Category: Mindless Distractions

Remember when I blogged about Postcrossing?  And also when I received an email alert that a postcard I had sent arrived in New Zealand?  I have another update – I received a postcard myself.  It came from Tokyo Japan and featured a pretty image on lovely paper, and some really cool stamps on the flip side. Time to send more, so I can receive more!  Wanna get cool postcards from around the world?  Check out Postcrossing.com.

While searching for a new desktop wallpaper for the month of August, I saw this awesome one on Smashing Magazine.  It was created by Brennan Gilbert and comes in versions with the calendar dates and without.  There are many times when I could use this reassurance – I’m setting it as my desktop wallpaper right now!

Remember when I blogged about Postcrossing last week?  Well, I tried it out, sending generic Canada postcards (featuring a photo of Lake Louise) to New Zealand, China, and Thailand.  Yes, I’m going to design my own postcards.  Eventually.  But for now I was eager to try it out so I bought the most attractive postcards I could find at the drug store.  Don’t judge me.

Anyway, I just got an email through the Postcrossing website saying that my postcard arrived in New Zealand!  It took 6 days, and 2 of those days were over the weekend.  Pretty impressive.  Here’s the detail page.  When updating the receipt of my postcard on the website, the recipient wrote  “Hello and thank you so much for the wonderful postcard which has just arrived. Strangely enough just a few days ago I was thinking how great it would be to receive a card showing a beautiful Lake view from the Banff National Park! I had visited Banff many years ago when I was a teenager and loved it.”

SO COOL.  I think I’m hooked on this postcard stuff.  Gotta send more!

Okay, I’ll say right up front – you’re either gonna think this is really cool or really lame.  Hopefully you’ll think it’s cool like I do!

I received an email today with a discount postcard printing offer from Moo (15% off a pack of Moo postcards with promo code 9MW4J4).  In the email, they mentioned Postcrossing, a website that matches up random people all over the world for postcard sharing.  Sign up for a free account, and you’ll be given the name and address of someone in the world that you can mail a postcard to.  Other random people will mail you postcards too.  (This is the part that you will either think is wonderful and fun, or totally lame)

I just signed up at Postcrossing, and was given a name and address for someone in China.  I’d like to take a bunch of pictures of my favourite parts of Toronto and make my own postcards (probably through Moo’s offer).  Or try and find a bunch of unusual and beautiful postcards, or old-timey ones like those pictured up there.  But for now, I think I’ll send a generic Canada or Toronto postcard, since I’m eager to get started!

Over at Design*Sponge (aka my favourite blog of all time), they have a regular section called “Living In”, where they take inspiration from a movie and list furniture and costumes that seem to fit the film.  Today they posted a “Living In” for The Parent Trap – that adorable old movie with Hayley Mills (NOT the remake with Lindsay Lohan).

I loved The Parent Trap when I was a kid – I watched it over and over.  I really identify with the blog writer – like her, my vision of summertime perfection is basically a grown-up version of the summer camp from that movie.  And, since I’m heading back out to the cottage tomorrow for another long weekend, I thought this was very fitting.

Oh, and for you boys out there that maybe missed out on The Parent Trap while growing up, you might prefer the “Living In” for Stand By Me.  Same type of childhood summertime childhood.

This paper-shredding coffee table has been making its rounds on the design blogs lately.  What do you think?  Ugly?  Cool?  Don’t care?  Want one?  I think it would be a fun thing to do at parties.  If you’re bored, just shred something!