May 2020 – The Writer of Letters

Q&A answers: part two! + I hit 200 followers!! claps in a circle aka round of applause

Hello beautiful people! How are you? I’m doing good 🙂 My weather went downhill since my last post but life still isn’t bad.

This is random but I just want to put it out there: I really REALLY want to buy a leopard print bucket hat. And I’m struggling because I know I probably will never wear it but I want to buy it and be brave enough to wear it and I’m strugglinggggg. Also I haven’t went the store for a while so I need to do that if I want to buy it. Ok, I’m done my mini rant now! 😂

As you can probably tell from that handy photo thing above that I just whipped up, I’m doing the second part of answering questions from back when I got 100 followers! It’s been a while and I’m extremely honored to say that I hit 200 followers last month! My dudes, ladies, pretty people, whatever you wish to be called, thank you all so much!!! I’m honestly so amazed at the support you guys have given me, y’all are the BEST. Sorry about the mushy stuff but I wanted to say it. so thank you. from the bottom of my heart. 💕

onto the answers!!

Esther’s questions:

1. Favorite animal?

Dogs. or seals. or otters. I can’t pick xD

2. Dogs or cats?

Dogs. They’re so fluffy and like woman best friends and cats (ummm idkk) they just give me some vibes and I don’t like them. I feel like they would take over the world if they could? Anyone get that vibe from them?Please say I’m not the only one xD.

3. What’s your favorite pet name?

Hmm I’m not sure. Our cats are having kittens right now though and I’m trying to convince my sister to give them all old English posh names but she doesn’t like the idea. Imagine a cute fluffy little kitty named Edward?! It would be the cutest thing imo 😉

4. Favorite color?

Blue. all shades and kinds of blue. Yellow is a close runner up though

5. Favorite song?

Can’t choose xD Recently I’ve been missing church and I’ve been listening to hymns and realizing how much I love them. One of my favorites is “How deep the Father’s love for us”, it’s a good one ❤️

6. Least favorite movie?

HOLD ON. I KNOW ONE. LET ME FIND IT. Okay it’s “Two Bits and Pepper”. I don’t know why but when I watched this movie a couple years ago I just hated it. It seemed plot-less and scary and yeah: I didn’t like it.

7. Favorite movie?

All of the Narnia movies. But my favorite is the one with Prince Caspian. And it’s not just because he’s cute. I like the movie xD

8. Favorite boy/girl names?

I really like the boy name Micah, and the girl names Emma and Madeline. In my opinion it’s so much harder to come up with boy names, am I right?!

9. Favorite scent?

Wet clean clothes. How the clothes smell when you’re switching them from the washer to the dryer-it’s the absolute best thing ever.

10. Favorite flavor?

Idkkk. It depends on the thing, I really like barbecue chips but I don’t like barbecue sauce. I don’t know.

11. Who’s your favorite celebrity?

I really like Sadie Robertson. I feel like she’s a good role model and I really like some of her speeches etc. that she’s given.

12. If you had to lose one of your five senses: touch, sight, hearing, smell, and taste, which one would you lose?

Maybe touch. I DON’T KNOW. Probably not touch. But maybe touch? I can’t choose. this is such a hard question!

13. If you had to turn into an animal, which one would it be?

A bird, I love how they can swoop and fly so gracefully. There’s also those clumsy birds that fly into windows. that would be yours truly. I would be a clumsy bird xD

Diamond’s questions:

What book series is your favorite?

I can’t really choose but one of my favorites series are “Dinah Harris Mysteries” and they’re murder mysteries where a former FBI agent becomes a Christian and solves murders.

What is the best piece of blogging advice you have to offer?

Engage. I think engaging with followers and the blogs you follow is SO important, it helps build an engaged audience and you get to make new blogging friends so it’s awesome 🙂

What color shirt are you wearing right now?

Blueeee. It’s actually my pajamas shirt but oh welll shhhh xD

If you were to write a bestselling novel, what would it be about?

I would like to write an inspiring true life novel maybe… or something about World War II. Actually yeah, some kind of historical fiction probably.

What is the favorite photo you’ve ever taken?

I take like 8000+ pictures per day (not literally xD) so I can’t choose but one of my recent favorites is this:

What would be your dream job?

A coffee barista at Black Rock coffee bar! I want to learn how to make all the coffee 😉

Nicole’s Questions:

What is your favorite kind of chocolate?

YUM chocolate ❤ I like milk chocolate because dark is too bitter but i also enjoy white 🙂 I’m just a fan of chocolate 😉

–Who are three of your favorite YouTubers?

Okay so I don’t watch youtube much but when I do I enjoy watching Elina Osborne’s videos on her hiking the PCT, Emma Marie, and Haley Pham ( did you hear she got engaged?!!?!!? SO CUTE)

What was the first blog you discovered? Well originally my friend Liberty had a blog so probably hers first, and then my first wordpress one I remember was Bayance. I remember being in awe of these two because their blogs were Ah. Mazing.

Music you’re currently listening to?

A lot of hymns, some country, some pop, some alternative, some Christian, you know-all the good stuff 😉

And that’s all for today! I’m hoping to do one more of these to finish up the rest if the questions, you guys asked a lot (THANK YOU!!!!) and I hope you enjoyed! I’m thinking for my 300 follower milestone I may do a giveaway? What to you think? Let me know? Also happy Memorial Day!

What’s your favorite kind of chocolate? Do you have a movie that you hate? What color shirt are you wearing right now? I hope you enjoyed, thank you so much for reading! Talk to me in the comments, I love to chat! ❤

xx, Jasmin

My attempt at an ombré cake. Quarantine crafts with Jasmin #4 drools

Hello one and all! How are you doing on this fine day? I’m doing wonderful as our weather is amazing and that makes me happy 🙂

Today is going to be a short-is post but I figured I could do a “quarantine crafts with Jasmin” post with my sister’s birthday cake that I made and decorated a couple weeks ago!

My baby sister Bridget turned 4 a couple weeks ago and for her birthday, she wanted a horse cake. As I semi-enjoy baking, I was charged with the job. Well not exactly charged, I kinda volunteered but anyways: I was charged to make her cake.

Since a box mix is easier, we decided to do that rather than make a cake from scratch. Also I’m sorry but as I wasn’t planning on doing this post, I didn’t take many pictures of the process. My mom picked up 2 boxes of cake mix so I could attempt to make a four layer cake, something I’ve never done before and it was quite fun! I also had two cans of vanilla frosting. and some sprinkles, because sprinkles make everything better, am I right?!

I had quite the mess going on xD.

Bridget just wanted a plain cake with some play horses stuck on the top so I decided to spice it up and attempt an ombré frosting look. Wow I was an ambitious child. Just kidding, but I had not a clue on what I was doing. So I kind of just dyed some frosting to what I thought was a dark shade of purple and slathered that along the bottom. Then I attempted to make a lighter version of purple for the middle but it turned out to be around the same shade of purple as the bottom one but oh well. I didn’t stress too much. Then I plopped a generous helping of plain white frosting on the top and then I went ahead and tried to blend that down into the purple. It went pretty smoothly except it looked pretty chunky and rough.

Kinda messy. So I used a neat trick my mom taught me: you dip a frosting smear-er thingy into a cup of hit water and you smooth out the frosting. It must melt the frosting kind of with the metal on the frosting smear-er and it gives the cake a glazed look. So I did that and this is how it turned out! I also threw some sprinkles onto the bottom to add some extra-ness! What’d u think?

Notice the glazed look on top? *raises eyebrows and nods professionally*

I’m honestly quite proud of myself, I think it looks pretty awesome, maybe even awesome enough to be from a store 😉 My sister was quite pleased and so was I, so it was cool! Sadly, I couldn’t have it as I was gluten free, and the cake was full of gluten but everyone that ate it thought it was delicious. So there was a happy ending 🙂

Thank you so much for reading this, you’re the best 🙂 Have you ever made an ombre cake? Have you ever made a 4 layer cake? What’s your favorite cake flavor? Mine’s probably chocolate but honestly cake is delicious so I can’t choose xD Hope you enjoyed, talk to me in the comments, I’d love to chat!

xx, Jasmin

Review of snail mail kit from peachandpoppyco + pen pal with me! Spins in a circle

Hello beautiful people! How are you doing today? I’m doing well and I hope the same for you 🙂

Today I have an exciting post for you all- a review of a lovely product from Megan’s Etsy shop, peachandpoppyco!

edit/update: I’ve used this product a lot more now ( 5/24/19), and can officially say: IM IN LOVE. It’s so handy and cute and my kit is almost gone and I may have to buy another soon 🙂

I recently reached out to Megan on Etsy, not realizing/processing that I followed her blog and when she replied she mentioned that she also blogged and I was like, “oh! I do know you then!” 🙂 Anyways, I reached out to Megan to see if she would be interested in sending me a product to review and she kindly agreed! So I want to give a big thanks to her, Thank you so much for sending me a product to review and for being so willing and helpful in this collaboration! Megan is so sweet and her Etsy shop is full of adorable snail mail and pen-paling things, I wish I could buy it all! Make sure to check out her shop right here! Now onto the review!

I received this snail mail/pen paling kit and it is the Travel Snail Mail Kit which is absolutely my favorite. I love the aesthetics and ahhh the traveling vibe is so cute and I overall love it. The kit includes 12 stationary sheets, 1 sticker sheet, 4 envelopes, 2 rolls of Washi tape, 4 cutouts, and 3 postcards.

Isn’t it all so cute?! Just looking at it makes me happy xD

I especially love the vintage-y looking postcards, they’re so aesthetic and pretty and vintage. so duh. They’re pretty cool. The Washi tape is really cool because I don’t have enough Washi tape so I was super pleased to get more! And I love the cut-outs and stickers, super cute and I love sticking them on envelopes and letters!

The packaging was so cute, and everything was packaged very nicely. The package had this sticker on the back which is adorable and I just needed to show you because I love it so much! I kinda want to peel this off and re-use it on a envelope ;)))

Anyways, to review them, I decided to do a pen-pal with me type post, so here is what I sent to my friend, Sydney!

These cutouts are some of my favorite things, I glued them onto some envelopes and I thought they turned out quite cute! They would also be fun to stick in envelopes.

To decorate her envelope I added some Washi tape and I glued one of the cutouts in the corner and I thought it turned out super cute! Also I covered the address with a piece of paper because ummm private info xD

I wrote Sydney a letter using the adorable stationary and then I also sent her some dried flowers in a small bag I made, which was not included in the kit. I did use the Washi tape from the kit to decorate the bag!

On the back of then envelope I used some more Washi tape ( can u tell I love that stuff xD) and I also used a sticker to add some cuteness 🙂 I labeled it quarantine mail because I know Sydney in real life, she lives like 20 minutes away from me, but we’ve been sending each other mail during the quarantine, which has been quite fun!

My rating: ★★★★★

Pros: I love how almost everything is included that you need to write a letter/ it shipped extremely fast-only 2 days!/ it’s all adorable and super aesthetically pleasing/ Megan is so sweet and a gem to work with/ overall it’s beautiful 🙂

Cons: The price was a little to much for me, but I’m also a cheap skate so I don’t know. and that’s all.

Update on Cons: I don’t think its actually that expensive when you compare how much the envelopes and Washi tape and postcards and such would cost individually so I’m going to reevaluate and say, there’s no cons. So go buy this kit. Because it is awesome 🙂

Make sure to go check out Megans shop right here! It’s lovely, isn’t it? Again, thank you so much to Megan for being willing to work with me, I appreciate it more than you know and I hope you all have a lovely day!

How are you? Are you enjoying my letter writing/ pen-pal posts? Should I do more? Have you ever gotten something from Megans shop? What’s your favorite flavor of icecream? Talk to me in the comments, I’d love to chat!

xx, Jasmin

Top 5 Letter Writing Essentials. Collaboration with Erin @ KittyJade Jazz hands

Hello beautiful people! How are you doing? I’m doing great and today I have an exciting post! It’s my first official collab (well kinda, I don’t exactly know) but anyways, as you saw in the title, I’m doing a collaboration with my friend, Erin, from KittyJade!

wow why did that low-key sound like a youtube video introduction?!

Over on her blog, I did a post about my top 5 extras to add in letters and in return she wrote this lovely post for me! I hope you enjoy and make sure to check out the post that I did on her blog, right here! Now onward to the post!

Paper

The most basic component of letter-writing is always important. Firstly may I recommend unlined paper! Most of us can write in a straight line, and if you can’t, practice makes perfect. Paper without lines looks much neater but also gives off the correct ‘vibes’. Lined paper is what we associate with school work and studying, and your friend doesn’t want to be reading like a teacher marking a paper! Just bear that in mind. Also, you’ll need to think about what pen you’re using to dictate what thickness of paper you shall use.

Pen

My go-to pen is the basic biro, but we are all different. Some prefer ink pens, or gel pens and maybe even quill and ink! If you are looking for a good gel writing pen I can recommend the Uniball Signo. Whatever pen you go for, just be aware of smudging and bleeding. Thin paper is ideal for a biro, but not for gel pens.

Envelope

Of course, the envelope. You must always keep in mind the envelope size in ratio to paper. It’s not particularly nice to receive a letter folded over again and again. I usually opt for envelopes that are slightly smaller than A6.

Stamp

You can’t send a letter without a stamp! These are the most costly part of letter-writing. Particularly with the current situation, letters won’t arrive as promptly as usual. However I still use 2nd Class stamps because they’re cheaper.

Stickers

Although stickers aren’t necessary, they are a cute addition to any sort of mail. Either used on the seal of an envelope, or maybe throughout the writing! It just adds a bit of colour and maybe even humour to your correspondence. Jasmin wrote a whole post about cute things to add to your letters, so make sure to check that out after this one!

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And thats all for today! I think these are all essentials and I love the tips and insight Erin mentioned, she included some good points that I hadn’t even began to think about! Thank you so much for reading and make sure to check out Erin’s blog right here!

What are your letter writing essentials? Do you write letters? Hows the COVID19 situation going for you? I hope you’re all doing well! Talk to me in the comments, I’d love to chat!

x, Jasmin