At Pear Tree Greetings, we understand that a few, personal words to a family member or friend can go a long way. Whether it’s through a hand-written letter, a Christmas card or even a birth announcement, there’s an exciting feeling when a note is received in the mail. In an effort to show the meaning of a personalized card in a digital world, we recently announced our ‘Pen to Paper’ challenge for our Pearista bloggers.

Our Pearistas are a group of bloggers that are passionate about stylish stationery and communicating with loved ones. These Pearistas not only keep in touch through their blogs, but also through mailing cards and letters. Though blogs, emails and text messages are second nature in today’s generation, our Pearistas value the power of sending a personalized note, too. It was time to encourage our Pearistas and inspire others to value the hand-written word, by sending a handwritten note once a week for four weeks and then blogging about their experiences. Once per week a blogger will be selected as a winner based on their blog post.

Our first winner is Law Momma from Spilled Milk. We absolutely loved how she explained what a handwritten note meant to her, I’ll let her words speak for themselves.

To me, there is no means of corresponding that is more intimate than pen on paper.

Think about it. You get hundreds of emails in a week, maybe more. You get tons of text messages. Sure, they make you smile. They say “Hey, I’m thinking about you right this second.” And that’s great. But think about the last time you got a letter.

A real letter.

Not a typed out “here’s how the family is doing” at Christmas, but a real, honest to goodness letter. Handwritten. With ink smears. And maybe even with crossed out words or that tell-tale blend of letters that says “I don’t know how to spell this and oops that’s wrong so I’ll just muddle them up really close and maybe they won’t notice.”

Handwritten letters say “I am thinking about you right now. And you are important to me. So important that I’m going to get a wrist cramp and probably look like a loony toon with my tongue sticking out as I try to fit. one. more. word. at the bottom of the page.” Handwritten letters actually MEAN something. They’re the little notes you folded into stars and triangles in high school and then stuck in your back pocket, wondering if you would ever get the guts to give it to him. They’re the lists you wrote to Santa as you poured through the Sears Toy Catalog for just the exact gift you never knew you totally wanted.  They’re the keepsakes, bound together with ribbon, that spell out a time lost… a loved one gone… a life remembered.

Handwritten letters are art.

And that is why, when Pearista announced their August challenge, I accepted with a click of my heels. I worship the written word. I kneel at the alter of libraries and bookstores and snub my nose at Nook and Kindle and all the other crazy ways of trying to say that pen to paper is a thing of the past. The Pearista challenge was to write one handwritten card a week for four weeks. And as a bonus, they sent me the cards to write them on, along with 4 additional cards to send to the person you chose to write. And you could write anything. Anything at all. To anyone at all. Four little drops of sunshine to send out into the world.

My first letter went out this week and she should have received it by now. It wasn’t much but it was something I really wanted to write. Because sometimes? Email doesn’t cut it.

See the rest of Law Momma’s post here.

Congratulations, Law Momma, thank you for accepting the challenge!