Anchored Scraps Address Book now available

Last month, I introduced the readers of this blog to Helen Rittersporn and her Anchored Scraps website. Helen is a certified project manager who blogs about keeping in touch with family and friends through correspondence.

Helen and I have been collaborating to create an Anchored Scraps Address Book, which she debuted yesterday in her website's online store.

But, as many of us do, Helen blogs about more than just letter writing. She writes about carving out time for yourself, for connecting with others, for finding balance in our lives. The "anchor" that is in the Anchored Scraps name and logo and that finds its way into many of Helen's blog posts, represents her father, who passed away earlier this year, and his naval service. It also serves a reminder to stay anchored, or grounded, in our daily lives, remembering what's important to us.

The new Anchored Scraps Address Book can be ordered from Helen's online store. She also features the address book in yesterday's blog post.

If you haven't visited the Anchored Scraps website yet, I encourage you to click on over there. I think you'll like it.

World Stationery Day

Today, in the middle of Britain's National Stationery Week and at the end of the U.S. National Card and Letter Writing Month is World Stationery Day, April 29, 2015. It's organized by the London Stationery Show (wouldn't that be a great event to attend?!?!) and encourages people worldwide to pick up a pen or pencil and write a letter by hand.

Let's all celebrate!

She Writes Letters with a Feather and Ink

What a fascinating story The Breeze, James Madison University’s student-run newspaper, ran earlier this week! It's about  Kimberly Heidinger, a sophomore elementary education major from Ridgefield, Connecticut, who writes letters to her family and friends using a fountain pen or a quill made from a feather and a metal tip.

Read more about Kimberly on The Breeze's website.

It's National Stationery Week!

All month long we've been celebrating National Card and Letter Writing Month. Although letter writers are naturally an international group of people, the "national" in this month's designation tends to refer to the United States. Certainly, though, we have invited the whole world to join us in our enthusiasm for letter writing! Now, as we enter the last week National Card and Letter Writing Month, we all get to join Britain in celebrating National Stationery Week, April 27-May 3, 2015.

And the organizers and sponsors are doing it right! There is a website, a Facebook page and Twitter and Instagram accounts and a Pinterest board. National Stationery Week lists its partners as the Greeting Card Association, the National Handwriting Association, the Writing Instrument Association, the British Post Office and Cambridge University Press. There are also many sponsors, which you can see on the official National Stationery Week website.

According to the website, "National Stationery Week celebrates the written word and all things stationery – the wonderful products which make it all possible, and give so much pleasure to so many people."

On the website are activities for kids, polls to take, videos to watch and more! Go check it out! And, then, write some letters!

Write a Meaningful Letter

In the news this week have been several stories from Australia and New Zealand about the Gallipoli Campaign, a campaign of World War I that took place on the Gallipoli peninsula (in modern Turkey) in the Ottoman Empire between April 25, 1915, and January 9, 1916. Several of those stories include tales of letters, lost, rediscovered and remembered.


April 25 is Anzac Day, a national day of remembrance in Australia and New Zealand that commemorates all Australians and New Zealanders who served and died in  wars, conflicts and peacekeeping operations. Originally, Anzac Day honored the members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) who fought at Gallipoli.

A story in The West Australian tells of the family of Donald Shapley McLean. He was killed at Gallipoli, and the family was told that he had left behind a small packet of items, including a letter. But, the family never received the letter. Apparently, it had been inadvertently sent to the family of another fallen soldier with a similar name.

In New Zealand's Timaru Herald, an article shares John Parsloe's story of rediscovering a bundle of World War I letters from his great uncle, Hedley Ferrier, and the interesting information the family discovered within.

Business Insider Australia has pictures of the letters from Eric Whitehead, who was also killed 100 years ago. His letters give his family — and the world —great insight into what life was like in the trenches of Gallipoli.

As we head into the final few days of National (U.S.) Card and Letter Writing Month, take a few minutes to think about the letters you write. Are they of such substance as to provide fascinating details to those who come across the letters 100 years from now? Let's spend the weekend writing letters full of depth and meaning!

Earth Day 2015

In honor of Earth Day 2015, I've decided to breathe some life back into my CAT Productions blog, which is about recycling, repurposing, reusing, eco-living, etc.

In my first post in quite some time, I've blogged about a topic that connects that blog to this one...the practice of reusing paper and cardboard that we often think of as trash, repurposing it into stationery to use in our letter writing.

Of course, I love a brand-new box of fine writing paper as much as the next stationery addict, and I would never suggest that you submit a resumé cover letter written on the back of your electric bill, but I think the concept is something we can have fun with. Take a look at the post by clicking on the link above.

A Book About a Couple of Letter Writers

I've been reading about an upcoming book, "Mary and Me: A Lasting Link Through Ink." It sounds like a good one.

Authors Mary Potter Kenyon and Mary Jedlicka Humston have been writing letters to each other for 30 years, and their book, which is scheduled to be released in September, is about that and more, according to what I've read on their Facebook pages and on Amazon.com.

We'll have to keep an eye out for this one!