Magical Creatures Postcard swap

Do you like fairies? Dragons? Unicorns? Elves? I do! And I love fantasy artwork. I feel like I could use a little magic in my life right now, so I created the Magical Creatures Postcard Swap on Swap-bot. If you're interested in swapping a magical creature postcard, do check it out!

It's an international swap, with only one partner, so you only need one of those magical postcards on hand. The sign-up deadline is on August 13, and the send deadline is a week later on August 21. I hope to see lots of interested folks joining in the swapping of magical creatures!

Bats + dragons = a good Postcrossing week

Sometimes Postcrossing can seem like a fruitless desert of boring touristy postcards, but other times it's full of lovely surprises. This past week has certainly been the "feast" in the "feast or famine" cycle.

Above we have the fabulous US-1779560 from the USA / New Mexico. The sender, Dan, said he hadn't figured he'd ever be sending a bat postcard to a Postcrosser, but he'd picked it up because he loves nature. This is a southwestern desert-type bat with a scorpion in its mouth. LOVE! I really like the realistic yet colorful artwork, and of course the bat is wonderful.



Dan was so thoughtful that he even used a bat stamp! This is from the "pollinator" series from a few years back... when the first class rate was 41 cents.



Then, to continue another of my favorite themes, Helen in the Netherlands sent me NL-1328714 from the Netherlands. I hope you can tell by the size of this photo that the postcard is filled with wonderful dragons! The dragons and knights are covering a fantasy-styled old map that looks to be burned at the edges, and the ornate text at the bottom reads "Dragons of the World." The postcard is called "Dragon Map" but I don't see any artist credit on it. Helen works in a bookshop and she loves to read. She mentioned that her son loves Christopher Paolini's Inheritance cycle, which is a dragon fantasy series. I loved that series, too.

And speaking of dragons, I have a confession to make:

I've been spending a ton of time reading this summer. I always read a lot in the summer, but I've become completely engrossed in George R. R. Matin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" series. I started the first book, "Game of Thrones," at the beginning of the month, and read it in a week... and I was totally hooked. While on vacation I read "A Clash of Kings," and now I'm in the middle of the third book, "A Storm of Swords." I am completely, totally loving it - one of the best fantasy series I've ever read, I think, and I've read a lot of them! - but it is, of course, eating up a lot of mail time. But it's the summer and I've got a fair bit of time, and I am loving the luxury of hanging out in my hammock chair for hours at a time, getting lost in a good book.

So I note all that side literary information by way of explanation, and perhaps apology, for why I've not been blogging as much!

So for now, go write a letter or read about dragons, and have a lovely Sunday.

Dragon seal

This fine wax seal - is it a dragon or a gryphon? - came to me from a wise correspondent who puts seals on the inside of an envelope, right on the page of the letter, so that they don't get mangled in the mail sorting machines. Love this one!

Dragon mail

This great letter has a Chinese flavor in the use of stamps. It's hard to tell in this photo, but there's glitter in the two stamps on the front of the envelope, too.



I love the dragon holding the letter!



Know your fortune. "Guests coming. Means trouble" could have been my August fortune.

Contains valuable document

This is made from an envelope template PDF download available to members of the Letter Writers Alliance. I used a translucent blue vellum-type paper, printed from my trusty laser printer. Glue stick wouldn't hold the flaps closed properly, so of course I used glitter glue. A dragon sticker guards the contents.



I stamped the back of the letter, inside the envelope, so it would show through the vellum paper. The owl says "A note for you."

Send me some gmail stickers already!

This is so cool I can hardly believe it - Gmail is giving away free stickers! Quick! Check it out on the Google blog.

I am breaking my own rules of blogging (but they're my rules, so... it's kinda fun to let myself break 'em sometimes) by posting this photo and info ahead of a whole bunch of letter photos that are still waiting to be posted, because this is just so damn cool.

You have to WRITE to gmail, via old fashioned snail mail, and send a SASE. How cool is that?? I love Gmail, it is such a smart and simple email interface, and I have long thought the red M envelope logo would make a great mailing sticker. And now it IS a sticker, complete with sparkly background! I am totally salivating over the unicorn one. I promise to post photos of them once they arrive. I am not skilled enough to include the photos of the stickers that are on the gmail blog, so really, just follow the link to take a gander, it's worth it.

Above is my note I wrote to the gmail-ers, included with the SASE. The very cute notepad is from original artwork by Annette at nutandbee.com; that design is called, charmingly, "where rainbows come from."

Otay, enough babbling - go get your gmail stickers. They say the free sticker offer ends 14 Feb 2009, so you have a little more than a week to get crackin'.

I'll leave you with the back of the envelope I sent gmail, including my awful attempted doodle of the Gmail M envelope logo.