PenPal Magazine - August 2011

Our latest issue is available at Sandbook PenPal Magazine.

Find this issue and more at www.sandbook.net

Sandbook Mega Giveaway Winners

Sandbook MEGA GiveAway winners:

@xladybluex (Maria) won #1 the huge Mega GiveAway award;
Anna-Maria won award #2 (notebook);
MuttieB won award #3 (stamps).

Winners have been notified with email.

We used random.org to determine the awards’ winners.
CONGRATULATIONS!

PenPal of the Month June 2011

As you know, the PenPal of the Month Contest has new rules. The winners are selected via a vote button on our website. Because of the change in the rules we are now announcing the winners of the PenPal of the Month Contest June 2011 -  Julie and Salome!!! Congratulations! 

 

 

Julie Priest, England nominates Salome Biver, France:

"I have been penpals with Salome for a couple of years, since this time our friendship has grown, and although Salome is many miles away I feel like I have made a true friend. Salome is a very special young woman who, like myself, loves stationery, cute writing sets and stickers, and she spends her time decorating her letters, which I must say always look lovely. I wish that Salome would believe in herself more as she is a lovely, honest and loyal person. I’m sure that one-day she’ll come to realize this. Salome is a fantastic penpal and that’s why I nominate her." 

TOTAL VOTES: 223!!! Congratulations, girls! You are our PenPal of the Month June 2011 WINNERS! Emails informing you of the next steps to get your awards have been sent.

Here are the other nominations and the votes that they have received!

Heidi Rundle, Great Britain nominates Barbara Nemecek, Austria:

"iv been pen palling with babsy for about 4 months now, babsy found me on interpals and i say she is the best thing (person) that came out of it :)i was just losing faith in interpals than along came babsy :) she messaged me and i new instantly we would click :)and boy do we click :) we have exchanged so many letters in the last few months i feel we have an amazing bond we are soul sisters we say she may live miles away but she is in my soul night and day so is her gorgeous daughter kim :)a nice story about our friendship would be babsy mentioned kim asking why she doesnt get mail so i decided to send kim a postcard :) few days later it got to her and it was a great suprise im told i even had a beautifull picture drawn by kim for me :) now everytime kim and babsy go to the mail she asks mummy has heidi sent me something :) isnt it cute :), why should babsy be member of the month well she is incredibe friend and sister also an incredible mum and she needs a pick me up as shes been going through a tough time this month so motm would be amazing,also shes an incredibel person and friend and am so so excited shes coming to visit me in august for a holiday,also babsy is one very loyal friend,shes caring,loving loyal and true to herself and to her friends shes always there for you when you need her just what you need in a pal id say no ones perfect but i think were babsys concerbend am biased."

TOTAL VOTES: 99

Lora Gibb, United Kingdom nominates Kerrie Foulsham, United Kingdom:

"Kerrie is almost 6 months pregnant ,mum of 4 and an absolute treasure . She still makes time for her 52 ( a few more now I think ) penpals and always writes gorgeous , kind hearted letters that make me LOL . She's recently had tummy pains and been in a lot of pain due to this but she still makes time to write beautiful letters on lush paper decorated with beautiful stickers & deco tapes . I saw her talking about Label Bags on Facebook and I was intrigued ,when I received her letter the other day she had popped in some label bags for me to look at and understand ! She's amazing ! So understanding & patient , and we've got so much in common ! We've got 8 ( plus one ) kiddies between us so we've lots to talk about ! I truly think she's brilliant and this and all above is why I think she's got to be Penpal of the Month .Winning would cheer her up immensely && the prize would suite her down to a tee ... she's obsessed with cute stationary , and now that's she's had to limit herself to buying any more due to saving for baby , I think winning would be the cherry on the cake :) Thank you for reading and letting me enter Kerry . :) X"

TOTAL VOTES: 36

Andy Hoang, United Kingdom nominates Mim, USA:

"I met Mim through the mailart and postal networks after opening my blog at www.myrealwall.com Mim started writing regularly and I wrote back, but it was when we started chatting about mailart that we really hit it off. Both of us make and send mailart, but additionally both of us also teach classes about sending mailart and we found we had so much in common. This year, when I got married, Mim came over with her husband and attended our wedding - we were so excited! She brought gifts of rubber stamps and postcards and we had a blast! Mim then went on to visit a number of other mailartists across Europe and made mailart with each one. Not bad for a 71 year old huh! She was exactly as I imagined her, but with even more energy than I could ever have dreamt of! Next year we hope to go and return the visit, by going to see her in the USA. In the meantime, we are both arranging mailart shows and talks on our respective sides of the Atlantic and really keep each other going!"

TOTAL VOTES: 19

SandbookNet is updated!

Our New Look is out: Have you explored it? If not, head to Sandbook.Net and check it out! Then don't forget to voice out your opinion about our latest update!

You may be asking or already aware why such a change was needed and made. Ever since SandbookNet's birthday on Nov 11th, 2010, we have been having a new bubbly website layout. The new design was compact, but there were issues surrounding it.

Firstly, the mailing system was misbehaving and not working. For some reason it refused to work with our design. The problem was rather annoying, since we were relying on the mailing system to distribute the magazine. Our IT Specialist was working on the mailing system and he finally managed resolve the problem. However, the magazine's size did not allow us to send the first issue as an attachment to all of our subscribers. Instead, we used the mailing system to send out a link to our website so anyone can download their copy of the magazine.

Secondly, as we understood it the hard way, the design was prone to hackers attacks as there were some unresolved problems with the code towards the website. That might sound a bit abstract, but in short it meant that we had to start working on a new design and to write a new "code". As we were in the process of updating our website, it was sadly hacked. The site was down for several hours and later on restored. That made us speed up our work.

Finally, people complained about the navigation menu, so we decided to redo it. Our new website has easy to handle menu with less drop down menus. We also took in mind the suggestions that were coming in from our Survey, so we finalized the looks and gave the site a final brush. We are looking forward to your comments on our new look!

So to all of you, from all of us: hope you will enjoy the new look and functionality of our website! :)