I love pen paling because I get to be creative, and I get to know new people.
If you are not really into of this, but just like to write letters, and do some fun kinds of art, you should continue reading this post.
This is a first time for me as well, because even though I have sent so many letters out to pen pals from all over the world and sometimes family, I have never really considered being pen pals with one of my friends from home.
Mainly because we have always lived in the same town, but now that many of us moved away, me and one friend decided to be pen pals and send random letters back and forth.
The great thing about that is that we already know each other.
It is not like we have to introduce us and tell each other the basic things of our lives.
We know each other pretty well.
We know each other’s humor and what we are like.
That makes it even more fun to write letters to her because it can be as random as I want because I know she will get it.
In the next bit, I will just give you some points why I love this idea so much and what fun things you can send to your friend.

You will stay in contact

With many of my friends, I realized it is hard to keep them updated on my life all the time.
I don’t want to lose contact, though, so pen paling is a great way to stay in contact and not having to tell them every detail about your life every day.
Even if it is a friend (or family member) you update a lot via texts, you can write random things in the letters that might not be relevant in the texts, so you didn’t tell them yet, or it is little things you didn’t think were necessary to mention.

Fun things you can include

I love the fact, that I know what she would find funny and that I can make my letters fun and random.
These are some ideas of what you can include and how I did it.
Of course, there are many more funny things you can send, and I’d love to hear your ideas!

Have a fictional side conversation

I suggested this idea to my friend because we always have random, made up conversations and I found this to be a fun idea.
This is additional to the letter, where you don’t have to write about yourself.
I don’t know yet what our side conversation will be because I just sent her the first letter, but these were some of my ideas:
Let us pretend to be a long distance couple or two old women who update each other about what we do daily, or another fictional idea was to plan a murder, and we start at zero.
We don’t know who, where, when or anything else, and we have to tell each other all of that, maybe including places we know or maybe not.
That’s all up to us, and this is just for fun.

Send newspaper pages

In my pen paling box, I still had an old newspaper where I ripped out a page.
To pen pals that I don’t know personally, I might have sent a cut-out with an interesting article, but for her, I thought I could do it a bit more fun.
I scribbled over the faces, marked funny words, made little side notes or explained the article to her just from the headline, even though I didn’t know what it was about.
I just made up a funny story.

Small, flat things

I always love to receive playlists to get inspired for some new music, so I also like to include playlists myself.
To friends, you can send the weird songs you secretly listen to.
You can include jokes you have heard this week or funny things that happened to you.
Maybe you went for a walk and picked a pretty small flower or found a pretty leaf.
You can send that to them or anything else that you find that is small and flat, that reminds you of them.

The letter

In your letter you can either tell them things that happened to you recently, but even if you already keep them updated, there are things you can tell them about.
I started the letter with my setting.
I wrote that letter during a Zoom call and was in a quiet and black breakout room, and that’s how I started that letter.
The next thing I wrote to her was the news of the week.
Those were just the most random things because we have seen each other the week before.
So I told her that I have so much new random decor in my room now that makes me so happy or that I must have used too much laundry powder because my drying laundry smells so much like it and makes my whole flat smell.
You can ask them your question of the day.
There are always so many random questions popping up in my head that I could ask.
Tell them about your dream this night or your thoughts today.
You can quite literally do it however you want.

You don’t have to be artistic

For pen pals, I always try to make it a bit aesthetic, because I like doing that.
That is so much work sometimes, so it is great to be able to do a letter in a bit less time.
You don’t have to be artistic to do it, maybe they aren’t either.
I was able to finally use all my funny, not so aestethic stickers, because I know she will find them funny too.
You can draw random stuff on the envelope.
I drew a random green blob with googlie eyes which looked so cute.
You can also leave the envelope white if you prefer that or fold an envelope from a magazine page.
I love to collect random postcards or papers that I can use to create things.
Sometimes they are not the prettiest, but still fun and now I get to use them.
In general you don’t have to buy new stuff for penpaling.
You can use whatever you find out or already have.

Write emails

If you are not the letter type of person but want to stay in contact or want to get to know a new person, you can also send emails back and forth.
Emails are great because you can include pictures and could still include a playlist or anything written.
You could also attach any document with “this or that” questions or coloring pages that you found.
Those are just some ideas that came to my mind right now.
And the best thing about writing emails is that it is free and you don’t have to wait weeks for the letter to arrive.

There are so many fun ways you can stay in contact with friends and family or get to know a new person, however you like.
Maybe you want to start penpaling, but don’t know how.
Then just sending letters to a friend would be a great way to start.
I love receiving letters in the mail (only the good kind of course) and it makes me even more happy if it is from a good friend.