Review of the Rad & Hungry Costa Rica kit

I tweet a little nearly every day, and a while back I began to notice tweets from one source that were a little different than most.  I wasn't quite sure what these tweets were all about.  


Intrigued, I checked out their homepage--RAD and HUNGRY!  This is the blurb from their page:


"Call it office supplies or a stationery kit. What it is – a world tour delivered to your door. RAD AND HUNGRY (RAH) serves up limited-edition kits of stylie goods with The Something Mighty Collection.

We believe in getting to know people and places through commerce and design. Someone else’s daily diet of lo-fi designed goods is simple to her yet sacred to us, and vice versa. Let’s marvel at each other’s mundane, because that shit is dope.""

What does this mean?  Well, let me show you the kit that I won.  

Each month, a RAD and HUNGRY person travels to some destination, and picks up mundane office supplies.  Mundane for that country.  Which means it is a staple and little slice of home for that country.  Each kit includes a simple notebook, a pen or pencil and some other office supply, such as an eraser (or hole reinforcers in the case of my kit).  As you can see, they are offered up in ways far from mundane with cool packaging, bright color, and a 'badge'.  My badge was a beautiful origami butterfly folded from map paper.  The personalized letter that came with the kit informed me that these badges are something picked up during the trip, something that reflects the country in question.

These kits are an offering to attitude (at least, in my humble opinion).  

I'm the type of person who stops in the store, frequently, and picks up all the journals and notebooks and inspects the paper and binding and beautiful covers, and then puts them back with regret, because I want them all, every variation. I haunt the pen aisles, looking for something new--just because I marvel at each innovation.  When I visit other countries I do look for notebooks and pens and pencils and office supplies.  Forget the shoes and clothes, lol.  It's the paper goods aisle for me!

So, when I won the Costa Rica kit, I was very pleased, because these kits have been on my wish list.  A chance to visit the office supply aisles in other countries without spending the airfare.  But I was surprised when I opened my package.  My kit had items similar to those I used in my high school years (ahem...in the 60's).  I was immediately transported back to school hallways and sitting in class decorating my notebook while listening to the teacher.  The minute I saw this Costa Rican notebook I wanted to go all Peter Maxx on it.

So I did!

Back then I would have been using Papermate Flair pens (and thinking they were pretty cutting edge).  I don't have those now, so I used the closest thing I had, Staedler Triplus Fineliners (which aren't really that close, lol).  And this is pretty much the type decoration I had on my notebooks all through high school.  

Those of you who follow my blog know that I don't like pencils.  I'm not sure I'll ever use this one, but it's going to sit in my pen can and I'll pick it up on occasion, just because it's like the pencils I used in school.  It's a little slice of memory!

But I'll use the hole re-inforcers.  I used them in school, and I have continued to use them in three-ring binders and sometimes in my crafts, to this very day. 

I thought the kits would be a slice of another country.  Not the touristy stuff, but the every day homebody stuff.  And I thought it would be great for someone who had lived in that country, or visited, who wanted a tactile piece of memorabilia that could be used in every day life.  I didn't know I'd be transported to another country of my own-the past.

What I realized is while every country is different, they're the same.  Obviously, not every every kit from every country would feel as personal to me.  Some would be exciting and different instead of nostalgic.  But in every country, there is going to be someone surfing the office supplies just because they like office supplies.  Someone very like me.

Every month RAD and HUNGRY offers a new kit from a different country.  They also have past and current kits available for purchase or you can subscribe to receive kits as they become available.