Sandbook Net Interviews PenPals for Life!

PenPals for Life is a Facebook Group that shares the love for PenPalling and Correspondence. The ladies from the PenPal for Life Team have agreed to give us this exclusive interview.

SandbookNet: Tell us a bit about yourself (hobbies, where you live, etc)

PenPals for Life: My name is Yanelis Gourrie, I was born in a small town in Cuba, came to the USA when I was 9 years old and have lived here in Tampa Florida ever since then. I love dancing, reading, writing, movies, penpalling, drawing, theme parks, skydiving, traveling. I am 31 years old, Capricorn. I have no kids. Love to make new friends, love to write, trade postcards/magnets. Love to meet new people and learn about their cultures.

SandbookNet: How did you start with your penpalling? How long do you penpal?

PenPals for Life: I started pen paling when I was 14 years old I came across an ad in a magazine and have been pen paling ever since that (I am now 31). I still stay in touch with that first pen pal I met when I was 14. It is one of my passions. When I first started I did not know of anyone who was into pen paling, so this one a wonderful world that I was able to discover myself.

SandbookNet: How did the idea about your penpalling site come out?

PenPals for Life: One day I was sitting and thought to myself, I like to be able to make a page of pen pals, where everyone can find each other, everyone can have fun, can have discussions and be who they truly are and not be judge by financial income, by looks or anything, but by a simple heart and writting letters. I searched Facebook and so others pen pals pages, but I wanted something different and said let me see what I can do.... and then all of the sudden new ideas, new members and the page turned into a success overnight.

SandbookNet: How long have you been working on PenPals for Life?

I started in September 2010 but would only log in to the account every few days. It was slowly getting members but I did not fully give my attention to it. In January 2011 after being lay off from my job I started finding myself getting more and more involved and making my passion, my imagination of what I had originally planned for the site a reality.

SandbookNet: Tell us more about PenPals for LIfe - what can we expect to find on your Facebook page?

PenPals for Life: Pen pals For Life is a place where we feel like family, where we talk everyday about our lives, we help each other with motivation. We have daily contest, giveaways, monthly swaps, Meet and Greets in different towns, Newsletter, Pet Contest, Member of the week and Member of the Month. We have a virtual friendship book, Book Reviews, Recipe Book that we are working on and much, much more… We are always open to new ideas.

SandbookNet: How many of you are in the team?

PenPals for Life: I love to give the team members a title to make it more official and more creative.

Yanelis Gourrie-Creator/Owner/President of Pen Pals For Life

Kerri Santoro-Administrative Assistant of Pen Pals For Life

Teresa Santoro-Pen Pals For Life Vice President

Nina Biina- Advisor & Marketing Pen Pals For Life

Kerri, Teresa and Nina were just members of the page whom after a while of being on the page and helping out and seeing a lot of action on the page from them. I asked if they would love to help with the page. Now they are part of the team and help daily. We make a great team and I am grateful to have them. I do consider ALL the members part of the team, as they make the page what it is. Without all 841 members that we have today, we would not be such a wonderful page like we are today.

SandbookNet: Have you partnered with someone (like eshops/shops/sites beside Sandbook)?

PenPals for Life: I have only partnered with members groups, but not really with other sites besides Sandbook. But we are currently working on that. We love to continue to do this. So if you are out there and l like to partner, please let us know.

SandbookNet: Anything else you would like to ad?

PenPals for Life: I love pen paling and we strive to make sure we have good, honest, quality pen pals. We strive to make sure you feel like family and that our page is not just another pen pals page. We are proud of what we have done so far and are very proud of our members whom we consider family.

SandbookNet: Any tip or advice you want to give to our readers?

PenPals for Life: Always be safe when pen paling. Have fun, enjoy every second of it and visit us, so you can make a everlasting friendship.

SandbookNet: How to contact you?

Pen Pals For Life

Po Box 27321

Tampa, Florida 33623

USA

http://www.facebook.com/Penpalsforlife

penpals4lifeinfo(AIM)

Email: penpalsforlife(at)live.com

 ** We are currently working on a webpage besides facebook. We are also searching for people willing to help us with that webpage.

Artist Trading Cards or ATC

By Melanie Anzalone

Blog author: http://manzalone.blogspot.com

Owner of a e-shop: http://de.dawanda.com/shop/mausebabyle

A few of my pen pals share my other hobby besides writing letter which is doing crafts. I love to do all kinds of crafts and I always have something handmade at home I can send my pen pals.

With some of my pen pals I swap ATC's which are „Artist Trading Cards“. The size has to be 2,5“ x 3,5“ or 6,4 cm x 8,9 cm. The front side you can design the way you want. You can draw something, a scrap booking design, a nice picture... Whatever you want. Everything is allowed. On the back side I always write big ATC or Artist Trading Card. Then you write down your name, the title of the ATC, the date and if you have a blog or a website, you can also write the address down. It's so much fun to make and collect them. I also always look for ATC swap partners. So if someone wants to swap some, let me know.  

Then I'm also really into making jewelry and other stuff out of polymer clay. I got the idea from another pen pal. I googled and found a lot of good videos on YouTube which really help to make the little food and get new ideas. If you never made it before I would start making Donuts and decorate them.

 I started with Donuts too and it's also quite fun to make those. Easy and they look really cool. The second thing I made out of clay were cupcakes. They are also really easy and so cute. I love making those sweets. If you're getting better, you can try smaller and more complicated stuff. And I promise you will get better and better the more you make. The clay I use is called Fimo which gets soft if you work with it. To make it hard you only have to put it in the oven for 30 minutes. I like to surprise my pen pals with my polymer clay stuff. I'm also trying to sell some, because I can't keep them all and I need some money for my trip next month to California. If you are interested you can check out my blog: http://manzalone.blogspot.com or my shop on DaWanda: http://de.dawanda.com/shop/mausebabyle.

Click here to preview more lovely pictures of crafty ideas for earrings.
The link will get you to Melanie's Blog.

I hope I get some new ideas for more crafts when I go to the USA.

In my cards article you can read about all my cards I make. Cards is something you always need and it's much nicer to send out an handmade card for a birthday than one you bought at a store.

And if you need craft supplies check out eBay. I usually buy my stuff for the jewelry and for scrap booking there. Some stuff is much cheaper than in a store. In Germany it's so expensive to buy craft supplies in a craft store. I'm going to check out the big craft store Michaels in California and write about when I'm back. If someone needs help, feel free to ask me.

Have fun being creative and if you want, send me some pictures of the crafts you made after reading that article. I'm gonna put them on my blog and show the nicest ones in my next craft article.

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