World Post Day: Mail Social Club at the National Postal Museum

I celebrated World Post Day at the National Postal Museum with their fabulous Mail Social Club, coordinated by Melissa of Craftgasm. It was one heck of an awesome way to celebrate World Post Day, and I found myself wondering, why haven't I been to one of these before?!? Circumstances in my life conspired against me, but the event is now monthly, and I am sure this was only the first of many I shall attend.



The evening began with a tour of the stamp gallery with the head Philatelist, which included a very interesting lecture on "covers," aka envelopes. Unfortunately none of my photos of that bit turned out very well, except the photo above of the table of freebie covers - one lovely cover for everyone. I took an aerogramme, because hey, why not? (Canceled stamps don't excite me nearly as much as ones I can use and send.)



Then, the real fun began! We headed to a lovely education space upstairs, which was a phenomenal workspace for our mail social. The theme of the evening was envelope making, and every table had scissors and envelope templates already set up, including the fabulous 2014 postal rates graphic by Donovan of the LWA. The event was held in a private room, part of the Byrne Education Loft.



Here you can see the front of the room. Not the greatest photo, I know, but you can sort of get the idea. What you can't see is all the AMAZING FREE MATERIALS that were provided! I knew I would love any mail social, and that it would be a grand event, but I had no idea how very generous Melissa and The National Postal Museum would be. Not only did they provide scissors, envelope templates, glue sticks, and all kinds of awesome envelope-making paper, but they also provided washi tape, used stamps and other embellishments, pens and pencils - more than everything you'd need to make gorgeous envelopes. You could have arrived completely empty-handed and still come away with awesome goodies. Thank you, Melissa and the Postal Museum, for your generosity!



Here is Melissa teaching us how to make envelopes. Check out the very awesome George Washington stamp design on the window behind her! Yes, this is a place for mail geeks to get all nerd-tastic over details such as these.



Above, my table at work. Another amazing benefit: meeting other mail geeks, some of whom were already pen pals! I got to meet and share a table with Allison of OMG Crafties and Mary of Uncustomary Art. I am good with candids and casual background photos but very bad with engineering poses, so I'm sorry I don't get to share their smiling lovely faces with you (d'oh! We all should have posed for a photo together! Damn my shy social introversion...), but sharing a table and mail-making with them was beyond fabulous. Mary and Allison were veterans of the Mail Social Club scene, and they knew to bring a lovely array of supplies. Mary also wrote lots of mail while there, which I thought was a pretty neat trick. You don't have to participate in the planned activity, you can just do your own mail thing. I'll have to keep this in mind as it's now getting into the season for people to make (and freak out about) holiday cards, and, well... y'all know how I feel about that scene. But now I know I can just participate in mail camaraderie and ignore the holiday hubbub when the time comes.



I made a short little Vine video of my envelope-making; this is my first time trying to embed a Vine video so we'll see how this goes. (Feedback, anyone? Like the video or is it distracting? I could do more of these in the future, or consider it a novelty. I'm undecided.)



Here's one of the envelopes I made at the event. I'd like to note that all these materials - envelope paper, glue stick, washi tape, Canadian butterfly stamp embellishment - were provided at the event!



The event was well-attended, with many happy folks making mail and envelopes. The room was alive with chatter, and the organizers even played some good tunes for our working inspiration. I commented to Mary that the only thing that was missing was wine! (I understand well why the National Postal Museum can't provide THAT for free.)



I had to leave a bit early and unfortunately couldn't stay for the whole event, but on my way out I snapped this photo of the stamp gallery, alone and quiet at night, with the reflection of the neon "Celebrate" stamp sign. It was certainly a cause for celebration.



Finally, here's my haul from the event. I was able to get there a bit early and just make it to the post office (within the Postal Museum, of course!) before it closed, and not only was it World Post Day, but it was also the date of release for the brand-new Batman stamps, so even though I pre-ordered them online, I bought myself a couple of sheets right there. (Good thing, too - my pre-order still hasn't arrived yet.) I also picked up these fabulous $2 bobcat stamps, which I'd not seen before, and thought were too awesome to pass up.

So, the final verdict -- the Mail Social Club was utterly marvelous! I am already excited to attend another one. Mark your calendars: the next Mail Social Club is on Thursday, November 13!

October 9 is World Post Day

Today is October 9 - World Post Day! Alas, the USA doesn't seem to make much of this happy celebration of worldwide postal services, but many other countries do celebrate, including Sri Lanka which has issued fine commemorative stamps like the one shown above.

Postcrossing has a lovely blog post about World Post Day, including a listing of worldwide events. I am very excited that I will be joining in the event for the USA: a meeting of the Mail Social Club at the National Postal Museum! I'll get a tour of their stamp gallery, and participate in making mail with other enthusiasts. I'm so tickled that I can celebrate World Post Day in this special way this evening. Perhaps I can take some photos and share the fun with you afterwards.

Happy World Post Day, and happy mailing!

Letter Writing Socials on April 28

If you live in Chicago or Washington, DC, you are in luck - there are letter writing socials coming up this Saturday in both those fine cities.

LWA Letter Writing Social in Chicago
In Chicago, the Letter Writers Alliance is hosting a social at Read/Write Library from 2-5pm. "Bring your address book and favorite pen. Well-behaved children are welcome with a parent or guardian." You need to RSVP for this one, as there is a limit of 20 attendees, and right now they're about half filled up.


National Postal Museum Letter Writing Social in Washington, DC
In Washington, DC, the Smithsonian National Postal Museum is hosting a Letter Writing Social, too. The National Postal Museum event is from 12-3pm, free, and open to the public. No RSVP necessary, just stop on by! What they say about the event:

Amaze a friend by sending an artfully handwritten, paper-based message instead of the usual tweet or text. They might just write you back!
One-of-a-kind stationery, unique postcards, pretty paper, ink stamps, retro airmail labels, cancelled stamps, a somewhat functional typewriter, and mailable supplies are provided in this veritable letter-writing lounge. Postage stamps available for purchase in the museum's Stamp Store.

Again, both events take place this Saturday, April 28.

Lovely stamp image design above by Melissa Esposito of Craftgasm.

Goodies from the National Postal Museum

A VERY generous pen pal who is lucky enough to live in Washington, DC sent me this pack of goodies from a recent visit to the National Postal Museum. I have often longed to go there, but this pack from the Alphabetilately exhibit is surely the next best thing. ("ALPHABET + PHILATELY or Alphabetilately is the alphabet of philately:" basically A to Z in stamps. Don't ask me how to pronounce it, because I have no idea.)



She sent some postcards, groovy bookmarks, and an awesome V-mail reproduction...



and they were all free for her! Admission is free, the goodies are free... ain't the Smithsonian grand? (The National Postal Museum is a branch of the Smithsonian.)



I got such a kick out of the mailing label she used. Potential side effects: JOY!

Vintage postal goodness for the LWA

Vintage 1971 envelope from my grandfather, who used to work for the postal service. I found a stash in his house and he said take 'em.

With vintage stamps, LWA button and Sheaffer Agio F (filled with Noodler's Eternal Hunter Green). I broke out the special stamps for Donovan, one of the Letter Writers Alliance founders.