christmas penpal inspiration + envelope art

Hello, friends!

So many of you enjoyed my last penpal post, Autumn Pen-pal Inspo, and asked for another, so here it is! I’ve already started my Christmas envelopes, some for letters and others to send Christmas cards in, plus, coming up with gift ideas that are flat and easy to mail in an envelope.

Enjoy some Christmas pen pal inspiration!

fun things to include in the letter

It’s especially fun around Christmas to add special things and goodies to your letter. I’ve found that there are plenty of practical but useful and fun things to send in letters. Ready to dive in?

Scrunchies ~ I haven’t actually sent these yet (but I’m planning to!) but I think it would be lovely to receive a few scrunchies / hair accessories in an envelope as a quick Christmas gift. I’m constantly losing mine, so extras are always appreciated. As long as you only send a few, there shouldn’t be any problem and you shouldn’t have to pay for extra shipping–I got these smaller ones from Old Navy and I love them.

Handlettered quotes or cards ~ This isn’t my favorite card that I’ve done, but it was quick and Christmas-themed. If you don’t enjoy doing fancy things, you can write out the quote / words in normal print, and decorate it with stickers and washi tape.

Color palettes and washi tape samples ~ These ones are always plenty of fun to send and receive. I did a few variations with how I did them, sadly, I don’t have any really Christmas-colored washi tape, so I just used marker. I don’t like them as much as I would have if I had done them with watercolor, but they are okay.

Christmas tea ~ This is my favorite thing to send and also my favorite thing to receive. A few of my penpals and I have done a tea swap where we sent 5 different kinds of teas back and forth and tested them. 😀 It was interesting and a neat thing to do with a penpal.

Flat ornaments ~ My mom found these at Walmart one day and thought they would work well as small Christmas presents. They are perfect for letters since they are flat and light but also cute.

my favorite pen-paling supplies

I may do a longer post on this in the future (let me know if that would be something you’re interested in!) but for now, here’s a shorter list.

For most of the pictures / art in this post, I used a set of dual-brush pens that I love! I used to use Tombow brush pens, and I still do, but they are expensive and I like these just as much. Plus, gold and silver Pen+Gear markers were fun for some extra pops of color and Christmasy colors.

This Faber Castel Artist Pen came in quite handy when adding ‘snow’ to the envelopes and adding extra features. Normally, I use my white gel pen but it’s out of ink so this marker took its place.

Washi tape is my best friend, haha. Not really but I do love it for adding an extra pop of color to an envelope or when I don’t have time to do a ton of art on the envelope, it comes in handy.

My wax seal kit is another close friend. I use it for most of my letters. Getting enough wax but not too much, plus making sure you can get the whole stamp in is tricky, but I’m getting better at it and it’s fun to use.

envelope art

I always enjoy decorating my envelopes and making them look pretty ~ a lot of these are simple, since I have so many envelopes to decorate, but they are still fun. Even if you don’t like doing art, you can use washi tape, decorative paper, stickers, etc. to make an envelope look pretty.

I did this one for my friend Charlotte–It’s just print-writing with her name but I lined the letters with green to give it a bit more of a pop, and then added ‘snow’ with my white marker. The washi tape gave it a bit more personality if you want to call it that. 😀

Ooh, this is one of my favorites that I’ve done–I didn’t realize the washi tape was coming off until I took the picture. o.O Oh well, I’ll stick it on later. I love the bright colors and the lettering was fun too, simple faux calligraphy.

I absolutely loved the color scheme on this envelope, I brought it into the letter and goodies, too. I wish I had done a few other envelopes with the washi tape surrounding the border.

This was a fun one, kind of like the one I did above, but I added gold on the letters which made it look prettier.

This one makes me think of peppermint, I don’t know why but maybe the white on the red? My white marker came in handy there. I signed up for a letter exchange to do a letter exchange with some friends, and this one is for my person.

And there we go! I hope this post gave you some inspiration and you are rejuvenated and ready to go and write your letters! Before you do that, let me know your answers to these questions in the comments!!

What’s your favorite envelope in this post? Do you have any Christmas pen pal tips or pen pal tips in general? Do you have a pen pal?

Thank you for reading, my friends!