A letter by a different name ...

... is still a letter; it just looks like a zine in this case. 

Recently, I've seen a couple of pictures/how-to's of zines and decided I wanted to make one. Only problem was I didn't know what to put in it. 

Then I had an idea. 

While we've been in France, we've been keeping in contact with my wife's best friend, also on her year abroad, also in France. On the complete other side! Since getting post is so fun (as mentioned in Yay, post) we've been keeping in contact that way rather than via the internet (which may be easier, and speedier).

There was my idea: write our next letter in the form of a zine. I figured it would make for a more exciting (if that's possible) letter.

Here's how it went:

As we always write a fair amount, I decided an A4 sheet of paper wouldn't be enough and hence used A3. I followed this to make the zine and then opened it out again so I could work on the design.

At this point I had very little idea of what I was actually going to put on the paper, so it kind-of evolved of its own accord.

Starting with letter basics

Then came the decorating, until it looked like this:

At this point I gave the zine to my wife to actually write the letter; that's her job :P

And there you go, one finished zine-letter. Obviously it didn't quite look like that but I've blurred the writing out seeing as it's a private letter :)

And a couple of views of it in its folded up finished state:

Ta-da! Now wouldn't you like to get that in the post?

Yay, post

I love post, quite simply love it. 

So, having received a little yellow slip in the letterbox yesterday afternoon, I bundled myself up against the softly falling snow and the cold air and made my way to La Poste. I knew what my package would be, I'd ordered it a week and a half ago - my new Family Tree Maker software :)

Since arriving in France, my wife and I have worked a fair amount on our combined family tree - no small task when you consider that we both don't really know our fathers, and have step-fathers along with many siblings, and close cousins. It makes for very many branches of a tree! But all ones that we're interested in finding out about, none of this following the male name back and ignoring all the wives - in fact we've found they often have the most interesting stories. 

Anyway, so back to today, I picked up my package, hurried home to make a cup of tea and get installing.

Gotta love a good parcel :)

Now, it's time to play :D ... before returning to the knitting of the Very Pink Jumper!