A good mail weekend

I've had a lot of other stuff going on in my life lately, and I haven't been spending as much time on mail as I'd like... but this weekend, especially Sunday, I got back into it and wrote a bunch of letters and postcards. It felt wonderful to immerse myself in mail all day long again!

There are changes afoot, and I will share the news in due time... but for now, I will say I am thankful for the wonderful world of mail as a longtime hobby and passion that has sustained me through many circumstances and changes.

Happy mailing, everyone!

Last mail art of 2012

A postcrosser who received one of my postcards asked me if I did any mail art. It occurred to me that I haven't posted about anything I've sent in absolute ages. It's long overdue! I had a tough fall for letter-writing, and my sent stats have been fairly paltry until December, when I really tried to plunge in again as best I could.

I wrote and decorated this letter on December 31, 2012. I had so much fun breaking out my washi tape, stickers, rubber stamps, postage stamps, and all the fixings... they had sat gathering dust for quite a while. My cats Soda and Memo (of blessed memory) adorn the photo stamps, and in fact that stamp of Memo with the fur wig is the last one I had.



The back of the envelope isn't quite so busy, just some red and black and of course a fine Red Tango cat sticker.



Happy New Year! My best wishes to all blog readers and postal enthusiasts for a fantastic mail year in 2013.

1940s aerogramme-style Air Mail with wings

What a find! I'm so excited about this World War II era stationery, just listed in my etsy shop. The little envelope with wings is my favorite part!



This is a complete original set of Wessel's Air Mail Envo-Letters, in original packaging. The paper folder contains 12 sheets of aerogramme-style stationery, which fold up into their own envelopes. The 1940s air mail graphics are stunning! Though they do not have a specific date on them, I'm near certain they are from the 1940s, roughly in the World War 2 era.



The packaging folders do show some wear and age spots, as you can see in the photos, but the envo-letters contained inside are in excellent shape, perfect for modern retro letter writing (or for the collector, of course). Above you see the folded sheets on the outside, with the excellent red and blue air mail stripes...



...and they are mostly blank on the inside, except for the fantastic Air Mail with wings graphic shown in close-up at the top of this post.

For aficionados of vintage writing instruments, I have enjoyed these in my own letter-writing, and can attest that this vintage paper is very fountain pen friendly, and takes fountain pen ink beautifully.

These are not to be confused with V-Mails, which Wessel also manufactured - V-Mails were for correspondence with American troops stationed overseas, but these Envo-Letters looked to be for any international air mail. (I also sell vintage WWII V-Mail sets, too.)



I have a few of these sets in the original packaging - fun to look at, and fun to write on. Check out an example of one I sent internationally a few months ago.

5 (fabulous) new postcard designs

Zesty French postman postcard

I am ever so excited to announce that I've finally finished FIVE new postcard designs in my etsy shop. I am really happy with these new designs, and and eager to share them with you all now.

First, we have the Zesty French postman postcard. This charming vintage-style French postman will bring zest to any mailbox he visits! Meta mail, anyone? He's got a bag full of letters - and he's offering a wax-sealed letter to you! Vintage-style French postage and a French mailbox grace the top of the design above the quote. The quote reads: "As long as there are postmen, life will have zest. - William James"

Unanswered correspondence: Do it Now! postcard

A lovely vintage graphic of a woman writing letters with a dip pen graces this stylish postcard. Her mail sorter is labeled "UNANSWERED CORRESPONDENCE" and the text at the top encourages "DO IT NOW!" I get inspired to write just by looking at this. Doesn't it just make you want to pick up a pen and send some mail? Hopefully it will inspire anyone to whom you send it to do the same.

Swallow's Garden Air Mail postcard

The colors on this one are even brighter in real life, if you can believe it... I think of this as almost Victorian day-glo. This design features a vintage graphics collage with a graceful flying swallow. The lovely bird bears an air mail banner, flying high above its day-glo lakeside garden, with an envelope gracing the corner - what's a mail enthusiast not to love about this postcard set?

WRITE: a letter is better postcard

This postcard can serve as encouragement, or a gentle reminder - put pen to paper (or postcard) and WRITE! An altered vintage postcard graphic featuring artwork with a letter writer dipping a feather quill pen into a bottle of ink, plus a dripping dip pen, the quote reads:
"WRITE
No news is good news,
but a letter is better."

Letterbird postcard set

Last but not least, a matching Letterbird postcard to coordinate with my existing Letterbird sticker seals.

Via airmail, via letterbird - par avian, anyone? This vintage-style swallow brings a new twist to airmail as it carries an envelope in its beak - and the envelope in its beak is sealed with red sealing wax and a sprig of flowers. The swallow is swishing through a blue sky with clouds, as I sometimes fancifully imagine my letters flying on their journeys... the bird presenting the envelope in its beak captures the excitement of the letter it seals.

I hope you all love these images as much as I do... and if you really love them, consider visiting my etsy shop and picking up some for yourself.

Zesty French postman postcard

Unanswered correspondence: Do it Now! postcard

WRITE: No news is good news, but a letter is better postcard

Letterbird postcard set

Swallow's Garden Air Mail postcard

If you want a variety, I also sell Combo packs of 5 postcards, and you can choose any combination of designs you like.

Have a great mail weekend, everyone!

Red, white, and blue

I thought some good old red, white, and blue was in order for the season.

This is a letter I wrote last night on some vintage Wessel "envo-letters" stationery. It is WWII era, dates around the same time as the V-mails, but notes in packaging that it can be sent anywhere, not just to and from U.S. troops (as was the intent for V-mail.)



And yes, I do use the stickers I sell in my shop for my own correspondence, too.

To all my American readers, have a wonderful 4th of July holiday!

Vintage stationery for sale

I've got a bunch of vintage stationery items for sale in my shop right now, and I just thought I'd share a few of my favorites with you here in a clickable treasury, above. Any of the photos will lead you right to the listings.

The three I'm most excited about:

Teen Tattle vintage 1950s stationery (sold)

Vintage 1980s Cabbage Patch Kids cards

1940s Vintage Basildon Air Mail paper

All three of those are original, one-of-a-kind items, so if you like it, grab it, because I don't have multiples of those!

Catwrangler's fabulous stamps

Fellow cat-loving mail enthusiast Catwrangler has the most amazing collection of rubber stamps, and she's not afraid to use them! She is also generous with her mail, sending me lots and lots when I still haven't responded to her, and sending other random goodies. I think I love every single one of the stamps she used on this all-stamp handmade postcard.



And so many of them are meta! I heart meta mail. Yay letter stamps. And look, that's her own kitty on the Zazzle postage stamp, too.

Airmail awesome from Catwrangler

Here is another stamp-tastic envelope from Catwrangler. Man, does she have some amazing rubber stamps. How 'bout that PUG? YAY!! Also, I'm totally coveting the stamp in the bottom left corner that shows the envelopes/letters. Yay meta mail.



Par avion! Cats in boxes! Airmail deco tape! Mail happy. Oh, she writes some mighty fine letters, too. :-)

Unpick to open

I warn you this is going to be a photo-heavy post - quite possibly my most photo-heavy post ever, but I must share all the details with you, as this is quite possibly the most amazing piece of mail I've ever received.



This came from a woman who is clearly a talented seamstress, as the entire envelope was hand-sewn. I picture it being hand-delivered gingerly and with reverence from one postman to the next, because it arrived in absolutely pristine condition; had I packed this in my luggage in an international flight, it would not have arrived any more perfectly. (In fact, it probably would have been considerably more smooshed!)



I have to zoom in on all these little details, because they just blow me away. Embroidered air mail! Multiple different kinds of stamp fabric! Meta mail to make me swoon!



Check out those vintage stamps! Shillings, people! (I am one of those Anglophile Americans who can get a thrill just by whispering "shilling" to myself. Don't ask.)



And postbox stamps! Glorious red postbox stamps! Does it get any better than this? I don't think so.



I don't sew myself, not anything, not ever, not even a button - so I am even more impressed by this. Does this sort of hand-embroidering of every single letter not take a ridiculous amount of time? It seems to me it must.



Now, on to the back. It had that "Unpick to open" embroidery with which I started this post, plus a hand-embroidered return address. And opened - there's even DIFFERENT liner fabric! You can see a bit of the letter peeking out here.



Now check out the fabric of the envelope lining: old letters and postcards! Gaaaa! (Clearly I am at a loss for words now, just making sounds and happy mail drool.)



Also, because two is better than one - another hand-embroidered air mail label, this one complete with hearts.



Lest you think it couldn't get any better - as I did, after I'd unpicked the stitching on this envelope (which I did very, very carefully, having no idea of the proper unpicking technique) - here's what was inside the envelope. This is like the "stationery," the fabric with all the vintage-esque cursive writing on it.



And last but certainly not least, the entire embroidered letter! What handiwork! I seriously cannot even imagine the hours this took her. I suggested to her that people would pay big bucks for this sort of thing if she sold it on etsy or the like, so if she opens a shop, I will refresh this post and link it here for sure.

Aside from all this kvelling, I must say this letter really touched my heart. It is now hanging over my writing desk, where I look at it every single day and smile. I don't even think I deserve a gift this wonderful, but I knew I had to share it with you all, my mail-loving readers, who could share my joy in such an incredible creation.

Purple cat lady envelope

It's been AGES since I posted about a sent item instead of something received, so this is long overdue. I had a crazy fun time making this envelope from a page of the crazy weird book "Why Paint Cats" by Burton Silver and Heather Busch. (You can see more of the book on Amazon.com.) It is a parody of art books, and I hope that is sort of obvious as the shots are kind of hilarious, but anyway... they make killer envelopes. I have a hard time looking at that photo without smiling.



Because of the light at the time, I scanned this instead of photographing it. So the sparkly stickers may not look their best, but you get the idea.

I sent this to some very fun people in the UK; hopefully they've received it successfully by now.

Airplanes for Air mail

This blog reader letter-writer is also a pilot - he sends me letters with these great sparkly airplane stickers, and the envelope on the left was made from an old flight map. (Do you call those flight charts?)

Blastoff

This is one of my favorite envelopes I've made. Not sure why, I think I just love the old-school space-style illustration. Here we have two of the other recent Zazzle photo stamps I've ordered: Soda guarding a Curb your Dog postcard, and Magic yawning on a porch. Had to throw in a Skylab space stamp to complete the theme.



Mmm... starry.

Aeroplanes with eyeballs

Here's another design from International Girl aerogrammes: it's charmingly called aeroplanes with eyeballs. Yes, I just did another International Girl aerogramme order - I really had gone through all the ones I ordered before, and I got a couple of new designs - or designs new to me, anyway. (I've blogged about these a lot before, if you want to see other designs.) I think the little eyeballs on the airplanes are pretty adorable, and this set has narrow-ruled lines which I really like. Someday I'll photograph those, too.



Here's the back, which shows our eyeballed-aeroplane from a different angle. As is customary with the Int't Girl aerogrammes, each one has directions in a different language - this one is Portuguese.

Hmm... if these are aeroplanes with eyeballs, does that make them airmail with vision? Heh heh...

Menu-inspired decoration

Here's some more artwork by the lovely Sirpa in Finland. She said the decorative theme for this envelope was inspired by a menu she saw in Brussels (Belgium - home of the famous sprouts), where the meal sections were hand-drawn and surrounded by fun borders.



She hand-painted the border and background for the letter, and I didn't blur out the part where she described her design inspiration for the letter. She said she copied out the design in her memory book, and she included a scan of her diagram:



Very cool! (I wish I could keep a visual memory book like this. Maybe I should try, even though I'm an awful artist.) What a neat idea to draw it and then send me the copy of the drawing to show the envelope process.

She also blogged about this letter back when she wrote it.

Envelope for GMD Faux Post Giveaway

When I saw this post on the Good Mail Day blog, I fell in love with the "special delivery every day" faux postage. And those awesome gals, they said they had a few to give away if you sent them a SASE! So I did, but of course I had to pretty up the envelope for them. We've seen this goatmail stamp recently, but I don't know if I've shown off this combination of vintage postage stamps yet.



On the back I used a vintage air mail POD label from 1957.

On another note, thanks to my laptop, I can blog from the road! I'm not at home to get my mail right now, but I'm with family in the Midwest for Thanksgiving. In fact, I'm writing this blog entry from a hotel lobby.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my American blog readers!

Mail art thank-you

My amazing little package full of mailbox postcards from Carolee of PodPost begged a mail-art-licious thank-you response, so I had fun putting this puppy together, with all the meta-postal goodness I could muster. Only the Shakespeare stamp doesn't really fit the theme, but he's the bard and I love him, so he gets to join the party.



The envelope is vintage 1971, from my grandfather's days in the post office, commemorating the official change of name from "post office" to "U.S. Postal Service," complete with new logo. I love that this envelope shows both the old and the new logos.

I am feeling rather clever for putting my return address in the wavy lines of the "please hand cancel" rubber stamp image.



As is typical, I don't think the glimmer mist spray glitter is really showing up very well in this photo, but I tried to showcase it here.



On the back is a vintage air mail label (I found it on eBay, for anyone who's wondering), whose glue tastes so awful I have to prepare myself to lick it. But that's part of the fun, saying pTOOey and swishing around a tasty beverage as I affix the label... which is cool enough to merit the distaste, in my book.

I feel rather some pressure to make something quite amazing, these times I have sent mail/mail art to the fine authors of the fabulous Good Mail Day book, but it's a fun challenge.

More fabulous faux airmail

Another pen pal decorated her letter in faux airmail style - love it!



I am a big fan of these old-fashioned mail-themed Valentine stickers she used on the back, too.

1980 airmail postcard

Isn't it just grand when the rate on a vintage airmail postcard equals the current domestic postcard rate?



Thank you, eBay.