It's almost Monster Time!

Bump - just three days left to sign up for theMonster Postcard Swap #2 swap that I'm hosting on Swap-Bot! If you're interested in sending and receiving some mail monsters, do join in and sign up.

Swap reminders: last chance to sign up!

Observant readers may recall my recent blog posts about the Monster postcard swap and Literary postcard swap I'm hosting on swap-bot. The signup deadline for the Monster postcard swap is today, and the signup deadline for the Literary postcard swap is on Monday. If you're thinking of singing up, pull that trigger now!

Monster postcard swap
Literary postcard swap

And since this is tangentially related to the concept of a Literary postcard swap... did you know that Saturday, August 6 is Do Nothing But Read Day?

Monster postcard swap

Well, folks, I'm trying another swap-bot swap! This one is much more general, not nearly so specific as my last Unicorn postcard swap. No, this one includes the entire category of monsters. Please have a look at my brand-new Monster postcard swap, and sign up if you're interested. I've given lots of time to go out and buy a monster postcard before the signup deadline on July 30, and then the swap deadline isn't until August 8.

This lovely painting of Herman Munster as a shriner that I used as the swap image is from On Tender Hooks, a postcard book by Chronicle Books featuring the art of Isabel Samaras. All the postcards are this fantastic, and many feature monsters.

I'm mulling over the idea of doing a mythical creatures postcard swap next, so that can incude unicorns AND gnomes and fairies and dragons and all that good stuff. But not yet. I'll keep you posted.

Magnificent Muppet Monsters!

Here's another fabulous letter by my favorite Muppet-artistic pen pal. (I've blogged about his previous offerings, including a Sesame Street artwork postcard and a Shockingly Muppet-licious letter.) The stationery is "Mailing the Muppets Keep-in-touch kit," released by the U.S. Postal service in conjunction with the Jim Henson/Muppets stamps in 2005.



The generally disapproving Sam the Eagle guards the back of the envelope.



Around the edges of each page, inside of each little orange square, he drew his own monster doodles...



...inspired, as he writes, by Walt Kelly, Dr. Seuss, Jim Henson, etc.

Need a closer look at those doodled dudes?



I know I do!



What a treat!

Cute smiling monsters

I had never seen this stationery before it arrived carrying blog reader letter. I love it. I love the cute smiling animals monsters, some with fangs.