have now fixed this and anyone can now comment. If you had previously tried to comment and found that you couldn't please please feel free to do so now. I would love to hear from you :)

Another UPDATE on sharing the love....

Well I've been at it again...leaving my envelopes out in the public domain, trying to get other people involved in the project...believe me trying to leave anonymous envelopes in public places is impossible! 

The Bonjour envelope; this one I created because to be honest I was getting fed up of writing Hi or Hello, however once made I realised that an envelope like this would need to be left in a relevant setting. I had the idea to leave an envelope in a lingerie department (I don't know why) and it occurred to me this would be the perfect one. Originally I wanted to leave it on a rail on the shop floor but there were too many shop assistants and members of the public around and I thought if someone saw me taking photo's of bra's I would probably be thrown out of the store. Thinking I might give up I browsed around and on spotting some bra's on sale I went to try them on, that's when I got the LIGHT-BULB..I would leave the envelope in the changing room. And here it is:

Unfortunately as i was paying the lovely shop assistant came running over with the envelope to see if I had left it behind. I didn't deny it but did ask her to put it back or keep it for herself, I told her to read the tag and do whichever she felt. Like I said trying to leave envelopes in pubic place anonymously is impossible!

 

 In saying that though this one I got away with! (Hurrah) This one was left in the travel section at Waterstones. As you can see it's a normal sized envelope because to be honest I have run out of mini ones! IN this case though I think it is a good thing as I left it on a bottom shelf, so a bigger envelope will be spotted faster! :)

If your reading this and you picked either of these up please get in contact, I would love to hear from you, whatever you have to say.

What did the Posties think...

Now that I think I am done personally sending things through the post it was decided that it would be a good idea to see what the good people of the Royal Mail thought of my 'decorated' envelopes. So I am leaving this stuck to my door for the Postie on todays round to find. (During the end of last year I left a note to the postie and they were lovely and left a wee reply, hopefully the same will happen again.)

(Of course, as always I have blanked out my name and address.)

 

I had to pop the envelope into a sandwich bag because it had been raining earlier and I didn't want it to get ruined.

It disappeared and the post came so I can assume The Postie got it YaY!

Watch this space to see if I get a reply!

Last but by no means least..

I think that this envelope may be the last of the one's I send out to my neighbours but don't fret I will be carrying on with my other envelopes that I am leaving around for the public to find. This project is by no means over. :)

About the envelope...I will put my hands up and say that this one wasn't quite from my head. I actually read it in an article about typography and handwriting but something about it has stuck with me ever since. Perhaps because it is so perfectly true, what could be considered our imperfections are what make us unique as human beings. :)

"Our imperfections are what make us Human"

Glowing in the dark

I have wanted to create this envelope for quite some time, ever since I found a glow-in-the-dark star all alone in my room really. It struck me then how as a child the glow in the dark stars (or sea creatures for me really) chased away the fears of the dark and how they held a kind of magic. Originally I thought this envelope would says something about chasing away the darkness but then I decided that could be taken the wrong way. In the end I decided on the wording you can see below and added a letter to better illustrate my point.

Like I said above i wanted to make sure this envelope could be taken in all the ways intended and above all in a positive light (excuse the pun)

Another 'finish this sentence'

This was another in-the-middle-of-the-night idea that had to be quickly written down and created the next day. I am in fact so pleased with this piece that I might make a slightly different but much bigger version of it. It follows the same format as the other 'finish this sentence' pieces, with the beginning of the sentence on the outside of the envelope and then a letter from myself with my answer on the inside. 

In the below letter I didn't literally write where home is for me but rather what it is and the feelings that make a place home for me. This is what I am considering putting on the outside of a bigger piece but I have the feeling there may be more to it, as I'm sure there is some things I missed! As you read it you may notice I sort of switch tenses, I did note this after i finished but decided to leave it as there was a reason for it. That reason being that some of the things exist in my life already and make my place home to me and others are things that exist elsewhere but I wish existed in my current climate. 

I'm really hoping this works as well as the 'In the morning I...' piece as this one gives me a lovely feeling just reading it and I'm the one that wrote it! Hopefully the recipient will feel the same and write back what make's home to them :)

Did you see that envelope in St Andrews...

A few days ago I was in St Andrews and i thought why not get this project further afield, so I took some of my wee envelopes with me. Unfortunately I only ended up leaving one behind...but here it is:

This one was left in the Botanic Gardens in St Andrews...in I think the fern room of the glass houses. It's on the side of a small stone bridge and if you look carefully in the background you can see the waterfall. I'm sorry about the picture quality as I did not take my camera with me I had to take these pictures on my phone.

As I said in  previous post if anyone is interested in doing this is their area and would like some wee envelopes to get them started then please do not hesitate to contact me! 

...

Continuing on with my wee envelope adventures...

^

This is in the back of an independent music store in town, at the back they sell 2nd hand vinyl, I reckoned that was the best place for this wee guy.

^

You may soon realise that I have a love of independent stores, this one was left in a small second hand book store and coffee shop. I  love this shop and I have to admit that when I was placing this one I got really distracted by the books and almost bought a few! These shelves are the young adult section, I spied a few books that i have read and loved in the past and a few books about magic which is also something I love, so it seemed the perfect place to leave this one.

Some sad news.

I'm afraid I have some sad news for you all, due to circumstances out with my control in less then 2 months I will no longer be living on the same street, or even within the city. unfortunately this means that i can no longer continue with the postal aspect of this project, this makes me very sad as i was enjoying sending my colourful envelopes to my neighbours and perhaps finally meeting them as well.

UPDATE: To those who have recieved anything from me please still feel free to post a reply back, as I will still be living here for a wee while and will have all mail forwarded to me once I have moved on. Thanks! :)

However...

...never fear, the project will go on! I am going to continue with my tiny envelopes project, that you can see featured in the previous post and this project is only the beginning of my efforts to spread the words about Make My Neighbour Smile...I have a few other ideas in the pipeline and no doubt if you stay tuned you'll be seeing them come to light as well. I am heartened to see that my blog views are continuing to remain fairly high, however i would love it if some of you would contact me and share your thoughts or get involved by sending any photo's of what you've done. If you get in contact you may also be able to convince me to send you a few tiny envelopes so you can start making neighbours smile in your area! Go on...you know you want to start sending some too!

 Please Please do not hesitate to email me (the address is on the contacts page). It doesn't matter if you are out with the UK, this is a project that I would be more then happy go worldwide! :) Think big or go home right?!

That's all for now, as usual watch this space for more.

Thanks for your support.

UPDATE on sharing the love..

Make My Neighbour Smile has made it out into the world...I've been hard at work (well sort of) preparing my tiny envelopes for the world beyond the postal service...these are the first three to adventure out on their own. I have left them all in public places for people to find. I probably said in the previous post but I will reiterate anyway, this is what their tags say:

"Neighbours are important people...they shouldn't be stranger...

If you've found me then please send me to a neighbour you don't know...

Please don't waste my stamp."

The back says:

"...get involved..." and has this web address on it.

As you can see they are all stamped and ready to go, I'm hoping that by leaving them with stamps on it will further encourage people to send them away.

I had to enlist the help of a friend as it would have looked more conspicuous if I had been seen leaving them and photographing them on my own.

^

 This one was left in the entry way of a late night coffee shop. 

^

 This one was left in a Starbucks. I've included two photo's of this one so you can see clearly what it says on the front.

^

And this one was left on one of the benches in the train station. A gentleman nearby watched as i left it and photographed it so I have a feeling that this will be one of the first to be picked up.

What do you think? Let me know if you've seen any, or even better if you were the person to pick one of them up! :) 

Tea, Biscuit, Chat...

I spent ages trying to figure out how I could fit tea onto an envelope some how, seeing as it's the great British drink and all. Not just that though, sharing a cup of tea and having a natter over the garden fence used to be a regular occurance, these days it's not. This envelope illustrates how that is missing from todays society. It is also a subtle way of asking my neighbour if they would like a cup of tea, a biscuit and a chat :)

Originally with this envelope I was going to add words in the same style as I usually do, however I got part way through adding the letters and then went to bed. After sleeping on it, I decided that actually this envelope looked pretty good on it's own and that adding something would propbably ruin it. So it's just a simple one.

...more greetings...

These next two envelopes are both continuing on with the positive greeting the me. I'm really enjoying the overall effect that the cut out colourful words and photocopies have and so I have used them both again and I'd imagine will continure to so. 

I'm really pleased with the one below, I will happily admit I had some trouble coming up with the words to go along with this one. I was reluctant to send it as just the banana and therefore it hung around half finished for a wee while why I tried to figure out what to put on it. My patience seems to have payed of with the play on words I came up with...

This one was a little easier to come up with, the only consideration I has was whether to use the scots: 'wee' or to use a word such as 'little' or 'small' instead. Eventually I decided seeing as these are all personal and 'wee' is what I would naturally say, as well as the fact that it is frequently used by the majority of people in the area, that it was safe to do so. Perhaps surprising I had put some consideration into where I should place the hand, after playing around for a while I came to the decision that as it is my left hand and if I were to face someone and wave it would be on their right (of course) it was best placed on the right hand side of teh envelope..hopefully that was the right decision.

Look our for more greeting envelopes coming soon..I feel this may only be the begining of this theme...

Positive Greeting

Here's the newest of the latest series of envelopes making their way through the postal system. For those who are wondering, yup that is my hand and yes I drew on it and it. I enjoy the aesthetic of the photocopied image, espeically when it comes to photocopying body parts - minds out of the gutter please. I think this may be the happiest envelope I have made so far, it even makes me smile looking at it now despite the fact that I've spent most of the day looking at it! I really really hope that whoever recieves this loves it too. 

As you can see I've made this one portrait rather than landscape but I reckon it works better seeing as it's a wave and all! :) I think choosing to use a yellow envelopes adds to the happy vibe of the whole envelope. Like I said I think this is the happiest envelope yet!

Fun with photocopies..

These latest idea's were born partly through sheer frustration and getting inspiration from writing: 'I <3 You' on a banana and sending a pictute of it to my boyfriend. All but one are personal to myself as always..the banana, well that was just for fun :) 

You can only just see it but in the centre of the mug it says: 'Hi'. 

Unfortunately because scanning a photocopy doesn't work so well you can't read it here but the tag says: 'I love to read fantasy novels about magicians and other worlds...what do you love read?'.

Like I said this one was just for fun, sticking the banana on upside down was a happy accident that I reckoned fitted in pretty well with the vibe of this envelope.

If I'm honest I'm not really sure I like this one but it might be odd enough to provoke a reaction.

This one goes out to...

...I wish I could send this one out to ALL the people I know who look in the mirror everyday and think: "huh, not bad", of course I'm not one to talk but all the same I think people should be able to look in the mirror and think: "huh, pretty amazing" and this project is about making my neighbours smile after all so hopefully whoever opens this in the morning will think a little better about themselves for that one day at least. 

Assuming of course that they don't already think they are amazing..maybe they do and this envelope will be an extra boost...either way every postal worker who handles it will read it and hopefully think the same :) 

I deliberately made sure that the word amazing had no black and white letters as I think amazing, colourful and happy all go hand in hand. - You can't see from the image but that 'N' is not actually black and white, darn scanner..

I was very tempted to put eyes in the 'o's of look but in the end decided against it..doing so may have ruined the overall effect.

Sharing the love...

Make My Neighbour Smile goes out into the world...

The decisions been made that it's time I was more active in encouraging other people to get to know their neighbours...so I found a use for my tiny envelopes! I'll be leaving these wee guys around in coffee shops, libraries, book stores etc. I'm optimistic that people will find one, read the Tag and then send it on to one of their neighbours that they don't already know. 

This one (below) was cut straight out of the envelope and then I stuck coloured paper underneath...pretty basic but I think the contrast works..

As you can see both of the envelopes have stamps and the end of the tag reads: "Please don't waste my stamp..." hopefully people will heed this request.

LOOK OUT for updated photo's of this series and where I have left them and KEEP YOUR EYES PEELED for any while your out and about! 

Illustration Reply.

Hello Hello...sorry things seemed to have slowed down a bit lately...perfect timing for me to receive another reply really! Yup that's right I received a reply a couple of days ago from my letter that went with the sewn "Hi There" envelope that you can see here: http://makemyneighboursmile.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/sewing.html

and in turn I sent a reply yesterday. In keeping with my decision to keep things more happy and less serious I decided to draw a wee neighbourly illustration on the outside of the envelope. I have blurred out the name and address as usual for the privacy of my neighbour. 

I know the whole things a little squiggly however I think that it gives it it's own unique personality and style. I made the conscious decision not to use a ruler for this reason. What do you think, did it work?

This is the reply that I sent a long with the envelope, as before if I have permission from the sender I will also publish their reply, so watch this space!