SYRUP THREADS!

So, I'm super excited to review the goodies I'll be showing off today! Syrup Threads! Absolutely fabulous company! Before I start with the photos and actual review, I want to tell you a bit about the company itself! Below is what the lovely Jessica sent me. :)

My name is Jessica Beck and I live in Indianapolis, Indiana with my partner and three rabbits named Mr. Higgins, Dorian Grey, and Deloris. I have two degrees in fashion design and merchandising from Ball State University and have been a resident of Indiana since birth.

I have many crafts that I enjoy and in 2009, I started hand dying yarns. My partner's kitchen was always a disaster of dyes and yarns as it was a product I truly enjoyed making and slowly after, there were too many boxes of hand dyed yarn laying around our house, as we could not knit as fast as I dyed. I began researching what having a small business on Etsy would entail. I was working on my graduate degree in college and was already doing research on owning a business for my thesis and so I decided to open my store. By the way, 'Crafty Superstar' is an amazing book if you are ever looking into small business ownership or operation.

At first, my store only sold hand dyed yarns, but slowly, I realized that this was a saturated market and I enjoyed so many other crafts that I began adding other items to my store. My partner introduced me to Swap-Bot.com, Good Mail Day, and SendSomething, which are all wonderful websites to send and swap crafts or mail art. In helping her find good stationary, I realized that there wasn't much to be had in the way of fun, interesting stationary unless you wanted to order overseas, which is all well and good, but takes forever!

In 2010, my grandmother passed away (**I'm so sorry!) from an extended illness and I inherited a little box of all of her letter writing stationary as my grandma was also an avid letter writer and so much of it was plain white. I started with a pack of letter stamps and just started designing great stationary that I would like to receive myself!

I went out and bought a box of paper and some envelopes, not thinking it would go very far, and started designing stationary, correspondence cards, some notebooks, and other useful paper items such as recipe cards. With this came requests for bags for supplies or mail pouches, so I utilized some of my sewing skills to make some neat project bags for any kind of craft, mail art kit, or just for regular use!

Syrup Threads the name, was created out of my love for crafts and writing. A thread can be a string, clothing, a thought, blog, or trendy useful object. This gave my business the versatility to expand. I also had some access to computer graphics software and decided I would begin designing some new stationary sets that were easily printed, as hand stamped sets aren't very consistent from one set to the other because of the handmade nature of the item.I also started handcarving some stamps and these do not last as long as computer graphics do. The graphic stationary is the latest edition to my shop. Still to come are my handmade pin-back buttons!

I myself, find having personal relationships with my pen pals important, so I want to send them new and exciting items. I currently have two permanent pen pals that I write often and have new pen pals on the horizon!


She's lovely, isn't she?! Anywho, I'd better get on to the goodies, right? They were sent to me in a cute decorated package and the cute packaging also extended to the goodies themselves!

This cute bag contained some goodies she sent for me! Yay! I loved them!

Isn't her handmade craft bag adorable? You can also see two handmade pin-back buttons and all the stationary wrapped up pretty. Keep in mind, one lucky winner will be winning this whole thing!

The thing I love about this bag is the snap closure. Super easy to use! You can also see the matching button she used. Everything on this bag has been tightly secured/sewn and it's even lined in a cute striped print!

Now, I won't be showing everything in this package because I want it to be a super-surprise for the giveaway winner! But nonetheless, you'll get to see some awesome goodies!

I love her notecards! They measure out to 5" by almost 4" and come in a variety of design. These guys can take just about every type of pen! The only exception are fountain pens, due to the surface of the card itself being a bit on the shiny/glossy side. Not glossy like you would expect, though! These puppies are handstamped on sturdy cardstock (not too sturdy, mind you!) and come in sets of five along with more handstamped matching envelopes. Looks like sets of each design sell for $4.00USD with very reasonable shipping!

You can see a bit of the shine on the notecards in this photo.

Along with the notecards were these fab letter-sets! These guys are made via the graphics program that Jessica mentioned. Once again, I won't be showing all of the designs! Each set sells for $6.00USD (again with reasonable shipping!) and contains 8 sheets of paper and one envelope, all printed on acid-free paper. The size is pretty consistent at 8" by 4.5" with matching envelopes that measure out at almost 5" by 6". One of my favorite aspects of her letter-sets is that the envelopes are also designed via graphics software, so they really do match up perfectly! And the page count is pretty much perfect for a single pen pal letter! I also had no problem with bleed-through on the paper, however if one were to use a heavy writing pen like a fountain pen (wet.) or a Sharpie based pen, you may have some issues.

Check these babies out!

"Airing your Dirty Laundry"

Matryoshka Rabbits

And a couple of other designs:

Also, this letter-set is really cute. It's printed on a thicker paper with a slight tooth to it and handstamped! super cute, right?

Also, along with notecards and letter-sets, she also makes handstamped invitations as well as wallets, postcards, and handmade notebooks! And her postcards are particularly cute! Rather Andy Warhol-esque, don't you think?

Well, that's all for this fabulous shop! I really recommend that you head over to Syrup Threads and check out what Jessica has to offer. Her products are great quality, well priced, and fun! And that's the best part! Everyone needs cute stationary!