Victoriavida

• Name: Victoria
• Location: Seoul, South Korea (around 5 years)
• Language: English (native), Korean (elementary), Spanish (elementary)
• Life: 31, married, no kids, not religious

Hello Y'all!

My name is Victoria. I'm 31 years old and originally from Alabama, USA. I'm now living in Seoul, South Korea where I met my husband (Korean) in 2017 when I left my hometown. I do not have children or any pets, but one day I would love to adopt a cat, bird, & dog (in that order :D). I speak English, and elementary Korean and Spanish.

Craft info: I've recently gotten back into scrapbooking and memory keeping, which pleasantly lead me here. I'm a lifelong crafter who was gifted every art set under the sun as a child. I made houses out of paper and dried leaves under my mattress as a child. I was (am) obsessed with texture so I collected fabric and rocks. As a child in Alabama, I spent my time by the railroad tracks running through fields where I laid 100s of pennies on the tracks to smash and simply admire or use for crafts.

Needless to say, one of my most defining characteristics is crafting. I've dabbled in endless styles, hobbies, mediums, and expressions: from melting plastic to sewing dresses.

My toxic trait is a "I can make that" mentality. While I'm far from being an expert in any one craft, this has lead me to experience a wide variety of creative methods.

One thing that has remained constant is my love for using "trash" to create something new. It might be my poor childhood, but it still heavily influences my creative process to this day.

I enjoy making my own paper and notebooks, as well as pressing flowers and leaves. I am in a local book club that meets once a month. It's my main social activity as a person who is immensely satisfied sitting at home surrounded by paper scraps.

Originally, I was drawn to penpals (hoping to collect old papers from other countries), and then I discovered Swap Bot and saw it as a better situation. So here I am happy to have found this lovely space.

• No: K-pop or K-dramas
• Yes: Language & culture

I'm not interested at all in K-pop or K-dramas. I don't know anything about them. Just not my thing, and that goes for most pop culture from any country. Nothing against pop culture, I just felt the need to address this after explaining myself to excited fans several times.

What I can offer is nerding out on language. I studied linguistics and love collecting dictionary pages from other country. I have access to Korean Japanese, Russian, and Chinese dictionaries (usually from 1990s or older).

• Book pages
• Ledger pages ♡♡♡
• Line art (usually one continuous stroke, but anything similar is lovely.)
• All kinds of graph or lined paper with interesting patterns (usually seen with old receipt or banking books)
• Old ads
• Fortunes from fortune cookies
• Culture, traditions, & lore unfamiliar to me (so not white people USA, Native American & African American very welcome. And any other country's lore very welcome.)
• Watercolor anything
• Textured painting
• Fabric scraps
• Flatten pennies (major nostalgia)
• Cat illustrations (not cartoony, more vintage / sketch / water color style)
• Dictionary pages from other languages (other than my native English, but I'm happy to receive English as well)
• Foreign language text (hand writing, packages, books....)
• Mini book pages (pocket dictionaries)
• Book artwork
• Tickets (transportation, exhibition, any really)
• Plant illustrations
• Wallpaper patterns
• Neutral color palettes
• Monochromatic color palettes
• Stamps
• Coins (especially brown tones like pennies, usually the lowest denomination)
• Handwritten quotes in other languages, one sentence on any scrap paper (besides English, but I won't be sad if you write an English quote ♡ grateful, in fact.)
• Writing systems: Other than Roman (ABCs) with the exception of cursive. Georgian is my FAVORITE alphabet (I lived here for a year). Korean, Chinese, Arabic, Thai are also beautiful honestly anything that's not English is fascinating to me.

• All modern kawaii things (I live in Korea, I am surround by it. I can get it easily if I want.)
• Pop culture (I don't own a TV or Netflix.)
• Christianity (grew up in that environment, so no need to share anything.)
• Elementary teacher stickers or classroom decor
• Neons & primaries (in the children's decor style)
• Lisa Frank
• US patriotic things (I'm from there, so I don't need it.)
• Paint splatter *Tye dye? tie die? (After googling, apparently it's tie dye, and I like it even less now.)
• Over inking & distressing please don't hate me (natural aging is fine, and died paper is fine. I just don't like the inked look. According to habits of YouTubers, I'm an extreme minority....)

• Coffee > tea (but not by much!)
• Any flavor ♡
• All the caffeine please!
• My husband drinks decaf, so don't go buy anything special please
• No allergies
• So happy to try anything, gimme that one you hate XD

• Making paper
• Making journals
• Stamping & die cutting
• Upcycling anything
• Melting plastic
• Collaging
• Planning (functional & decor, A5 rings & any bound)

• Found
• Homemade
• Upcycled
• DIY
• Small business
• Independent artists

• Open Water
• Linguistic research papers
• Grammar books (it's fascinating, I swear)
• Where the Crawdads Sing
• She and Her Cat
• Namiya General Store
• Remarkably Bright Creatures
• The Trumpet Swan
• A Life on Our Planet
• Family Lore
• The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu
• Almond
• Wasteland

I don't have any favorites, per se, but I do love to read. I enjoy books that blend cultures & beliefs and cross boarders & boundaries (immigration, exile, language, postcolonial).

I don't have a particular desire for any specific type of postcard. Except maybe something very creative will always be my favorites. Truly, I will enjoy anything you want to send me. But if you want a little inspiration, here are some postcard themes or ideas that I enjoy:

• collage

• floral

• botanical

• muted neutral tones

• handmade ♡

• background story (tell me about the postcard)

Favorites ♡

• broccoli mac & cheese food packaging postcard that said "my coworker had this for lunch." I thought it was hilarious, and I loved it.

• An "ugly" postcard with a saying from England and a literary stamp. The description of the quote combined with the stamp were PERFECT for a linguist like myself.