We made it to another spring 🌷
We're still in a back and forth of cold-and-warmth in my corner of the woods, but I can feel the chilly breeze packing up and making its quiet exit. Poor thing, we become so impatient by the end of winter, that we can't stand it any longer lol.
This month is about staying in the discomfort of this in between, and still trying to notice the good parts of it. How lucky are we to still make it to another spring? 🌷
1. My favorite thing this month has to be some splurging I did for business purposes... (lol who's buying that?) Let me spill the tea! I had seen a japanese magazine called "Letters" in a few youtube videos of people showing cute stationery they brought from their trips to Japan, and it looked quite nice. After seeing a few posts on Tegamisha's website, the collective that edits the magazine, I completely fell in love!
Everything is just so well put together, the photographs are gorgeous, and the overall art just hits the spot for me :-)
Here is one post that you can read about issue #2 and get a good feel for what the contents are, and another one to comemorate the launch of issue #3.
2. One of the stamps in my collection (Kitte No Kobito) was featured in an article in the magazine I just mentioned, and I could then check out the artist's profile on Instagram. It's so cool that they make "interactive" stamps to play with the physical media. There are so many!!
3. I LOVE all the spring poetry flooding my social media - it reminds me that these digital spaces are not all bad, not all bad. Here's one from The Poetry Archive called "The Trees". I just have to re-read "Their yearly trick of looking new. Is written down in rings of grain" over and over again, it's so good!
4. You probably have seen one of Bungu's cool short videos, but did you know they also have a blog? This one post goes over "The Evolution of the Most Overengineered Japanese Mechanical Pencil, the Kuru Toga". Humans are cool - we invent very specific things, then work on making it even better. How much of a privilege is to be wowed by... rotating mechanical pencils?
5. In my physical newsletter (part of my Mail Club!), I mentioned I would share a recipe for one of my favorite treats: Peppermint Chocolate Chip Cookies. I like a thick, chunky, New York/Levain Bakery style cookie, so I used this recipe as a base.
I changed it by using fresh milled soft wheat berries (and sifting it through a #60 mesh sieve to get closer to an All Purpose flour situation), and I added 1 tsp of pure peppermint extract. Then... the secret ingredient... Peppermint Chocolate Chips! If you're not one of those monsters who think mint flavored goods taste like toothpaste, I got you! You're in for quite the treat!! 🍪
7. If you're feeling moody and calm, here's the perfect acoustic version of Ryan Beatty's "Bruises Off The Peach". The starting lines already give me chills lol:
"Something's missing, and that's alright I promise. I'm gonna give it until August".
About six years ago, I painted my little house print in a 18 x 24 inch canvas. I look at it everyday, as it lives in my bedroom. I've always imagined it as more of a summer scenery, so one of these days I wondered what would this place look like during spring.
That's how the postcard for my April Mail Club edition was born!
Other cool things I wanted to share with you:
- Look how gorgeous these t-shirts are. "Snowy Owl Boxy Tee" and "Beau-Pollinator"
- If you like to watch food videos and bakery behind the scenes, I got you good:
