Planning a portrait of a dear friend to surprise her on her birthday.

preparing a letter to a very dear penpal of mine ✨

pls do not repost, edit or use

anyone wanna be penpals? we don't even have to send each other letters physically. we can write them out and make them look all pretty and just send the photos of the letters.

I just wanna get into writing letters and reconnecting with the idea of taking time to really think about the person you're writing to, and having something tangible to show for it. I think that'd be pretty neat

recent penpal letters that i have sent out 💕

Outgoing letter to a friend, using Denver Botanic Gardens leaflet (? Magazine??) to make an envelope.

Do you want to send a postcard to a closeted trans person, but you feel bad about having to use their deadname?

Are you making props for a ttrpg game or for an escape room mayhaps?

Are you in a secret romantic relationship no one must know about?

I can't be the first one to figure this out: if you combine friction-erasable pens and the good ol' lemon juice or milk ink trick, you can not only write a message in invisible ink, but also write something on top that'll disappear to reveal the secret writing underneath. So basically, you can give someone an innocent-looking letter, and they can make the innocent text disappear and a secret letter will appear underneath it!

Here's what you'll need:

A piece of parchment paper (optional)

The paper you want to write on

Lemon juice or milk (i used lemon juice)

A dip pen (but something like a toothpick will work in a pinch)

Erasable pens (the kind that erases with friction, for instance Pilot FriXion pens)

The recipient needs to have some parchment paper and a way to heat up the letter: either an iron (recommended), a hot lightbulb, oven, or a candle or lighter. A radiator or body heat will not be hot enough.

Step 1: Write your secret message using lemon juice or milk as ink. Use a dip pen, preferably one with a nib that won't scratch the paper. Dipping a toothpick in the 'ink' will work in a pinch, but it'll definitely take longer.

Since the 'ink' is hard to see, you might occasionally run out of ink without noticing. Tilt the paper to check that every letter is wet.

Step 2: Wait until your writing is dry. Lemon juice will dry slightly shiny, but not wet-looking.

Step 3: Write your visible message. The secret message will not be 100% invisible so be sure to cover it up with your writing to the best of your abilities. Don't worry about the visible ink interfering with your secret message. The erasable ink will disappear completely once your recipient gets your letter.

Step 4: Send your letter or hand off your prop. Be sure to tell the recipient exactly what to do with it. You might want to include some parchment paper in your envelope in case the recipient doesn't have any, although it might make people suspect shenanigans are afoot. Step 5 is for the recipient to do.

Step 5: Now the letter needs to be heated up. The best method is to iron it, but if that's not an option it's time to get creative. It's preferable not to use an open flame. Options would be a hot lightbulb or an oven (you can find instructions on how to reveal milk or lemon juice ink in the oven online). If that's off the table you can use a flame, but be very very careful! Start very high above the flame, and get lower if it's not hot enough. Be sure to have a bowl of water nearby in case the paper catches on fire. Do not let the paper catch on fire!!

If you want to iron the letter but don't want to be caught doing so, you might be able to conceal it by putting it in the pocket of a garment. Make it one you can iron on the medium or high setting.

As you heat up the letter, the visible ink will disappear first before the secret message is finally revealed. You might need to use the medium or high temperature setting to reveal the invisible text.

I folded the parchment paper back for these pictures but you will of course iron the letter while it's sandwiched between it.

And you're done! You can now read the secret text.

Stickers anyone!?

I have so many different ones, but my favorite are animal stickers. Fun fact- I actually have 2 dogs and 4 cats! Is anyone else an animal lover? 🐾❤️

So many bugs! If anyone knows the species name, please let me know!

+ outgoing pen pal letter to Cori!

I hope she likes it!

May. 13th. 2024

im literally stalking ur blog rn and im sorry for spam liking it's just that you've rb-ed so much yummy fanart 😋 im going feral RAHHH

omg so valid man i literally froth at the mouth going back on my blog too HFISJKSOQ i see hot man -> i rb . need to collect them like im making a harem

say more abt the siren !!!! :0

uhm!!!! i don't have much to say yet bc im still working out a lot of the details but they r a singer that andie meets from hanging around the music scene bc of heart attack romeo's band!! they have the power to manipulate people's emotions/actions through their voice (hence siren which is also their stage name) and andie gets caught up in that but idk the exact details of how yet or how she stops them jdjxjssk

Gotcha just checking!

Basically during a severe thunderstorm there is so much wind blowing beneath the clouds that it can prevent hail or rain from falling and pushes it back into the cloud, which results in either big hailstones/rain drops or a microburst, which is what we see in the clip. It's where the cloud collapses under its own weight and crashes to earth in a burst of high winds. There's about 10 per every tornado and they are a contributing factor to wind damage, but they don't really even compare to tornadoes.

I have a lot of weather anxiety so therefore I like to know a lot about weather lmao

interesting! it is very reminiscent of the 10 ton backpacks in middle school. #sympathymoment

a little bit of June and July 📚📝 reblog is ok, don’t repost

Hello! ~

My name is Katya or call me kat :)

I wanna do a introduction post to my penpal blog!

I mostly made this to post my own mail I make and to get inspiration from others on here.

The mail in the photos are the ones I made hehe, I post them on my Instagram account; @ katyapenpalling .

I have been penaplling for 5-6 years! I'm also a 20 years old who lives in Canada and is a lesbian!

My DNI: is anyone who is just rude to humans and doesn't support basic human rights. So leave if you're a bigot of any kind!

i've been thinking a lot about having a real counterculture in the modern day too. idk how it would exist but i think it's fairly obvious that it wouldn't be able to come from social media at all, but beyond that it may involve an outright rejection of smartphones. back to flip phones and downloaded mp3s, or cassette players. this is just kinda my own fantasizing but also i basically live like that anyway so idk

Offline living absolutely crucial- my dream countercultural movement involves reinforcing physical community spaces as well as community action, incredibly regulated and minimal internet contact and no smart devices turned appendages, and more analogue ways of spending dead time. Games, arts, books, social interactions, hobbies, a return to previously established subcultures. Less a unified movement with a label and a specific set of interest but rather a push for a broader paradigm shift in our ways of thinking, doing, and living. My mom told me once about how when she was a kid in the 80s/90s the hot thing to do in town as a youth was drive up and down the main highway in town- if you saw anything going on anywhere you'd pull over and see whats up: cruising! Cruising sounds fun! Or regularly meeting with acquaintances in cafes or rec centers! Public spaces! Every day i wish i could go back in time to go to a real og arcade! Needed change goes beyond personal responsibility with this- there would have to be a concerted activist effort to sort of degrow and reform our cities and towns. But thats kind of end game. And absolutely under no circumstances can it have a name or a uniform. Hippie, beat, goth, punk, grunge, all names lost to commodification/being defanged. I dont know how else to articulate this it just absolutely must hinge on actions and not any generalizable term. Destroy aesthetics. Necessary (compassionate) gatekeeping also essential bc of this. Tldr shirk commodity embrace the humane. Not just alive but Living. I'd like to be living. I dont know how this could be organized without relying on the internet though honestly.... ppl are kind of helpless and well it would seriously be COUNTER culture.. i think id like to try though. I cant live if i dont have People who i can Live with im realizing

YO WE SHARE A BIRTHDAY

FEBRUARY 19TH IS THE BEST DATE

OMG NICE!!! happy 122 days until birthday to us :)🧁🌟

Hey everyone! I'm here searching for some snail mail penpals. I'm willing to write first.

My name is Kandace, I'm 35 years old and I live in the USA. Id prefer female penpals..

Please let me know if you're interested.