There’s something about Spring that kindles a desire for cuteness and lightness in my life. For the second time, I subscribed to The Crafted Van’s Read Happy Plan to satisfy the wish for whimsy, which can be delivered in the mail by way of a monthly subscription. I’ve featured this vendor in-depth before, but wanted to share my most recent order, for anyone else who might need some cheerful goodness right about now, vibes I can definitely use.
The Read Happy Plan is a surprise themed stationary gift consisting of 2-3 bookmarks and an art print or greeting card for $12 per month, shipped. 
April’s theme is: “Be a rainbow in someone’s else’s cloud,” a sentiment from one of my favorite poets, Maya Angelou. Who could resist a smile with this friendly paint palette holding her page in place?
Diana and Erica, Crafted Van’s creators, have come along way with color schemes since I last featured their bookmarks. My first 3 month subscription displayed products with 2-3 tonal hues, but these have a multitude of colors in the medium-intensity range, not pastel or neon bright. The muted colorway adds a sophisticated touch to the playful designs. 
While the themes remain a mystery, the balloons and books pairing was given a sneak peek on CV’s Instagram page and I admit, it was a stimulus for resubscribing this month. It’s so sweet that I want to tie a hundred balloons to my own bookcase to see if it might get carried aloft, soaring away with untold stories. 
The bookmarks measure between 2″ x 2″ for the artist’s palette and 2″x 3″ for the ballooned bookcase. Sturdy magnets hold the pages securely in place.
My favorite part of the exclusive bookmark plan, besides the surprise, is gifting these little pick-me-ups to friends and family. The sparkly unicorn went to my niece, the magical creature in my own life, who was all over that gumball machine art print too. I think I’ll gift the beret sporting palette to my boss, a bit of a painter herself. The bookcase is my light, bright page holder and it does inspire a smile whenever I turn to it.
Two options exist in the subscription, book nerd (clearly me) or planner obsessed. With Diana and Erica’s quirky creativity, you never know what you might get; one month could be a likeness of Einstein, the next, dueling hamster pirates. You are guaranteed beautiful handwritten packaging, and a mix of timeless and whimsically detailed designs.
With their caring message these do add cheer to my reads. Supporting small business artists makes me feel good too. What’s bringing a little bit of color to your days?
The Scented Library 
I love these! SO very cute! And I am sure your niece loves her unicorn as well. You are a wonderful aunt. ❤ I will have to look into these. For some weird reason, no matter how many cute bookmarks I get, when it comes time to save my page it ends up being an old receipt, a piece of string or empyt gum wrapper. I can never find my bookmarks or they slip out. The magnetic ones like these are really the best.
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Thank you, they are adorable! Aw, thanks, my niece is spoiled rotten, but has been having a challenging time lately. Anything I can do to brighten her day, I do. Thankfully, she appreciates the little things and she takes right after me with love of wax, photos, books and her newest obsession-sugar scrubs!
Lol, I’m guilty for using paper scraps as bookmarks too, (you should see the strange place holder items I’ve found over the years at the library) the magnetic ones are nice for keeping your spot and I’ve strung the extras across my bookshelf as a cute display.
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Another way in which you are a kindred spirit – a love of paper products. I really love stationary, always have. Did you have a sticker album as a kid? I did, and it was SO dope. I loved the crap out of that thing. My parents used to take me downtown every weekend to this expensive and prissy little stationary store that sold stickers (fuzzies, shinies, the exceptionally rare smelly) on rolls, and I’d always ogle the wrapping paper you could BUY BY THE SHEET (lawd, how fancy) and refillable calligraphy pens. When we got married, I just about died from delight when we were picking out our invitations – so many delicious paper and font choices! Yeah, I really love paper goods. And these little bookmarks are RIGHT up that alley, they actually remind me of my beloved stickers. You gave me a cute little otter one that I think is from the Crafty Van and I love it, so cute. The little blank expressions on some of these guys is so kawaii – it’s so that adorable, pin-eyed comic style. Plus, who doesn’t love a pirate hamster? No one I care to be friends with. 😉
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But of course I was sticker-obsessed with at least 2 books full. In fact, I think we’ve had this convo, my faves were always the scratch n’ sniffs. For sure pens, pencils and notepads are a few of my favorite things too. I remember to grab a pencil from anywhere I travel as a token but I tend to only use the refillable clicky kind.
Hmm-I think I sent you the sleepy kitty from the Crafted Van last year, but they are well-known for their otter critters. Maybe someone else sent you one? The stranger things kids I recently sent are from Happy Hello, which usually create fandom bookmarks, also cute, but more limited and not as timeless as these. Both vendors are Canadian, I’d love to see the Crafted Van branch into other stationary, I can never have enough magnetic pads and notebooks.
Pirate hamsters, lol, you can’t help but laugh!
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Ha, I thought that sleepy kitty was an otter! Grey, whiskers, cute little ears…hmm, maybe should have looked closer to see if that kitty’s got webbed feet! Well, no matter what he is, I love that bookmark, it’s adorable.
I’m pretty sure we’ve had the sticker talk – sorry for the redundancy. No, we’ve totally discussed this before, because I had intended to dig it out of storage over at my parents’ and then I forgot. Okay, hopefully I’ve remembered now!
Do you remember those pencils from the late ’80s, early ’90s where you’d load these little plastic stubs with a bit of lead in them into a plastic pen cartridge? They never worked very well, and they seemed hugely wasteful, but I do remember some of them came in rainbow colours and they SMELLED (always a plus with me and stationary.) Also those jumbo clickable pens where there were 10 colours in one pen. There were so many cheap springs and widgets inside, they were forever breaking. Ah, memories. 🙂
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Now you have me wondering, was it an otter? Are they well-known sleepers? No, it has to be a kitty, right, they own napping!
Hope you dig out your sticker books and make some awesome nostalgic discoveries:) I remember those refillable pencils, they sucked but I’m sure I always coveted those who had them. I don’t remember owning any. I know I definitely broke a few jumbo clickable pens back in the day though.
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Reblogged this on Country Crafting & The Simple Life and commented:
my Ryleigh would like these
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Thanks so much for the reblog. I hope you do order sometime, it’s a fun affordable and caring gift:)
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I must have done it wrong… it didn’t show up when you clicked on it idon’t know why
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Ok, I signed out and tried the link in my first paragraph of this post and it worked- it took me to their website and under the menu tab, I clicked READHAPPYPLAN all one word. From there you make your selections. If that doesn’t work for you, I can copy paste the link here I think.
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