My first attempt at creating a Pocket Letter

I came across Pocket Letters while Pinteresting for some National Letter Writing Month ideas.

Pinteresting. Is that a word? It should be. There, I said it. Make it so.

Anyway, I was looking for letters when I came across Pocket Letters. I was curious so I dug into a few websites. The description was a little vague, but I was intrigued. Basically, what I got from this was that the sender get a baseball card holder and fill each pocket with various items like letters, washi tape, stickers, etc. The sender also decorates the baseball card holder itself with fancy paper, stickers, labels, etc.

I wasn’t entirely clear on the point of the items. Are they for making more Pocket Letters? Just for fun?

It also seems that, most often, the sender and the recipient don’t know each other, and these Pocket Letters are away of getting acquainted, much like a pen pal. In fact, there are Pocket Letter programs that match up recipients. It’s a whole thing.

At least that’s what I gather from what I read online.

I wanted to make one as part of National Letter Writing Month, but again, the point was really lost on me. If the person I was sending this to wasn’t interested in Pocket Letters, would it be pointless? Can the items be other things? What should the letter be about?

I ended up just writing the person a regular letter. My kids collect these ridiculous Pokemon cards so we had some of the baseball card sleeves on hand. I also know that she is really into using a bullet journal, so I filled the pockets with things that I thought she might be able to use with her planner. I made it clear I didn’t expect anything in return, as with all of my National Letter Writing Month letters, decorated the sleeves and sent it on its way.

The awesome thing? Those little baseball card holder sleeve things fold into threes and first right into a regular business-sized envelope. I assume that’s why the creators picked that particular packaging, but, you know. Just pointing out the obvious.

So, what did I put in my Pocket Letter? I’m glad you asked. First, they all have decorate paper from my Project Life kits. They all had to be cut down to fit in the slots, but they definitely worked.

1. The first slot is piece of decorative paper with the word Washi on it. There is a sample of some color-it-yourself washi tape that my daughter and I got from a Scholastic book fair recently. We haven’t used it yet, but I’m excited to that it out. I cut a piece of our role and put it on a waxy paper so that the recipient can use it again.
2. This is a sticker monster. I included it because it was cute. The RAWR letters are actually on the outside of the baseball card holder. They are just little black stickers that I got from my Happy Mail kit.
3. This is just a cute Bright Idea card with a thumbs up sticker on the outside. She can use the card in her planner or just toss it. Nothing really mind-blowing there.
4. I included some extra large and pretty paper clips. These are great for just about anything, but I like using them to hold the pages of my journal so that I don’t have to waste time flipping around.
5. As I mentioned above, I just wrote a letter. It was about writing letters, Pocket Letters and some other personal stuff. I write it on normal, lined paper and folded it up and tucked it into this pocket. The letters are on the outside of the pocket and, again, they are from my Happy Mail kit from A Beautiful Mess.
6. This pocket contains stickers that are perfect for a planner. They feel like washi tape and they have little sayings on them. They are super duper cute.
7. This is a stamp. All she needs is a stamp pad. It can be used to fancy-up a planner, a letter or basically anything else. And, if she’s really cheap (like me) she could just use a marker to “ink” up the stamper and then wash it when she’s done. Whatever suits her fancy.
8. This is also just a cute little card. It says “such an awesome experience,” and I put some words over it in the black sticker letters I used above.
9. For this pocket, I used one of the journaling cards from my Project Life kit and left her a little encouraging note with one of my Mama Mail buttons that says “The Snuggle is Real.” Cuz it is. Especially when you have little kids.

And that’s that. I wanted to jot this all down because I really didn’t feel like I was getting much help from other websites. Hopefully my description helps someone else who was thinking about doing a Pocket Letter, or provides a bit of inspiration for those looking for unique ideas.

For more information on National Letter Writing Month or what I’m writing for this year’s month, check out my series of National Letter Writing Month posts from the last few years.