If you are a blogger or someone who reads blogs, especially in the DIY/ arts and crafts/ decor community, you have probably heard of A Beautiful Mess.
I discovered ABM, run by two sisters: Elsie and Emma, when I joined Bloglovin and their blog was one that was recommended to me after I put in my interests. As lovely as their blog is, and they as bloggers, what really drew me in was their Instagram. Girl, talk about a strong Instagram game! Everything is bright and colourful and every time I scroll past a picture on my feed, you just know it's an ABM picture. I actually bought one of their books off Amazon on photography. I'm slowly making my way through it but as you'd expect, it' beautiful and bright and colourful and I just feel so happy while reading it and hopefully learning more to improve my own photography and Instagram game.
At the end of February I saw someone post a picture of an art print, and saw in the tags that it was by ABM. After following the link trail I ended up on the page of ABM's blog where they host their subscription box sales. They were advertising pre-orders for March Happy Mail as well as their new subscription service: Messy Box. Disappointed that I wouldn't get the print I saw, that had originally caught my eye from what ended up being from the February Happy Mail, I decided I would sign up for future ones, as well as the new Messy Box. After joining, I was surprised by an email saying the February Happy Mail was on its way!
I have always toyed with the idea of joining Ipsy or Birchbox as well as looking into other subscription services. I love the concept of it coming to your door every month with surprises... it's like a year round Christmas stocking. However, I could never justify one of the beauty subscription services as someone who rarely wears makeup and has very (angry) particular skin issues. It was a good idea in theory, but just not justifiable. I had also been stumbling upon other subscription boxes with more variety than simply beauty products such as Brimbles Box and My Little Box, but as they are European services they either wouldn't ship to Canada or shipping fees would just make the whole ordeal not worth it.
Enter A Beautiful Mess' Happy Mail and Messy Box.
Happy Mail is an envelope full of greeting cards. All of the contents are designed by ABM and made specifically for Happy Mail. From what I received, each box contains some traditional cards with artwork and either blank or cute messages inside as well as envelopes in complementary colours, a couple post cards (some with and some without envelopes) an art print (usually my favourite part!) and some bonus items like stickers, cut outs or fun notepads. Many of the products included will have foil detailing, which changes from month to month to provide a theme (gold, silver holographic, and rose gold so far) but not all products will be the same "monthly" foil colour, which provides a nice variety. Happy Mail costs $15.00 USD a month if you sign on for a year, $18.00 USD if you sign on for six months and $24.00 USD if you go month to month. For more information about Happy Mail, and to subscribe, you can go HERE.
Messy Box is ABM's scrapbooking subscription box. They do have their own album set called "Messy Book" which I didn't discover until after I had purchased enough Project Life items to stock an aisle at my local Michaels. You don't need a particular album or scrapbooking system for Messy Box, but they do size the products to fit with their own album and pocket pages, which makes sense from a business standpoint. As someone who would use them for Project Life as well as just random art/ paper projects, I have not found this as any sort of drawback. Each kit generally contains a few pages of scrapbook paper, some journalling cards in three sizes (which have been consistent for the three boxes I have received), as well as other scrapbooking odds and ends that have changed from month to month. Some of these include: decorative stickers, lettering stickers, stamps, small cut out shapes, transparencies, and paper tags. I love that they stay consistent with some things like the paper and journalling cards, but switch the other things up. The boxes seem to have monthly themes, like patterns that repeat on the paper and journalling cards or consistent colouring themes. Messy Box costs $19.99 USD per box for a twelve month subscription, $21.99 USD for a six month subscription and $24.99 USD to purchase the boxes individually. For further information on Messy Box, and to subscribe, you can check out THIS link.
For general information on the subscription services provided by A Beautiful Mess, THIS PAGE has a great introduction.
Just a side note, but as I am from Canada I am an "international" customer (even though it is quicker for me to drive to the US/ Canada boarder than it is for me to get to my school, but that's beside the point) and as such, have to pay a little extra for shipping as well as the conversion rate. Since I order both of the subscription boxes, they do come together so I receive them at the same time so I don't have to pay twice for shipping. I signed on for the year long subscription for both and the total I pay per month works out to be about $50 CAD. So yes, it's a bit more than someone in Washington who lives forty minutes away from me and pays $36 of their currency, but until the Canadian dollar sorts itself out or some awesome Canadian subscription box services start popping up, I'm okay to swallow the extra cost for cute, unique art supplies.
I am in no way affiliated with A Beautiful Mess (although they did regram from my Instagram once and I died a little bit from intense excitement) and am not receiving any compensation for writing this post or for the unboxing video below. They do not have any affiliate program for the subscription services at this time (although this would be one of my major suggestions, it would be a huge draw!) so I am just writing this to get the word out about something I have been super excited about for the first few months of 2015!
Here's my unboxing video for my May 2015 Happy Mail and Messy Box!
Thanks so much for reading/ watching! I can't wait to see, and hopefully share with you the June boxes! Let me know if you've tried these out and what you thought. Have you tried other subscriptions? I'd love to hear from you!
Have a great day, wherever you are!
Adrianna
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