Are you thinking of starting to pen pal? Or maybe you did it a few years ago, decades ago even, and want to get back into it? Then you’re going to need an essential pen pal kit.
The best thing about this kit is that it is minimal. It’s not expensive, it’s easy to source and the chances are, you have everything in your house already.
You might have seen lots of pretty mail on Pinterest, Instagram and YouTube, but I’d like to reassure you now that you don’t need to do that. You don’t need to have overflowing boxes of stationery, stickers and stamps everywhere, a whole craft room of supplies. But, I will warn you now as it’s only fair, this hobby might lead to that!
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To get started with this hobby, you just need a few basics.
You’ll need:
A pen – any pen will do. If you have coloured pens, then all the better, as you can use them to pretty up writing the envelope, or switch up your colours whilst writing your letter to make it a little different.
Paper – any paper will do. Printer paper, cut our of notebook paper, the back of gift wrap, jotter pads, postcards, anything at all that you can write on.
Envelope – use any envelope, but be mindful that larger sizes might need more postage, so do check the rates for your country. If you haven’t got any envelopes, you can make them with wrapping paper, magazines, or paper scraps.
Stamps – you might need domestic and international, depending on where your pen pal is, just ensure you’ve checked the latest rates before mailing.
Simple!
The essential kit really is so very easy, so don’t be put off starting to pen pal because you think you need more.
My store has a range of pen pal printables that you can get and instantly download and print if you’re looking for a little more and some guidance. The packs include writing paper and several fun mail tags you can use to get to know and have fun with your pen pal. There are also pen pal trackers and ephemera over there you can use. All are printable, so once purchased, you can print and use as many copies as you want.
Over time you might gather more, or you might be excited to start this and want to treat yourself to a few bits of pretty stationery, just do whatever you enjoy.
If you want to level it up a bit, I’d suggest getting these things too, but these are bonus items, not essentials. They’re all clickable links of products I’ve used and enjoy:
A range of things like this, a selection of pens, washi, stickers and stamps, can be fun (but not essential!) additions to your kit of you want to play around with your happy mail.
You could watch these videos for some really simple ideas if you’d like to decorate your mail.
The first is easy mail decorating using magazines. I mention this one, as many of us have magazines, junk mail, gift wrap and the like in our homes already, so it’s an inexpensive way to get a little creative and have fun with your envelopes.
And I shared this one just using a few stationery bits from my stash that will last a while and enable you to pretty up quite a bit of mail. The links for the products used are in the video description for you to make it easy.
Hopefully you can see that it’s super easy to get started with pen pals, so I’d encourage you to give it a try a today.
And if this has reassured you that you have all that you need, but now all you need is the most important thing of all – a pen pal! – just pop over to the Bring Back Paper Facebook group and look for pen pals there.
Have fun!
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If you’re new to Bring Back Paper, you can find out more about it all here. You can join our Facebook group here and you can sign up to join my mailing list below, for all the latest news, updates, ideas and activities.