Paper elephants, all in a line

This fine letter, with its own special Letter Writers Alliance postmark, came to me from Donovan, one of the LWA mavens herself.



She often indulges me with bats.



The stationery has to be one of the most charmingly re-purposed examples I've seen: it's a line of paper elephants, connected by a string. Very fun to read and open!

Cat postcard from Japan

This excellent cat postcard came to me from Japan via the Cat-cards #3 swap on Swap-bot. I get a lot of crappy cards from Swap-Bot, but this one really delighted me - something about the composition and illustration style make it one of my favorites.



Also - it had killer stamps! I am loving the elephant holding the heart-envelope, of course.

Another iridescent peacock stamp!

Remember that incredible iridescent Thai peacock stamp I blogged about back in August? That came to me from Postcrosser Sathitporn.

Well, get this - his brother, Nareeporn, is also a Postcrosser. Nareeporn got my name on a Postcrossing Postcard ID, too - and he wrote that he saw my blog and blog entry about his brother's card and stamp, noted I loved the peacock stamps, and sent me a DIFFERENT stamp from the same series on this postcard! That is SO COOL! And, just to be extra-awesome, he used another elephant stamp. I love elephants, too. Wow. I was just blown away by the story... Postcrossing really does demonstrate how small the world can be.



It came on the back of this postcard.

Thank you, Nareeporn in Bangkok!

Vintage stamps, received

Here are some fine vintage stamps on a letter from a fine pen pal; I believe all these lovelies came from Errol Murphy, in case you're hoping to get your hands on some of your own old stamps.

My favorite is the African Elephant Herd!

Red and gold elephants

What a gorgeous treat was this paper. And the writer also has gorgeous handwriting, in this case with a flex fountain pen.

I have a particular soft spot for elephants, and the combination here of deep red and gold leaf is really striking. I don't think my photography and use of light really do it justice, but it is a treasure. (Go ahead, take a closer look.)

Package from Thailand

I bought a pen (a Pilot SP-100n EF fountain pen, for anyone who's wondering) from Thailand on eBay - good deal, free shipping. Fun in any case, but I never expected it to arrive in such an adorable package!

(Dig the little elephant on the postage meter stamp.)

Also, the pen was really well packaged inside a nearly-indestructible PVC pipe.