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12 Part Stories

The 12 Part Story consists of 12 hand-drawn greeting card-sized illustrations sent by snail mail every week over 12 weeks. Create a fictional story or reminisce a memory from your past. Customers are given the option of posting their stories on the Tellinga website. The following are examples of stories written by previous customers:

Starting from $89.99

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Customer Description: STORY 2008: Met at Xmas party at Mary's house. Mary was a friend of a friend. We went to the Xmas light display on our 2nd date & kissed in front of live Nativity. Our first kiss was in front of sweet Baby Jesus! 2009: Our first big trip to Hawaii's Big Island. We'd been dating for 3 months& were together 24/7 for a week & never got sick of each other. The highlight was holding hands as we snorkeled off a black sand beach with 3-4 sea turtles around us. 2010: After trips to Curacao, Mexico, etc. we launched our blog Green Global Travel. Made decision in Costa Rica during a tropical downpour: tree frogs & hummingbirds were incorporated into our logo. 2011: Trip to Galapagos Islands, swimming with Galapagos Sea Lions. I was filming as Sea Lion swam all around me, blowing bubbles. Search "Green Global Travel Swimming With Sea Lions" and you can see the video! 2012: Highlight was Antarctica cruise, saw Penguins, Humpback Whales, etc 2013: Mary's dream come true trip to Bora Bora, Tahiti. 2014: We start speaking at blogging conferences around the world, including Greece. We recreated a pic of my granddad walking down the steps of the Acropolis, while I held the photo. 2015: 17-day trip to Tanzania and Rwanda. The highlight was hiking to see the Mountain Gorillas in Rwanda. That was one of the first stories we sold to National Geographic– a major dream come true for us! 2016: Travel conference in the Philippines. I love the pic of her on a hidden beach at our private island resort.  2017: My beloved grandparents never met Mary. We went to Scotland & traced my ancestry to the Isle of Skye. We climbed a hill to the ruins of my Clan's old castle, where I spread my grandparent's ashes. The wind picked up as I released the ashes, blowing some of them onto my black pants. 2018: For my 50th birthday, we took a 3-week trip to Kenya. There were tons of highlights, but the most picturesque when is when our work in wildlife conservation got us a behind the scenes tour at Ol Pejeta Conservancy, where we got to enter the pen with the last two Northern White Rhinos on the planet.  2020: This year we launched a new site focused on the Blue Ridge Mountains, in part because we're hoping to buy a lakefront mountain cabin there soon. So it would be great if the final image could have us side by side, looking out over the water with mountains and a sunset on the horizon.

Customer Description: My girlfriend and I both love Star Wars! We met at a club one night and immediately fell for each other after I asked her to dance to our favorite DJ. Recreate a Star Wars version of this story where instead of the club, we meet at the cantina from Star Wars Episode 4, replace the DJ with the flute playing aliens, and draw us in an epic lightsaber fight to replace the dancing.

Customer Description: 11 years of marriage was filled with joyous moments for Eli (34, leads analytics group) and Laura (33, head of accounting): college at Texas A&M, 2 beautiful kids (Barrett, 6 who loves Pokemon and Layne, 3 who is hilarious and loves playing babies and wearing a single blue glove – that might actually be magical), going from broke college students living in an apartment with two lawn chairs and a TV propped up by a rug with boxes of books as furniture to living in a beautiful house w/ a pool, going to Astros games, and loving to travel... getting married in Phoenix, Arizona, honeymooning in Quebec City, making & giving a flower lei for Laura in Kauai, skiing in Santa Fe, biking w/ mooses in Alaska, drinking wine in Napa, and flying on a seaplane to Fort Jefferson in the Florida Keys among so many other places! Life seemed perfect… almost too perfect. Was everything actually orchestrated like the Truman show by an evil human-looking robot villain aimed at profiting off of their love and wanting to learn human ways and subvert the human race by replacing humans with human-looking robots (Villain is Chris Harrison – the host of the bachelor)? Was their love even real or was it all a lie? OF COURSE, IT WAS REAL!!! THEY FREAKING LOVE EACH OTHER! The two would have to believe in each other, become gadget-wielding-super-ninja-spies and learn martial arts w/ their kids who will help in the journey, train by running up to Machu Pichu and down the great wall of china, and fighting off a potential overtaking of the world by destroying the evil villain’s secret lair in Antarctica. How could they and their kids possibly beat the near-insurmountable odds? By believing and trusting in each other, by believing in their love, by fighting for humanity and Team Moore! (I loved the comic-book style one w/ Jack from Jack-in-the-Box… the depth of story w/ some fun goofy stuff would be so great! Also, one particular picture is super special - the one of us getting married, would love that incorporated into the drawing).

Customer Description: I have a ten-year-old redheaded grandson that loves legos and being a spy.   He is a swimmer, loves to read, loves LEGOs, and creating spy theme activities – has a little briefcase with a spy kit. Please tie a story including all of that.

Customer Description: My dad is turning 60 at the end of November. When my brother (Robert) and I (Carolyn) were young kids in the 1990s, he used to write short stories about us having adventures and solving mysteries in our home town of Darlington, SC. He called us "the gang" and would sometimes have our friends or cousins appear in the stories too. I don't have any of the old stories, but I would like to get something drawn up in the same spirit of those for his birthday. The story should be kept fairly light in tone Basic Story ( feel free to take some artistic license) My dad took us to the local library a lot. I'd like the mystery to center around that. Perhaps... The Gang is enjoying an afternoon at the library when they overhear a librarian talking about strange occurrences for the last few days. Each morning the librarians come to work, to find several books that have somehow fallen off their shelves all over the library. One of the librarians even mentions that they thought they saw some strange, wizard looking figure lounging in a beanbag chair out of the corner of her eye for a split second, but blames it on not having had her morning coffee yet. The staff concludes that the shelving needs to be looked at or that some odd draft must have knocked the books off. However, the Gang knows when there is a mystery to solve. They come up with a plan to sneak off and hide in the library until it closes with their trusty pet, Rocky, to see what is causing the books to fall. To their surprise, they discover characters coming out of the books after they fall. The kids spend some time having fun with the characters before sneaking back home before mom and dad wake up. The main characters will be me, my brother, and our pet Rocky (he doesn't need to talk, just be a trusty companion). There are pics attached. I included a photo of my parents and the outside of the library in case you want to use them.

Customer Description: I put 12 ideas here, but feel free to put your own spin on what you draw with each little idea. I tried to provide a lot of details for you (sorry it's corny in advance lol) Austin is from New York but lives in New Jersey - I’m from LA but I live in Las Vegas, NV. So, it's Fourth of July weekend in Las Vegas and I had one of my girlfriends in town. Austin came from NY to Vegas for his birthday (7/4) for the weekend with his family. So just a normal day, and my friend and I decided to go The Marquee at the Cosmopolitan - where Austin happened to be at too. We both happened to be at the bar at the same time and as soon as our eyes locked we both clearly felt the same thing. He bought me a drink, and we were standing there just talking at the bar, and nobody else mattered. We really hit it off, my best friend and his family all noticed too. So Austin and I danced and drank and such a great time together! We were hooked from the start! <3 After the party we walked the strip together and were able to just get to know each other, which was nice being outside of the club atmosphere. We spent the whole evening together. We didn’t want our time to end, but I had to go back home because I had to work the next day and he was going to be going out with his family. But we definitely text each other the whole time! After that night we spent every day of his trip together. We went to another day party together, had a late-night Pho run with my friends, and even though he was out here with the family he wanted us to be together. We also got to go on a double date to go play games at an arcade and then cosmic play mini-golf with his cousin & his wife. Austin came in the first place and I was in second, it was so much fun. We loved every minute together. After that, we got to go on The LINQ on the Las Vegas Strip and it was amazing. We got to take pictures, and spend some quality time overlooking the Las Vegas Strip together too. After we got off the LINQ we went to In N Out because he had never tried it before! So it was a day full of firsts for us. But both of us were so sad it was coming to an end soon, he ended up extending his trip! :D He said he wanted to enjoy being with me more. So we had another day together and got to be lazy together until I had to take him and his brother to the airport, it was such a sad car ride home - but we listened to music and laughed and made the best of our time together. I gave him some hugs and kisses before he got on his flight and the true test began. It wasn’t a good-bye it was a see you later, and we both knew that it wasn’t the end of our story. We both got back into our “realities” of work and our lives and had to figure out how to make us work because we both didn’t want to lose out on the spark between us. We definitely had to get used to being on our phones more though. Me as a preschool teacher and Austin working for Apple, we both have pretty busy schedules! But we always start our mornings together, end our days together, and we definitely take advantage of FaceTime! Lots of “I miss you & I miss you too’s.” One day Austin and I were texting late at night - and having a pretty deep conversation about where this was going and how we felt about each other. So we are super cheesy and we told each other “i LO you” cause the VE felt too soon but the LO was just right 😅 It’s been hard for both of us is that we only have our phones really to talk to each other - but we both know what our end goal is. So finally! 3 months later, he flies back to Vegas on October 18 to see me and it was like we never missed a beat! This time was different though - it was about us. I had tea candles all over the house waiting for him. I know we were both so nervous and anxious to see each other! He took an Uber to the house, and as soon as I saw him we gave each other the biggest hug and kiss ever! He’s a lot taller than me, so I was in the air when he stood up and hugged me. We got to spend time with friends Saturday, and on Sunday we went to an arcade and had a whole day date with just us - we got to play Skiball, basketball games, and his favorite Super Mario Kart! Getting to spend time together was so perfect! One night we came home from going out, and just laid together in bed staring at the ceiling and me laying on his chest and Austin told me that he loved me. I sat there with the biggest smile on my face, said it back, and then we just got to lay there and everything felt just right and like we were floating! It was such a great moment. We also both love to make puzzles, so we spent a lot of time together at the dining room table around a puzzle! We made 3 different 500 piece puzzles together while he was out here. When we weren’t doing our puzzles we were cuddling on the couch watching Netflix. We got to spend a lot of quality time together which was great. As the weekend came to its last night there were a lot of tears on my end. I was so emotional because he had to go back home and everything just felt so complete with him there. We were standing in the living room for a minute quiet just hugging, and honestly just taking in every hug before we would be away from each other again - and then he called his uber and it was time for him to fly back to New Jersey. We are still going strong, and loving each other the best way we can being 2,222 miles apart. We have big plans, so here’s to us! (& TO BE CONTINUED!<3).

Customer Description: My partner (Saif) and I (Gemma) started dating in our last year of high school. On 6th June 2019 will be our 7 year anniversary together. I would love it if you could do a story on just our life with the "little moments and quirks" that make love, love. My partner loves astrophysics and talks my ear off about it all and makes me watch Neil deGrasse Tyson documentaries. He likes to muck around by picking my nose or wrestle. He loves when I play with his hair and give him back massages which put him to sleep. We both love trying different foods together (we are big foodies) and always Netflix and chill. We have had the world against our relationship, literally, but we stuck to each other through it all. Our connection and love for each other is so incredibly deep. I love him so much, he is the best person to have ever come into my life. I'm lucky and fortunate to have him in my life.

Customer Description: Alanna lives in Canada and I live in Glasgow, we only get to see each other so many times throughout the year. I had planned this amazing road trip around Scotland. Take her to all my favourite, enchanting locations, in the forests. Where fairies live etc. But unfortunately, due to this virus, we can't see each other until July, where we are planning a road trip around Canada. we are both 28, both goofy. Alanna has a passion for working with kids, piano lessons, play therapy, etc. She's Chinese but can't use chopsticks, would rather use a fork. 2hen we go for Asian food, she always asks for a fork & the waiting staff always, initially go to hand it to me... Usually a funny joke between us lol. I usually tell alanna a bedtime story or we write stories to each other, ever another week. She loves hearing about all the enchanting forests, moss mounds & general Scottish folklore. She loves her little doggy, loonies. Loonies is crazy & full of sass! Ideally, I'd love for an entertaining road trip around Scotland & showing alanna the hidden enchanted forests. As this was what was planned for our trip.. :( I hope this is enough information to go on.

Customer Description: Ross and I (Mindy) met on tinder. We both swiped right. We fell in love quickly and got married after 3 years of dating. We started trying to start our family right away. After months of no success, we went to our doctors and got the devastating news that we would not be able to have kids naturally. We were heartbroken. And so began our journey to parenthood. We spent 18 months at our local fertility center where we did 4 IUI’s (intrauterine insemination), we adopted 2 embryos, we did IVF, we did a fresh embryo transfer. Then we did a frozen embryo transfer that we thought had worked! We had our first ever positive pregnancy test. 3 days later we got the heartbreaking news that we were having a chemical pregnancy. Month after month of heartbreak! We had spent 10’s of thousands of dollars and we couldn’t afford to continue treatments at the place we were going to. We decided to pursue a different clinic, one based out of New York. We moved to Syracuse, New York during the middle of a pandemic (COVID-19) and we did our 3rd round of IVF! We didn’t tell our family that we did an embryo transfer, our 4th one! A few days after our transfer we got the news we had been waiting for! We were finally pregnant! 913. That’s how many days we hoped and cried, prayed, and tried!

Customer Description: My name is Keegan and my girlfriend's name is Lisa. I work in Los Angeles as a video editor and she's going to art school in Virginia. Though we just started dating this past February and only met in person for the first time over New Year's Eve, we've been friends for around 10 years online. We met playing World of Warcraft as teenagers and practically grew up together with a larger group of online friends, but we only really became close this past fall/winter. When I was visiting home in Alabama over Christmas, we decided to meet each other by visiting a mutual friend in Knoxville for New Year's. I drove up from Birmingham to pick her up at the airport in Nashville. I had always known what she looked like in real life from pictures on the internet, but finally seeing her in person took my breath away. We hugged for longer than maybe we both expected and then drove to Knoxville where we spent a few days bar crawling, dancing alone together in our Airbnb, roller skating, and finally watching the ball drop at midnight on a rooftop bar where we kissed. One month later, I drove cross country from Los Angeles to visit her in Chesapeake where we went to the movie theater, an art museum, and stayed one night on a sailboat in the bay. I had to go back to Los Angeles, but she plans on moving out to California with me once she graduates. For now, we stay connected by talking every day over Discord and playing video games together, just like we did when we were teenagers.

Customer Description: My wife and I met in college at the Agora Ballroom in Houston. My friend and I walked up and asked her and her friend to dance. We dated over the summer camping, going out to country-western bars and she tried to teach me to dance. She ran off the dance floor one time. I went back to Michigan and finished school and then came back to Houston. We dated for four years and then got engaged and married. We lived in a small house with a German Sheperd named Baron. The dog went everywhere with us, including some vacations. We had a daughter Alicia and four years later, a son named Chet. We moved to Sugar Land. We met a group of friends with young children and called it our Tribe. They were the Poole family, the Rippel family, the Swonke family. We have gone on an annual ski trip with them since our kids were young. Chet played ice hockey and baseball growing up, and Alicia played volleyball. We bought a lake house on Houston County Lake and went most weekends in the summer when the kids were growing up. They water skied, rode jet skis, and fished. Alicia went to college at Notre Dame, and Chet went to the University of Texas. We all went to both schools football games. After the kids moved away, we bought a ranch near the lake house and got six Longhorns named Mac, Charlie, Vince, Colt, Darrell, and Earl. We spend a lot of time at the ranch. Alicia is getting married to Jose in October. We spent the quarantine at the ranch house in Houston County.

Customer Description: Dianne and Howard met on Bumble. They went on their first date at Icenhauers on Rainey Street in Austin on the very first weekend that Dianne moved to Austin, TX. Dianne had just accepted a job offer in Austin, looking for a fresh start after many years living in the Northeast. Howard had just completed his MBA while working full-time and was finally ready to get back on the dating scene. The stars seemed to have aligned for them to meet on that fateful day in April at Icenhauer on Rainey Street. Over the past two years, Howard and Dianne have spent Austin life to the fullest, paddle-boarding in Barton Springs, tubing on the Guadalupe, and occupying every known outdoor patio bar in Austin.  They also enjoy Cocktails, paddle boarding, hiking, ut football games, and round rock express baseball games, tubing, traveling.  In August of 2019, Howard proposed to Dianne on Mount Bonnell, and in a sweaty huff, she said yes! We can't wait for you to celebrate our marriage in Driftwood, TX! It's going to be small, intimate, and low-key, so put away those heels and bring your dancing boots!

Customer Description: Mike and I have been married for 40 years. We met when we both worked in a grocery store called Mueller's Superway. The first date was a Drive-in movie, and we made out and accidentally turned on flashers, and someone from another car had to tell us. We fell in love and married in 1980. We moved from our home in Minnesota to Texas and began careers in retail (me) and land surveying (Mike). Four years later, along came Eric... 20 months later Alex was born. We enjoyed camping, fishing, and hiking. Eric graduated from high school and went to the University of Texas. The next year, Alex went off to Texas Tech University. Eric went into nursing and Alex into sales. A few years later, Eric married Jennifer and completed his nursing anesthesia degree! Alex completed his MBA at Rice University. We are now retired and have realized our dream of owning a lake house in Minnesota. We have also traveled to Europe. I am looking forward to living this next chapter of my life with you!

Customer Description: Stewart and I met the old fashioned way... on a dating app called Hinge. I 'liked' one of his photos of him sporting his No Shave November 'stache, and he messaged me saying, "What's your beef with Harry Potter?" in response to my profile stating that I hate those movies. After some playful banter, the conversation was easy. We talked about our favorite Will Ferrell movies, sports, and our friends until late at night. Before the day was over, he asked me out, and we planned a dinner date for that Sunday, July 14, 2019, at Mi Cocina. When I saw Stewart, I was intimidated by how handsome he was. Once he smiled at me and I saw those dimples, it was game over! We chatted for hours and drank Mambo Taxis until we were the last people in the restaurant. At first, I thought that he was an excellent listener, but I soon learned that he was just trying hard that day! After that first date, I knew he was either the one, or he'd break my heart! Per usual, I was right. Ten days later, he told me he loved me, and within a month, we were living together. Five months later, we designed my ring! On New Year's Eve, we planned a low-key date night at a steakhouse, bopped around Lower Greenville, and headed up to our apartment complex's sky deck to watch fireworks at midnight, equipped with a blanket and a nice bottle of champagne. We watched the fireworks, we counted down, and at midnight, I turned to give him a midnight kiss - that's when he got down on one knee. I'm not sure if I ever answered him when he asked if I would marry him, but that's probably because we'd already booked our venue. Our romance has been a whirlwind, yet one of the most consistent, stable, and healthy aspects of my life. Stewart not only makes me happier, but he makes me a harder worker, a more positive thinker, and a better person overall.

Customer Description: My girlfriend loves to get mail. I bet you lunch you don’t know anyone who loves to receive the mail more than she does. I think it’s because her mom used to mail her letters/simulated pen pals and she truly loved it. It’s her 25th birthday (we’ve been dating for 3 years) coming up on April 14th. When I heard about Tellinga on NPR last week and how she could receive mail and it’d be a creative present, I knew she had to have this for her birthday. On our first spring break in college, we went camping in Huntsville state park. She wrote a poem about it and that would fantastic if you could include a couple of quotes from her poem. We didn’t own a tent or any sleeping bags, so we brought her hammock, a pillow, and a blanket. I bought a mosquito net instead of campaign gear from Amazon (because I am a penny-pincher according to her). We loaded up on snacks (Dr. pepper, hot Cheetos, and sour cream and onion Pringles) for the 2-day camping trip. Her dietary choices, not mine. It was insanely cold at night and we were not prepared so we had to cuddle like we would die if we didn’t have each other’s warmth. One could argue I made a tactical choice to bring fewer blankets than necessary, so we’d have to cuddle closer than usual. Our favorite part was kayaking. See attached picture. She is a tiny girl but somehow, I ended up in the front of the kayak while she paddled/generated all the power from the back end. We made lots of jokes about our non-traditional styles coming together to form a great team. On the first day, we wandered around in the woods and got lost. She wasn’t thrilled about being lost and became super focused on getting us out of the (very safe) woods. I jokingly asked her “do you trust me?” as if we might become forever stranded and living off the land. She found a trusty hiking stick that she kept with her for the remainder of the camping trip. I think she trusted the stick more than me. At one point she asked if we were lost. I said “I’m not lost. I’ve wandered these woods for 23 years.” I was 23 years old at the time and I had never wandered those woods prior to this trip.

Customer Description: Matheus and Robert have recently become roommates and are now living in a high-rise in downtown Houston above all the bars. Between working long hours and meeting all sorts of interesting people at the bars, this is the adventure of two best friends who dream of changing the world.

Customer Description: Mike and I (Joey) are both OBGYN physicians at the hospital and we deliver babies. (I am a woman- although the name is confusing to some). We met over a circumcision (I was leaving the procedure room and Mike was entering). Mike proceeded to ask me out for 3 years until I finally said yes during a Christmas party last year I said and we have been dating ever since. He is amazing; he is the best Dad to his kids. I call him a little bear and am in love with him. We have traveled to club and dance in Mexico, to fly-fish and camp under the stars in Montana and enjoy the beach in Bali. We like to play cards and cook together. We pray for each other and go to church together. We like to play Monopoly, football and Wiffle ball with his two sons, Austin and Ethan. We help them with their homework- Austin with Spanish and Algebra and Ethan with vocabulary. Mike’s dog is a bulldog named Rocco Thank you so much for creating a fun story / Images for us!

Customer Description: Two turtles named Heather and Clint meet and fall in love in Marfa, TX. After falling in love, they both move to New York City to live happily ever after.