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Jewel And The Gang

Some of you might know the Papergang from my last year’s reviews of their monthly stationery boxes. Jewellery Gang is a subscription service from the same people at a company called OhDeer from the UK. And it follows a pretty similar idea: When you subscribe you will get a package every month delivered right to your doorstep and in this package, you will get a handcrafted necklace or better say a charm. Because that’s basically what you are doing with this subscription: Building up a charm collection that you can switch around and wear however you want. And I got some of their charms so let’s review them together 😉

As a quick disclaimer, I just want to say that I have not subscribed to the Jewellery gang yet and all of the charms which I can show in this review I have gotten from a sale on the OhDeer Website. That’s mostly due to my own style since I really like the idea of a minimalistic necklace, but I never really wore necklaces all that much in my life. So understandably so, I just wanted to try them out, but I did not want to get a whole subscription, so seeing some of the designs being sold in a sale, I took the chance and bought them right away. Still, I got them mostly delivered as they would have come, if I would have had a subscription, just wanted to let you all know^^

The charms come in beautiful blue boxes with golden or silver foiling, depending on which version of the gold you got, on the outside. They feel very premium to hold in your hands and they also make great gifts, if a charm does not suit your style. As for the charm itself you can choose between two styles: get them in 14k yellow gold or in white gold. Since I like to wear silver Jewellery normally, I decided to get my pieces in white gold, which at least would fit better with my silver rings. As far as I understood, you don’t really get to choose the charms, you just have to wait and see if it’s something you like. Also together with the handcrafted charm every month you get a new gold plated or sterling silver chain. So you can either wear charms of your collection together on one chain or each charm on an individual chain.

If you have a subscription there is also the possibility of “winning” a special charm every month which is said to be worth up to £500, if that’s something you are interested in. But since I bought my charms from the sale, I don’t think that I have the option of receiving something like that at least for this review. I guess it’s a cool idea, since it can be really rewarding for the subscribers, but since I always used to wear jewellery under 50€, it’s not something I would be really able to appreciate I guess xD

Just for clarification, I want to say that even though I go these charms in the sale, I had no idea which charms I would get, I actually did not even know how many charms I would get xD It was basically advertised as a kind of mystery box containing enough Jewellery and the Gang keepsake boxes to either build up your own collection or have enough gifts for your friends and family for the rest of the year. I paid around £90 for it and considering it was a sale and a normal one-year subscription containing 12 necklaces would cost around… Actually I checked the website multiple times on different days and it seems like they are undergoing some kind of work and I can’t see their pricing, but when I remember correctly last time I checked it was about £120. I was expecting something like that, maybe 10-12 necklaces. And with 13 different necklaces currently available on their site, I kinda hoped to get a good variety of them. If I would have been able to choose I would have loved to get the moon necklace, the snake necklace, and maybe the picture frame as my top 3 🙂

What I actually received in the end kinda surprised me because I got WAY MORE xD In my box which was actually packaged like a mystery box, I received 24 different items in 24 individual boxes. And even though I have only bought the white gold versions(I have checked that) of the necklaces I received both the yellow and the white gold ones, which I am not even mad about. It’s not that I hate golden jewellery but if I need to decide between them the silver looking ones will be the ones I most likely wear often. But this way I can have them both, which is kinda awesome.

I now can also tell you more about how the two versions differ from each other! Aside from the different coloured foiling on the outside you also get a different inside. The white gold charms come in grey velvet-like pouches a big one for the charm and a smaller one for the chain. For the yellow gold ones, they come in a more orange coloured pouch. Both of them have a little card on the inside displaying the design of the charm and the topic which the designers had in mind when creating them with silver or golden foil, again depending on your choice of jewellery.

The charms themselves feel very premium, even though they are very small they have a certain weight to them and the ones with the dangling pieces, like the stars on the cloud charm, also feel very snug. The chains feels okay too, some of them had been tieing themselves into a knot inside of the pouches, but nothing which could not be fixed. A bigger problem to me personally is the fact that the chains are pretty short. You can’t wear them as they have displayed on the website: One chain with a charm and just a chain under it. All chains are the same size and will be very tight around your neck, which for me is not ideal, I like longer chains more and actually would love for the Gang behind the Jewellery to have different sizes available. But I guess the problem can be easily fixed by just buying a new chain that better fits your individual preference and I feel like the charm is more in focus here anyway.

I do like the different designs you can get in these boxes, they have quite the range from animals like the snake and the bear, over plants like the cactus and the palm tree, stellar objects such as the moon and the cloud and classics like the key and the heart. If the designers go on like this, I feel like everybody will get something which fit them and their style in this subscription. But that also means that if you have say a one-year subscription, you will get some charms that just don’t suit you. I think that is almost unavoidable. This is why it would make sense to maybe share a subscription with someone. I will definitely use some of the charms I got as birthday presents this year 😉

Final Verdict
Out of the 3 charms I really wanted to have, I got every single one! Actually out of the collection so far, I am missing only one charm, the wishbone 😛 I am looking forward to trying them out, combining them with different outfits and with each other, so far I am very happy with what I got. But I have to say, there is a downside to things, which is that I don’t know if I would have gotten the charms if I would have not seen them on sale. I do really like what the designers are doing, but I don’t think I would have paid as much or even more, as I did now to get a subscription where technically 50% or again more charms would not fit my style. But maybe it is for you or you know just the person whom you could share the charms with and split the costs. Then maybe this subscription could be something for you 🙂 Also, I see more possibilities for it in the future! Nowhere on the website do I see that they plan on only creating necklaces, so who knows maybe rings or bracelets could be coming in the future too! That would be really interesting for me 😉

But as excited as I am about all of those things, I have a suspicion… With the company behind Jewel and the Gang basically throwing the necklaces out, giving me double than what I had paid for and their website not being available for days, it does not seem like the subscription itself was well received. I can only speculate why that is, maybe high-quality Jewelry and an affordable subscription don’t really go hand in hand or maybe the fact that their collection did not really have a theme to it, made it hard for people to invest in something they would not keep most of anyway. Maybe they can repair what’s broken and the new collection will be much better, or maybe it will discontinue. I guess that’s just something we have to see and something you have to keep in mind when thinking about subscribing to yourself. If there are one or two designs, in particular, you really like, you can also consider buying them from the OhDeer Website itself. Just wanted to let you know 😉

Greetings and good wishes
The Mad Hattress

Category: Uncategorized | LEAVE A COMMENT

May 18

PuffPals: Island Skies – The first time I support a Kickstarter Kampagne!

Hey y’all! First of all: I am a bit stupid sometimes xD I actually wrote this post when the Kickstarter Campaign was still going on, in an effort to inform you about it, but maybe also get help on reaching the stretch goals for it! For some reason, I forgot to change the post from private to public and now the campaign is already over… I am still very excited about the whole thing, so I still need to tell you about it, but sadly you will have no chance to join in anymore 🙁 I hope you don’t mind and that you are still interested in hearing about my newest passion 🙂 Let’s start from the beginning!

I am sure most of you have heard about Kickstarter. It’s an American Website, which provides creators with the opportunity of showing their plans for future projects and getting them funded. You can fund anything there in theory from your college degree, over a road trip, a new gadget, a book or even a game, anything is possible. Only the audience gets to decide which projects will actually be fully backed and which won’t. It’s essentially a kind of powerplay, where trust is very important because supporters basically have to fund something which does not exist and if the campaign won’t be successful, it might never exist. That’s something which has always kinda bothered me, I just never had this kind of trust in something, so I never backed a campaign yet. But things changed when I heard about PuffPals: Island Skies!

Island Skies is supposed to be a video game that could be described as a crossover of games like Animal Crossing and Harvest Moon, where you get to simulate a life in a perfect world, individualize your character, decorate your house, make friends and explore the world around you. Actually, I can say that it will be definitely a game in the future because the campaign reached its minimum goal within the first few days of its launch! This means that if anyone would decide to back up the project, they don’t even have to trust in the campaign working out, because it already did 😉 Of course, there is always the part where you have to trust the people keeping their word and actually using the money for a specific purpose, and I feel like I should mention that Kickstarter is not forcing people to actually do that, but with the active community that I have gotten to know through Discord, I don’t feel like this campaign is a scam 😉 This is actually why I decided to support the game and thus my first Kickstarter campaign ever! And all of it is so exciting to me, that I wanted to tell you about the process and what lies ahead in the future of this game.

What you can see here are the so-called stretch goals, which basically show what further features the development team will be trying to implement in the game, depending on how much money they will have at the end of the campaign. On one hand, it’s a way to get people to spend more money, but on the other hand, it’s also a way to make people participate in what should be inside the game. When the campaign started, there were not even any goals after the switch port, because the team behind the game did not even know if they would come that far. So they basically used the input they had from the community to decide what kind of goals they want to try to reach and thus shape the game in the way we as the fans want it. Also, money is an important factor here, since the team itself has to be paid, possible experts in new fields, artists and so on, so they really could not realize any of these goals, if they would not get the money. So it’s less of a way to get the supporters to support them more and more of a way to build up their game more with the help of their fans.

Depending on how much money you spend, you got assigned a certain tier with certain benefits. Some of them are access to behind the scenes when the game is in development, which is something me and my husband are looking forward to the most! Other benefits are in-game exclusives such as special clothing, decorative items or even pets you can own 🙂 But there are also “real” physical items such as very cute plushies, stickers and through the stretch goals, we also have reached the option of getting a hardcover version of the artbook for the game! Almost all of those benefits(minus the artbook!) are Kickstarter exclusive, so since the campaign already ended, sadly you won’t be able to get them anymore :/ But I will keep you updated and show you the ones that I got when they arrive! Actually, the exclusive plushies were part of the reason why I pledged 😛 The game itself looks super interesting too, but I can rarely say no to plushies xD The physical add-ons will ship at the beginning of 2023, so if you are interested in reading about it, save the date 😉

Why I am telling you this, you might ask. Well as I have mentioned in the beginning my idea was to share this campaign with as many people as possible because I think the game has very great potential and being part of its creation, sounds like a great adventure! Sadly now that the campaign is over, aside from following the developer fluffnest on Instagram, you can’t really join the adventure anymore. But as with the physical add-ons, I try to keep you updated at least a bit. Even though I still have to ask how much I am allowed to share. As for now let me tell you what of the parts of the game that have been teased, I am most interested in!
At 800k we unlocked a desert biome which is said to hold some secrets about the lore of the game. In my head, it’s kinda inspired by ancient Egypt even though there was no confirmation on that mental image from the developers so far 😛 Still, I am very grateful to know that the game even has a story, since at least Animals Crossing for me always lacked one. In general, I am happy that together with all the other backers we have collected enough money to unlock all of the possible biomes, making them as big and interesting as possible! So many things that can be explored^^ Multiplayer mode at first did not sound very exciting to me personally, but after the project reached over 2 million dollars and the amusement park biome was unlocked, I am now looking forward to it too 😉 How amazing could it be to meet up with friends in an amusement park to play minigames together and maybe after that explore each other’s islands?

Don’t get me wrong, I am super happy that the game reached so much money, but I am also super bumped that the post did not go online in time 🙁 So I hope you are all okay with me talking about it, even though you never had a chance to participate, at least not the way I planned too. But maybe you have found out about the game yourself, maybe you are a pen pal and we have talked about it in our letters or Instagram informed you about the campaign. Either way I hope you can be as excited as I am and if I am able too, I will make some update posts from time to time to inform you about the process of the development of the game 😉 If you want to further check out the game you can follow this link: *here* 🙂

Greetings and good wishes
The Mad Hattress

Category: Gaming, Info Post, Personal Life | LEAVE A COMMENT

May 4

Thermal Printing – A cool new thing?

By accident, I kinda stumbled upon the world of thermal printing or better say, its use for tiny printers which you can take along with you to make stickers, notes and scrapbooking with. Thermal printing itself is actually something we all have come in contact with in the form of receipts you get at a cash register. But using it for private creative projects was a totally new concept to me. It was intriguing enough that I wanted to try it out. But after doing some basic research I found out that thermal printers come with their own advantages and disadvantages. So let me introduce you to the Phomemo M02 Pro and tell you what I like and what I don’t like about it.

Let’s start with the specs of the M02Pro, it’s 3,3 * 3,2 * 1,6 inches and fits effortlessly in the palm of my hand. Paired with its lightweight of about 400g, it lives up to its name and makes a very portable printer, that fits into almost every handbag or even the pockets of a jacket. I could not find any definitive answer as to how long the device holds up, other than Phomemo themselves saying “can print 6 rolls of paper continuously when fully charged”, which I could not really test out… But when I was using it to make about 10 cards, it never died on me. I charged it overnight and was able to use it multiple times the day after. So I would say it’s at least decent for normal usage :)It connects wirelessly via Bluetooth with any android or apple device, in my review here I used an iPadPro and a Samsung Note and it worked without problems. All of this sounds like an advertisement, but I don’t get paid to say that xD Those technical specifications are one of the reasons why I was so interested to get one of these things for myself, it almost sounds too good to be true 😛 And it actually might be…

Some of you might already know how Thermal printing works, but let me explain it again so that we are all on the same page. Ink printers use one or multiple coloured inks to bring a certain image onto a paper. For that, you can use almost every paper but not every ink and when the cartridges are empty, they have to be refilled, often at a high price, which is one of the reasons why I stopped refilling my normal printer at one point. The thermal printers technically do not have this problem, because they work fully without ink, instead, they use a special paper with a thermal sensitive coding which is activated by the printer applying heat to it. This means that you can only use special kinds of paper, but you will never have to refill any cartridges. The biggest problem that comes with that though, is the fact that the image created on thermal paper will fade away after some time.

It’s hard to say how long the paper with the image printed onto it will hold up, because the paper used in these special printers like the one I review here, created for the purpose of using it at home, is a little different from the receipt paper you would get in a supermarket. It also highly depends on the way you store it. If it is in a cold and dark room, it will obviously last longer, than when it sits in direct sunlight. Different sources on the internet say different things, but the average time that a thermal printed paper will hold up in good storage condition seems to be between 5 and 7 years. Phomemo themselves state on their website that: “Just like all other thermal paper, our prints will eventually fade. Different paper has different storage time, we have 2 yrs,5 yrs,10 yrs,20 yrs, long term effective(over 20 yrs) for your reference.” Which is still quite the bummer, at least it was for me. But after thinking about it for a while, I came to the conclusion that you could still get a great value out of a product like this, depending on what project you plan on using it for.

Taken from Phomemos Website: https://phomemo.com

Let me tell you a bit about what you can actually do with a Phomemo thermal printer. To operate it you need to install a free app that comes itself equipped with some free-to-use templates for different tasks. Such as to-do lists, different frames or you could just type your own text into the app and it will be printed out, making it a great use for label printing. You could also use your own images such as pictures you made yourself, free to use stuff from the internet or your own art. I tried out all of these options and have to say it might not be the best photo printer, but I loved being able to just print something aesthetically fitting the theme of a project I did or making my own art into stickers.

For my review, I have used 3 different kinds of paper, all of which have been self-adhesive: plain white paper, transparent paper and silver glitter paper. On their website, it says that all of them are long time effective papers, said to hold up more than 20 years. I mostly choose them because they were part of a kit you were able to pursue on amazon and I did not want to put too much money into something, I had not really tested yet. But there are some more options to choose from like semi-transparent paper, normal coloured paper(which gives your black and white image a coloured background, sometimes even with a nice pattern) or paper which makes your print a different colour. That last paper is what I am most interested in since it’s as of now the only way I have seen printing something in colour, using the thermal printing method. Maybe I will use it in a future review 😉

When you are following my blog for a long time now, you must have seen that I like to design greetings cards myself and send them off to friends and family. I have used different methods for my designs, I have hand-drawn them using different pencils or watercolours, I tried fully digitally painting and later printing and I even used some scrapbooking techniques with different stickers and Washi tape. This scrapbooking technique is what I used the least, mostly because I needed to rebuy stickers for it over and over again, since using multiple stickers for one card, makes them deplete very fast. And honestly, that was always something which I dreaded, that I needed to know in advance which kind of stickers I wanted to use and also buy them in advance. With the thermal printer, I can come up with designs for stickers myself or search for already existing designs(free-to-use) fitting the mood I am in or the card I am designing. Which I love, but it would also mean, that nobody could really keep my cards, since the designs would fade away eventually. But honestly, nothing lasts forever, right? And maybe that makes the cards and the experience of receiving them even more unique and interesting 😉

Obviously, in this review, I was not able to try out all of the different options you have with this thermal printer, but I hope that I was able to at least give you a good overview of the product and you now have a better idea if it would be something for you or not. I can’t say that I am fully convinced about thermal printing being the best printing and I think it highly depends on the person and what they intend to use the prints for, but at least for me, it was worth buying and trying this printer out. I especially liked how the transparent stickers did not fully cover the scrapbooking background I made, but kinda added to it. If I keep using it on a regular base, I try to make a follow-up review maybe using different papers but also showing how much the designs I made in this review faded until then. If you have any questions or use a thermal printer yourself, tell me about it in the comments 😉

Greetings and good wishes
The Mad Hattress

Category: Art, Review | LEAVE A COMMENT

April 28

Mystery Box – Dark Academia

Hello and welcome back to another Mystery Box review! Today I want to show you another Box made by the same people who did the Blinddate with a Book Box I reviewed about a year ago. It’s very similar in the way that’s it included a mystery book again, but it has some very different extras which is why I wanted to show it to you^^

Pictures from the Esty Shop Coffeeacademia, advertising the box

The Box is themed after Dark Academia, which was something I have heard about before, but could not really tell what it was about actually xD So I did a little research and it turns out, it’s actually similar to something I do know which is Cottage Core. Liking Cottage core basically means adoring a kind of lifestyle where you would live out in nature in a cottage far away from modern cities. It’s about the idea, the aesthetics and the items connected to it. People buy certain clothes, decorative items and even books, to match this idea.
Dark Academia seems to be the same thing, but of course with a different image in mind. It’s about people wearing student clothes inspired by universities like Oxford in 1930, reading high literature books and watching artistic films. The “dark” part of the aesthetic comes from the gothic building style most older universities have. So instead of wanting to live in a cottage people like the idea of studying in dark corners with candlelight, reading books that make them think about life or books which take place in an academic scenario too. So with all of that in mind, I am actually pretty curious about what I will be getting in this new Mystery Box 😉

Firstly I sadly have to say that my original box got lost in the mail :/ I would normally not have mentioned it, since it got replaced as soon as the Shop got wind of it being missing and I even got some extra gifts because of it, but it did have slightly different contents, which I will be talking about in more detail later in the review. But for now, let’s get back to the opening of the package! As we know it from the Etsy Shop Coffeeacademia everything was packaged nicely, which makes opening this box not only about the items you get but an experience all in itself. What I really love about boxes from them in particular, it makes them stand out from other Mystery boxes I have opened. Most things were wrapped in this vintage-looking brown paper, one of them even had some scrapbooking on the top, which I think looks beautiful and I even tried to save it somehow, even though I don’t know what to do with it later. But it seemed too precious to be just thrown away after getting to what was inside! And there were a lot of things 😉

Let’s start with the extras before we get to the main attraction of the box. One of the first things we get is a metal candle holder which has a little handle on one side and really reminds me of the old times when people needed to carry a candle around at night if they wanted to see. With the theme of dark academia, I could imagine a scene where scholars would be studying books until late in the evening or even the night and at some point, when they want to get another book, they have to carry their candle to the bookshelf, to be able to read the names written on the back of the books sitting there. Still, it somewhat bugs me that originally I thought I was getting a wooden candleholder without a handle, to only be used on the desk. Because even though I just described a possible scene, when I look at this kind of candle holder, for some reason my mind goes to a different kind of aesthetic. Still, I like the candle holder very much, it’s just not as fitting for me.

Next up is the little bust which of course is to decorate your surroundings to feel more in a room that could technically be at an old university. Where they have busts and statues standing around, for people to look at, take in and get inspired by. I can see how it would help get into the right mood for studying, but when I say this bust is little, I mean very little, maybe 3-5cm depending on how you measure it. I can’t say for sure, but I feel like on the picture they made to represent their box on Etsy they tried to make it look bigger. And for me personally, I think it would have needed to be at least a little bit bigger, maybe 10cm to actually have the effect I just talked about. With a statue smaller than my little finger, I can’t really try to imagine myself sitting at an old prestige university…

Last but not least we got a feather quill pen in a beautiful turquoise colour with a leaf, that vaguely reminds me of lord of the rings. It does look cool and all, but I have to say it might be almost the item that got me disappointed the most, mainly because I do already own this kind of quill pen. One thing to mention is that the box I did buy(or better got gifted) was a limited edition box, but almost right after the last box was sent away, the shop seemed to have made it a regular thing, maybe because it was received so well by their customers. In this new dark academia themed box, they did use different pictures even though most items were the same. Now that’s exactly where my problem comes in because I do think for the new box they got different materials and on the pictures, they do advertise a different kind of quill pen, the one I got obviously. But the quill they did advertise before was a little different. It had a long golden shaft with some marking on the top and the bottom and it looked really special to me, since as some of you know I do use different kinds of quills for writing letters or greeting cards for special occasions, so I do already own some but not this particular one. And I was really looking forward to getting a model like that, it might have even been the reason why I decided to get the box in the first place. So not getting it eventually makes me a bit sad. But I don’t really know if it would be fair to really include that in the verdict at the end since the shop obviously could not really do something about it, they did not lose the box and they did not have any spare models of this quill or at least that’s what I assume since they did not really tell me. Which I do think, they could have.

As a little extra for the box getting lost I guess, next to the candle holder coming with two instead of one candle(one green, one white candle) I got a cute little pin. It’s shaped like a blue heart with golden embellishments and it says “courage, dear hearts”. I don’t really get the connection to the theme of the box, but I do like the pin as a little compensation. I also got two little things, which I think can be used as bookmarks but are not the typical bookmark 😉 One is a very thing metal feather painted in gold and the other is a little sword, not sure what it’s made of, but it’s painted in silver. Only the feather was mentioned on Etsy, so I assume again the sword might be a little extra, which I am very happy about. Looks cool in a book, I am just a little scared that it maybe get lost easily, but we will see about that 😛
I also got an already sharped pencil, a very small post-it block and some page markers in different colours. I don’t really know where to include them since they were not advertised on Etsy and also don’t really seem to fit the aesthetic… The pencil is very typical, just a solid orange-like colour with no writings on it and a red eraser on the end. The post it’s and the markers look like very normal(and kinda cheap) office materials. I guess it can be used for studying, but not in an aesthetically pleasing way and I thought that was what this whole box was about, so I am a bit confused.

In almost every box the shop sells they do also put a cup because drinking a hot beverage might it be tea or hot chocolate, or a coffee maybe while reading a book, is most people’s definition of a great book date. They also always include one of the aforementioned beverages in this case they send me two small bags of tea, which I do appreciate(even though I liked the option from the last books I got from the shop, being able to actually choose because I would have chosen hot cocoa). But the cup itself is always kinda underwhelming… With the packaging, the scrapbooking and the vintage feel of everything, when it comes to the cups I would have expected to see something more special. In this case, maybe a cup which is made to look like it’s a cup from one of those famous universities, or a cup which has a reading quote on it for example. I just feel like it’s a wasted opportunity and I also don’t really need a boring cup with every box, because they have no advantage over the cups I do already own.

Now to get to the heart of the box, let me show you the books that I have got! The smaller one is a penguin book with short tales or maybe even fables in them, which I feel like do fit the idea of dark academia very well. Because when I think of this topic, heavy literature comes to my mind ASAP. For some reason mostly stuff that I know if I would read it, I might not be able to understand it on the first go xD And these fables are exactly that, but in a more user-friendly kind of way, since rereading such a one-page fable is easier than rereading big chapters in an old book. So I feel like this one really hit the nail on its head for this box. The other one not so much…
The second book I’ve got is a spy/assassin story from what I understand. It’s not exactly “wrong” since when it came to choosing which kind of book I wanted, I choose the option “Suprise me with an English book” but I also wrote to the shop and asked for a vampire book(if they would have any). They actually never answered me and I can’t say for sure, that the book which got lost with the other package might not have been a vampire book, but I still was kinda disappointed with this one. Not only did it not consider my wish for the genre, it also does not seem to have anything to do with the theme of dark academia at all.

Final Verdict
Coming up with a verdict on this box is very hard for me. First, there is the problem with the original box getting lost and the question of: Is it fair to view this box with the expectations I had for the other one? On the other hand, I feel like the shop could have at least asked if it would have been okay to send a replacement package and what to include. We can’t say something about the other box, but my vampire request did not seem to have been considered at all in this one or at least I have no indication of they may be trying. No note which says “Sorry we did not have any vampire books at hand, but hopefully this story will be to your liking too!”. The customer experience really was not the best one this time :/ I am sadder about the items I did not get or getting them in a different version than I can really be happy about the items I did get. I do like the idea of a themed box like this one and I would love to try another theme done by the shop one day maybe. I also think that fans of the dark academia aesthetic will like this box, if they don’t expect to get certain items, but rather just wish to get a fitting selection. So I guess I would say I am not the biggest fan of this box in particular but if you are interested in it, there is no reason not to buy it 😉

Greetings and good wishes
The Mad Hattress

Category: Mystery Box, Mystery Box, Review | LEAVE A COMMENT

April 13

Ableism 101

As some of you know, I am studying sign language at a university in Germany, which means a huge part of that is also disabled studies in general. I don’t want to say I am an expert in the field, but I might do know a few more things about it than the average person does. And today is one of these days where I feel like I should share some of that knowledge I have gained with you.

The difference between the words “able” and “disable”

To talk about this topic we first need to define some of the words I will be using throughout this post, let’s start with the difference between “abled” and “disabled” people. Someone is considered “able” when the body they have been born into fits the criteria of what society views as “healthy” and “normal”, meaning just because of their body, they won’t be held back by society in any way(let’s ignore things like racism and sexism for the sake of this explanation). “Disabled” people, on the other hand, are born with or without something, which makes participating in our society harder for them.

So let’s imagine someone who is born with legs that can run, take stairs and be independent. Someone born without or with broken legs in some way, can’t run, can’t take stairs and often is not as independent, not because of their disability, but because society often forgets about them. They make buildings without ramps, without accessible toilets or even without big enough doors for a wheelchair to fit through. And because of those things, they are not able to be independent oftentimes.

In Germany, the translation of “disabled” is actually “behindert”, which would literally mean something like “being hindered to do something“. In this case, a wheelchair user would be hindered to access a building for one or multiple of the reasons I stated above. Their problem would not be their wheelchair in this case, but the fact that whoever build the building did not think of how a wheelchair user would enter. And that’s the general problem disabled people face in life, no matter what kind of disability they have.

What is ableism?

As I said earlier, for the sake of that explanation, we tried to not think of racism and sexism, which I think you all know the definition of already. Ableism is very similar, only that the minority group which is being discriminated against in this case are disabled people. This discrimination can look very obvious, in that for example someone is bullied for their “strange look” because the person might be fully blind and thus has nothing to focus on. But it can be less obvious too, sometimes people don’t even know that they are acting ableist.

A good example of that kind of behaviour is what led me initially to write this post. As you certainly know, there are different kinds of gadgets already developed, which are supposed to help disabled people be more independent in life. The wheelchair is one of the most obvious, but there are many many more. One thing that comes to my mind is a plate that has some cavities and a little stopper, to position food into. It was made to make people who only have one hand or one arm, be able to slice their food without someone else’s help.

But those two Gadgets seem very obvious and self-explanatory to me, and it looks like there are others, which confuse people. Just recently I saw a video of a chef making fun of a device which I can best describe as an egg cracker, but one that does the job for you. You lay an egg into position, grab the handle and press down and the raw egg falls down into your pan, ready to be cooked. This chef in the video did make it seems as if that was an “unnecessary contraption” and it would be so much easier to just break an egg with your hands, “it only needs practice”. That is straight-up ableist behaviour because not everyone has the dexterity or just the right body parts to be able to crack an egg open like that. So making fun of helpful devised is very discriminative, even though I am pretty sure, the chef from the video did not even think of what that gadget might have been actually used for.

Gadgets that benefit disabled people, can benefit us all

This indirect form of Ableism often springs from a lack of education, like it’s the problem with many different things. People often just don’t know and somehow don’t find out, that some devices have been invented with disabled people in mind. And not all of them only benefit them, many of them actually benefit everyone in society. Let me give you some examples.

With TikTok being at an all-time high and Instagram basically trying to copy its functions, short video-based content is all the rage these days. POV, subtitles, Speech-to-text and Voice Recognition are all already part of our daily lives, but have we stopped one second to think about how they are actually helping disabled people more than they help us? Subtitles may not have been designed for deaf people, but they help them engage with said media content, which would otherwise not be available to them. Speech to text is making writing texts digitally easier for blind people, and audiobooks basically only exist because of them.

Curb cuts, which I have often used owning a scooter since last year, were designed to help wheelchair users get across the street. Typewriters were originally designed to help blind people write a letter, back when that was still popular 😉 Even electrical toothbrushes were designed to help those limited motor skills and this list could go on for quite a while longer, but I think I got my point across.

Fin

With this post, I only hope to spread some more awareness and educate people on topics, which at least in my school time, were sadly on no one’s mind. Disabled people do exist in our society, they are part of it and should be treated as such. So next time you pick up something, which seems useless to you, before discarding the product altogether, think about how it might be able to help other people. Who knows, maybe it even sparks an idea for a new gadget in your head, which will become so popular in the future, that everyone will use it. I think in general, we should just think of other people more often and some of the problems we share on a worldwide level would disappear.

Category: Info Post | LEAVE A COMMENT

April 6

Witches Box – Ancient Egypt

On my blog, I like to share things with you, that I enjoyed very much or feel the need to recommend to you. Sometimes I also like to try out stuff, to find out if it’s actually worth buying or not, so you don’t have to 😉 The Box I want to present to you today is one of these things, which almost sounds too good to be true and is also quite expensive compared to other mystery-like boxes that I have reviewed here. It’s called Witches Box 3 and is part of a seasonal mystery Box series by the Etsy Shop Zwinkerglanz, which next to doing boxes as this one specialises in self-made jewellery and witchy decoration and the box cost 79€. In the end, I actually paid 20€ more, but it was only for one item especially made for me and I will let you know what it was, so you know what exactly was part of the box before. Let’s take a look at it together!

Before I tell you about the items, let me tell you a bit more about the idea behind this box. It does cater to people who actually are part of the witch culture, but also to people who just love the witchy atheistic and I would say personally I am somewhat in between those two, so it was kinda perfect for me 😉 You actually don’t get to see which items are in the box before they arrive, because the owner of the Shop has to prepare those items right before shipping. But if you do want to know what things are inside you get a beautifully made listing, it’s actually quite the long list which includes 11 items in total. Amongst them are different kinds of jewellery like a chocker and wristbands, decoration like an agate disc, an alter display and a flower-themed fabric fan, but also ritual based things like a small jar of incense, a set of tin jugs and more and more. Just looking at the number of items it quickly becomes obvious where the pricing is coming from. Since there are so many, I tried to sort them into 3 categories.

Jewellery

The mystery Ankh box…
One of the first things I got in the box was a smaller wooden box handpainted in gold with a black ankh in the middle. Technically that would be an item in and of itself, but it also contained two long bands made out of pearls, which can be worn both as necklaces or wristbands. The pearls are made out of a material that is not something I like to wear, my long hair gets caught up in it quick, but maybe I can still use it as decoration 🙂

A chocker with the eye of Horus…
The chocker is made out of a black velvet-like band with a charm that looks like the eye of Horus symbol from the ancient Egyptian culture or better Egyptian mythology. It’s also known as the Udjat eye, which supposedly was helping the god Horus win a fight against one of the evil powers from ancient stories the god Set and thus is often connected to properties such as luck, protection and healing. So it’s a great choice for something to wear I think and it does also look very cool. My only problem is a very individual one, which I should have considered earlier, so it’s totally my fault not the fault of the shop owner! For me personally, the black band is just too short to actually wear the chocker in a comfortable way around my neck. So I might end up just hanging it somewhere as decoration^^

A wristband with a scarab…
The scarab is a symbol of rebirth, which is also very nicely explained in one of the sheets of this box. It’s connected to real dung beetles(aka scarabs) who roll a ball of dung containing their eggs around to protect them. And when the eggs are old enough, newborn dung beetles will emerge, for the people in ancient Egypt that was a sign of rebirth. But it’s also connected to an Egyptian myth about the god Chepri rolling the sun around the horizon to make it rise up again every morning. Because the sun was and is so important to life and development on earth, the scarab is often used as a lucky charm and this is a great companion to the Udjat eye choker 😉

A handmade upper arm bracelet made to look like a snake…
As you can see in this picture it’s made out of a thicker wire to wrap around your arm, which ends in either one long or two short snakes depending on how you look at it. Again it’s something that does not really suit me, at least in the size which it is in if you don’t start bending the material, which I have not yet tried out. I can wear it on my forearm, but because it’s almost black it kinda vanished in between my black tattoos, so for now my husband is wearing it 😉 It does look quite cool, and I don’t know about material costs and everything, but I think it might have even looked a bit cooler, more special and more “Egyptian” to me if it would have been made to look golden. But that’s just a personal view of mine^^

Decoration

One big agate disc…
The agate disc is really fitting to the Egyptian theme, because of the colour scheme, it reminds me and also the shop owner herself(as stated on another explanation sheet) of the desert sand and general geography of the home of the pyramids 😉 She also stated that the stone is as natural as possible, only cut up and polished with oil, which I do find quite interesting. Since to be honest, I mostly thought you need to use some kind of chemical to make stones shine like that, but I am positively surprised! Agate stones are said to boost self-confidence, sharpen communication skills and support health and good dreams 🙂 So I will definitely try and put the disc up in my bedroom! Especially when the sun is shining through it looks mesmerizing.

A handmade bookmark with cartouche pearls…
There has been a lot of thought gone into designing this special bookmark and I really want to share that with you. At first, it’s made to look golden, because as I mentioned before golden is something often associated with Egypt even though same as today, not everybody was able to afford it. The so-called Cartouches were used to put the name of pharaohs onto graves, paintings and visual stories in general, the names on the two which are part of the bookmark are made up though 😉 Connecting the two is an infinity symbol because infinity was very important to the idea the people had back then about life, death and everything in between. Unlike in Buddism where rebirth is a big part of their religion, back in the day, the Egyptian people thought that there was a life after death for which they had to prepare in many different ways, so this symbol is referring to that. Last but not least the flower is the lotus blossom which seemingly was the crest flower of the northern part of Egypt. I really love how everything looks together and I am looking forward to seeing it hang from my books 😉

A flowerthemed farbic fan…
The biggest connection to Egypt with this item is probably the heat. And with German summers getting hotter and hotter every year, this seems to be a good accessory to have in my bag! I do love the design, but I don’t know how durable the thin wooden plates are. Guess I will find out within the next few months 😉

A bag with an Egypt design…
This item does look a bit like something you would have gotten as a souvenir from Egypt, but I don’t think that has to be a bad thing! I actually like the very typical design depicting two gods and it has the perfect size to either keep some healing crystals with you or maybe put your money away in a stylish way^^ It must be one of the Items I was looking forward to the most and I am pleasantly surprised to hold it in my hands. It’s bigger than I thought and I really appreciate getting some healing crystals with it(which would not have been included normally, but the owner knew that I wanted to use the bag to carry some^^)! The design is sewn into both the back and the front and on the zipper, there is a little protection against the evil eye, which I do find very fitting to the theme overall 🙂

Rituals Items

A set of tin jugs…
As the owner explains yet again, water was always very important in a dry country such as Egypt so it became almost holy in a way. This is why jugs full of water were something very promising and also the reason why the owner might have included those. They can be used for rituals where pouring water is involved but of course, they can also just be some nice decoration for around the house 😉

A jar filled with silver incense and one with gold tinsel(flakes)…
These ritual based items connect many things from ancient Egypt with another: Incense which was seen as the fragrance of the gods, Silver as a very rare but sought after material and gold as the sign of infinity and the divine since it never loses its shine. Even though it’s not real gold, it does like pretty similar 😉 In the explanations sheets, the owner gives some ideas of which rituals or for which spells those items can be used. Nothing which I personally am confident with right now, but maybe I can use it someday in the future^^

A self-cast altar display with ankh…
The display is made out of plaster and it’s supposed to be painted, which I did kinda expect after browsing through the Etsy store before buying the box. If I would not have thought, I think I might have expected something different, something more “finished”. I just feel like the ankh symbol does not really come through with all the other great details when it’s all this chalk white. Sadly colouring in things is really not my speciality I just don’t have enough patience for that xD I know that if you would buy a plaster cast like that in her shop, it would come with the possibility of the owner painting it for me, which I would have liked to have here too honestly. I am a bit sad that it was not stated as an option in the description of the box. But the cast itself is very detailed and beautiful, just not an activity for me personally.

Explanation Sheet and Story…
I tried to include some of the many times when the owner used the sheets to explain why she included an item or its connection to ancient Egypt itself. She also included some fun facts and interesting knowledge, some of which were even a bit unknown to me and I was fascinated with ancient Egypt even before receiving this box! The story she included actually revolved less around magic and more around love, which did throw me off a bit because I was expecting something different, but it was still a pleasant read and we also get some other nice reading recommendations which I will definitely take a look into in the future! All of the sheets also have been designed in a beautiful way, with a frame and different illustrations.

Personalised agate Cartouche necklace…
Last but not least, let me tell you why I actually paid more for the box than originally intended. The box is basically a kind of recommendation of items you might like following a specific theme, but if there is something you don’t want to get because you already own it or it does not interest you as much, you can get it exchanged for something else. I asked for two long Candles to be removed since long-term I can’t really use candles for much, since I am not allowed to lite them in my apartment in Hamburg. We thought about what I wanted to exchange it for and in the end, there were two items that REALLY interested me from her shop. One was a small bag with an intricate design and the other one was a necklace made out of crystals in a way that I had never seen before. Long story short: I got both and needed to pay extra for the necklace 😛 But it was worth it! The necklace was even designed specifically after my idea to make it look like a Cartouche from ancient Egypt, which I absolutely love <3 So technically it could have been part of the box and it would have even fit the theme, but it’s not in there normally. Whereas the small bag was actually a surprise extra for the first people who got the box and I managed to get the last one. If you would get the OG Box, instead of both of these items you would get two long red and gold candles with a sun and a moon on them.

Final Verdict

Actually, I got my mind blown by this box, because it can barely be compared to anything which I have ever gotten for myself. Of course, the mystery element feels familiar, but the sheer amount of stuff, the love and care that went not only into making but also packaging the items and the very nice chats I had with the Etsy owner, made this into a very special experience for me. The Jewelry she made feels special, some items seem really unique to me and the explanations, further instructions and extra knowledge that she provided makes getting this box a vital recommendation for me if you are interested in learning something about a new topic(ancient Egypt in this case) and getting a variety of things connected to it.

Greetings and good wishes
The Mad Hattress

Category: Crystals, Mystery Box, Witchy Things | LEAVE A COMMENT

March 30

Sketch A Day – A Drawing App By Artists for Artists

Sketching something once a day is a great concept! It can not only help you to improve through practice it can also help you to make drawing daily part of your routine. But there are problems with it, sometimes you just don’t know what to draw or you will draw the same things over and over again. A friend from Slowly(another great app which I can highly recommend!) told me about this app called “Sketch A Day” which I want to present and kinda review for you here today 🙂

Sketch A Day basically looks like a light version of Instagram, where you can upload pictures and other people can like or comment on them. But if you dive deeper into the functions of the app, you will see that it’s a lot different, because it’s made with artists in mind. When uploading an image you can for example tell the app what kind of medium you have used, so that later your drawing can be sorted accordingly and found by the people who enjoy exactly that. You can choose between very common ones like digital, pencil or ink, but you have many more options such as gouache, charcoal or pastel. You can also talk about the reference you have used if you have used any. Which I mostly used to share and find new cool tutorials. But the biggest advantage of the app, are their prompts!

As I mentioned before, there are those days when you look at a white sheet of paper or a white screen and your mind seems empty. A prompt can not only help you start it can also make you try out motifs and styles which you might have never thought of yourself. Prompts can also be interpreted in many different ways, making it a fun challenge to come up with something interesting. One prompt could be the word “story” which might lead some people to think of some kind of storybook right off the bat. Other people might think of their favourite story and draw something out of that, while others might draw a storyteller.
A prompt that really made me think was “symbol” because that could be almost ANYTHING! It could be an icon used to show people where the restrooms are, it could be referencing something or symbolizing a feeling. In the end, I decided to go for drawing the sign which I have often seen used as a symbol for sign language in general. It’s actually the international sign for “I love you” often used by deaf celebrities when posing for a picture. But drawing that was more difficult than I thought… I went from drawing a realistic hand to an emoji hand to adding an emoji heart but still, the canvas looked empty. So I tried out different things and in the end, created something that itself references old comic books. I don’t think I would have ever come up with that idea if it were not for the app.

Some of the Drawings I did on the App for the prompts “Flying”, “Atmosphere”, “Massage” and “Bug” 😉

There is also the option to become a gold member, which I personally have not tried out yet, but I still want to talk about it. One of the functions which you are gaining by signing up for it is being able to create an artist profile, which basically means adding a background picture, description and everything to your already existing profile and being able to show off the artworks you have made on there in a better way. Which to me sounds a bit… underwhelming considering that I could do almost all those things on Instagram for free. The other function which will be opening up to you is chatting with other members, which I know you can do on Instagram too, but hear me out! Because that’s actually the function I would love to have the most, which made me consider signing up sometimes already xD Because compared to Instagram, which basically everyone can use, on Sketch A Day there are only artists, many different ones with many different styles. And more than once I would have wanted to be able to ask someone how they drew something. And I feel like if I have had the option they would have answered.

But even without these features, I feel like the app is still worth recommending! One of the things that gives me additional motivation is my streak meter which is showing me how many days in a row I uploaded a drawing. At times it can be stressful to come up with an idea inspired by the prompt, but you can always see the prompt coming the next day and if you watch an advert (which sometimes works, but sometimes it does not for some reason) you would get to see all of the upcoming prompts for the rest of the week. So that way you can at least think about what your next drawing could be, which I find super helpful^^ Also there is a kind of library with texts other members have written about how to draw. Recently I read one about how to draw hair the correct way. I am still not able to do it(because I suck I guess xD), but I think it’s cool to have this kind of knowledge collection on there.

All in all this app seems to be made by artists for artists, it’s a way to connect to a creative community and not only be inspired by them but also motivated to draw. It gives you ideas and hints, that keep you drawing on a daily basis and thus practising and getting better with time. I feel like it makes sharing art, for someone who might be still a bit insecure(like ME) about their work, easier because as of now I have never gotten a bad comment or no likes on a picture. So it might be a good first step, before switching to another app one day. Therefore I would highly recommend it for beginner artists, but also don’t see why a professional artist could not have fun with it. I guess this app is for everyone, who like to create something visually. If you got curious now and want to check it out, you can do so here on android and here on apple devices 🙂

Greetings and good wishes
The Mad Hattress

Category: Art, Review | LEAVE A COMMENT

March 16

Papergang – One Year Later

You might all be familiar at this point with my monthly reviews of Papergang Mystery boxes, now it has already been one year of me subscribing to them and I think that’s worth a special review 😉 I actually already did a half years box and my verdict after half a year was actually that if those last boxes don’t manage to sweep me off my feet, I might have to cancel my subscription. Let’s see if they have managed to do that in the end or not!

This is NOT an official design by OhDeer or Papergang, but an interpretation of their old designs to fit the theme of this post created by myself 🙂

One topic I get can out of the way already is the Brexit. It cost me a lot of nerves in the second half of 2021, because at first many of my boxes got lost or shipped back to the UK and when they were delivered in the end, I had to pay extra, A LOT. If you want to know more about why that was, you can read about it in my other post *here*. But gladly the team behind the Papergang subscription found a way to solve the problem, which they had not even caused in the first place. This is why I don’t want to consider it in my review at all. It happened this one time and it got fixed, it could have been communicated better with the customers, but all in all, they did their best 🙂

What I will be focusing on in this review are mostly the points I already criticized in my half-year review and if they did improve upon them or not. Let’s begin with my fixation on the boxes having or not having a theme to them 😛 When reviewing the Papergang next to the scrawler box from October 2021, I have to say that the Scrawler Box did fit my wishes way better because they had a clear goal in mind: Providing you with the utensils you need to do a certain project. And I loved that, they even had the artist from that box make a drawing with those exact things.
But with Papergang it’s not so easy, since it’s not really connected to art. But still, I feel like there could have been more of a theme in many boxes. Like for example focussing on a set to write letters to friends and trying to pick utensils that would help with that particular idea. Or focussing on notetaking and notetaking alone. What I observed after a year of Papergang is that they treat it more like a refill box for stationery you are going to use up over time anyways. In almost every box you will get a graphite pencil and sticky notes, but only one time you get one pencil case in 12 boxes, because that’s not something that gets used up. I would have loved for the things that I get in the boxes to feel less random.

Art is a big debate when it comes to Papergang in general. By working together with an artist for every new box and really only including exclusive items inspired by their designs, Papergang is standing out and I think it’s a brilliant idea. But it could be improved immensely when they would actually include their art. I know they don’t like to put artworks in because people will complain about it not being stationary and not having practical use. But I feel like trying to get the design from an artist on a pen, often does not work out which is why sometimes, I don’t think like the cooperation is really worth much. Not because the artists are not good, but because we don’t even really get anything from them. Most pencils are only in a colour matching the artwork on the front of the box, planners are often printed with their designs, but most other things are not. I just feel like that’s a bit of a waste and it could be such a cooler experience if we would actually get some art to keep or try to incorporate their designs better into the refills we get.

Customer Service was a negative point in my half years review. I admit that was mostly due to me being a bit annoyed at awaiting a cool compensation and only getting some random cards and randomness as you know, it’s not something I am fond of xD But all in all, I have to say the customer service is great, you get an answer pretty quickly and they try to help you solve your problem ASAP. I even got about half of the extra costs for the Brexit problem repaid and not with a coupon or a free box, but with the money no questions asked. If I should name one things that I loved the most about Papergang I would say it’s their customer service, even though I would have liked it even more to not rely on them so much aka not having had so much trouble with the boxes last year xD

Final Verdict
I have to say sadly there was not one box anymore which impressed me as much as the box from 2020 which I had bought previously to my subscription. I kinda took this one as a stand-in for the whole year of Papergangboxes in 2020 and I later even got some more from that particular year. Maybe this year the topics had just not been my personal favourite or the artist they choose to work with did not cater to my style. Sadly with most of the boxes from 2021 I was just bored which let me cancel my subscription or better not renew it for 2022. Though I will miss having to open and talk about a box each month, I am not quite sure yet if I will get a replacement or not. I would not say I will never again buy a Papergang box, since I have still hope they can improve and maybe, just maybe I will even have a year-long subscription again in the future. But for that to happen, they would have to wow me and we will have to see about that.

Greetings and good wishes
The Mad Hattress

Category: Mystery Box, Mystery Box, Papergang, Papergang, Review, Subscription Box | LEAVE A COMMENT

March 9

The Next Step On My Crystal Journey – Scultupres And Crystal Carvings!

Welcome back to everyone who already read my last article, where I talked about how I started my crystal journey and hello to everyone who is new 😉 If anybody wants to refresh their memory or has just not read my other post, you can do so *here*. In this one, I want to tell you what happened since and also show you how my crystal collection grew, while mostly using pictures from the Etsy Shop where I got all of them. That’s because crystals are actually very hard to photograph if you don’t have the right set-up and I want to show all of them to you in their full beauty, but I will always link the shop and I highly recommend checking it out, if crystals are something you are interested in 😉 So, all rights for the pictures are reserved by the Etsy Shop Owner from MariMagicShop!

So, in my last post, I talked about how I was curious to see if those crystals actually have some kind of healing energy to them, which could help me balance my life a bit. To this, I have to say, that I probably don’t use them right at the moment. Because it’s not like you get those crystals and they will just give you the energy that you need, it’s actually connected to some effort you have to do to make them work. Mainly charging them with energy from like the sun and the moon or other crystals and also cleansing them with certain rituals like smoke and water. Most of these things I was not able to do in the last month because of different reasons, being my mental health and personal problems mostly. The only times where I really tried it out was when I charged my clear crystals with moonlight on the day when I got a new vaccination shot or the day before(Coincidentally both times there was a full moon, so that’s why I was tempted to try it out :P). I was hoping to not get any side effects from those shots and I have to say that I did not have any. But I don’t feel like I have done things like that often enough to actually be able to say: “Yes, that happened because of my charged crystals” xD This is why I will refrain from saying anything definitive at the moment, maybe you will hear more about it in a future update 😉

What I can tell you though, is that I got into a kind of sub-scene of crystals which is focussing on buying and selling crystal statues or crystal carvings. I am not 100% sure if those are the correct words in English but just for explanation: If I talk about sculptures I mean 360° fully sculpted stones and when I talk about carvings I mean stones that might be flat on one side, but have a cool carving on the other side. I actually got different ones within the last month and I really wanted to share them with you, because healing energy or not, they make me really happy 🙂

All rights for the pictures are reserved by the Etsy Shop Owner from MariMagicShop

The first one I got right after Halloween, which I guess is pretty obvious because it’s a sculpture that’s made to look like a Halloween pumpkin wearing a witch’s hat^^ I felt it was very fitting to me and my personality since I love Halloween, which pumpkins are a universal sign for and as you know I also love hats(and would love to own one like that one day too xD). It’s made from a high-quality orange calcite crystal which is said to have some powerful cleansing energies but also helps speed up development and growth. Which is why I feel like it’s a great stone to have around and obviously the perfect choice colourwise for a pumpkin sculpture^^ I always have it around when I work and I especially love the way the had was done, it looks almost as it would have a life of it own 😉

The next crystal sculpture I got is an anatomically correct(supported by a friend of mine who is getting trained in a medical field :P) heart made out of silver sheen black obsidian, which looks absolutely stunning, doesn’t it? Like most black stones the obsidian stone stands for protection and also are said to help calm down, which is what I really need most of the time. It’s also the perfect size to squeeze in between my hands when I am feeling really anxious. And you know when some people like to say something needs to be as black as their soul? I kinda feel like that heart has the same vibes 😛 Kinda badass and powerful 😉

With this one, it’s less of a full sculpture and more a decorative piece made out of a crystal orb and a mystical deer holder. I actually got those on my birthday this year and maybe I just want to show them off xD That’s why I am taking them in, even though they might not 100% fit the theme of this post 😛 The deer is made out of wood and the orb is made out of a so-called honey calcite crystal, which looks great combined! The honey calcite is said to give more self-confidence, drive and perseverance in problem situations. The deer does not do anything special besides holding it in place, but it does that very well 😛 Together they are perfect to put next to my bed when sleeping to hopefully prepare me for the next stressful day or just put a smile on my face when I wake up to look at them^^

Here I’ve got the first “carving” which is portraying an owl holding a skull in a very stunning way. The carving is made out of labradorite which has been polished and shines in very nice colours under the right light. Labradorite is said to encourage creativity, spur imagination and strengthen memory. I got it to put next to the laptop or keyboard to help me be productive but also have something cool to look at while doing work and stuff xD Which make the fact that it has a flat back very useful actually! Looking forward to having it with me always^^

In the end, I have to say that I am pretty happy with everything that I got so far, it really brightens up my mood to look at my crystals, rearrange or just touch and feel them from time to time. At this point, I don’t care about the genuineness of the energy behind them, to be honest, but of course, should I become a believer someday, I will let you know 😉

Greetings and good wishes
The Mad Hattress

Category: Crystals, Personal Life, Witchy Things | LEAVE A COMMENT

March 3

Papergang January 2022

Remember me talking about a goodbye in the review of my last Papergang box? Well, I might have been a bit dramatic when I wrote that down. When I am writing this post, I am not sure if my One year review of Papergang has already been uploaded or not, but just to be clear I did in fact cancel my subscription at Papergang. But that does not mean that I can’t get boxes anymore 😉 Basically, my plan was to not pay for a full year of boxes from which 60% or more might bore me but keep an eye on what boxes are to come and only buy the ones I am really interested in. That’s exactly what I did with this one, so let’s take a look at it together 🙂

This month’s box seems to have been inspired by calligraphy much, which is actually why it caught my eye. Calligraphy is something I do enjoy in my free time and what I saw in the pictures on their website, looked like something good. This box contains one debossed Daily Planner(dotted), some ombre sticky notes, a 6-sided ruler with measurements and markings designed for lettering, a refillable fountain pen(which comes already filled) and an Art print.

My camera picked up the colors here in a very strange way but I sadly only realized later :/ That’s why the next picture will look different, just so you know 😛

I mostly wanted to get this box because of the fountain pen, on the pictures, it looked like a high-quality pen which I thought might be specially made for using it for calligraphy. But when I open the box and took a good look at the fountain pen, I was really disappointed. Not only does it feel and look like very cheap quality, the nib is also no different from the fountain pen nibs you can buy at every store for school. What I was expecting was a fountain pen with a wide nib for example, or a nib that widens when you press it down or even multiple nibs you could interchange. But what we got, was less impressive than any normal fountain pen you can buy for cheap. The only thing I liked, was that there is a small hole right under the screwline that lets you check on how much ink is still left in the cartridge.

The next thing that I was kinda surprised about was the fact that they put an art print in here. I remember that actually, last year’s January box had an art print too, of two flowers. I also remember it has not been received very well since art technically is not stationary the people subscribing could use it practically. This print is no different other than it having a holographic foil finish on the letters. I also feel like with lettering and calligraphy as a topic, for an art print there would have been more possibilities. Of course, that’s a personal opinion of mine, but I feel like to introduce someone to lettering, you could have used different fonts in different sizes. Even with only two words, you could have had some decorations, different colours and so on. The text on the paper even feels a bit small, as if something would be missing.

The rest of the box is mostly okay, nothing that I could talk about for long. The planner is a great addition to the first box of the year since people can start using it for important dates right away and sticky notes are also always relevant. I am not a huge fan of the designs, since you can barely see or feel the debossing on the notebook and the dotted design on the sticky notes, feels like a wasted opportunity to incorporate some guidelines for people who are actually somehow inspired to do lettering or any other form of calligraphy after receiving this box.

The only thing in here, that I personally feel like actually using is the interesting metal ruler. It has the quality that I was expecting all of the items had, it feels sturdy, the measurements can be read very clearly and with its six different sides, it can be used for many different things. Like making your own guidelines on paper, measuring the size of different letters and so on. And it’s also the only item that to me feels like it is really connected to calligraphy.

My final verdict on this box is, that sadly Papergang can still disappoint me in different ways. This time it was not only kinda boring, like most of the boxes from 2021(which is why I cancelled my subscription) no it did feel almost deceiving. Because I don’t feel like I was the only one with expectations for a box designed like this. I feel like more items that are actually connected to calligraphy should have been included in here. And the ones which are, should have been better quality. All in all I feel like they could have done so much better with only some small changes.

Greetings and good wishes
The Mad Hattress

Category: Mystery Box, Papergang, Review, Subscription Box | LEAVE A COMMENT