Happy H-OWL-oween!

This postcard is from one of my vintage Halloween postcard books that I purchased via Amazon.com, but in all honesty, I forget which one. It was either this one or this one.

Happy Halloween! I hope everyone has a fun and spooky day.

My stationery is not stationary swap envelope

Way back in July, I participated in a wonderful Swap-bot swap called My Stationery is not Stationary, hosted by the lovely PostMuse. She sweetened the deal with a giveaway on her blog, too.

I knew any swap she hosted was going to be well-organized, and it sounded great, so I participated with glee. Above you see the envelope I decorated for the swap,



...plus a little glitter-pen embellishment to the deco tape. The recipient liked birds, so I used a bird theme for the stationery and used more birds on the envelope.

I miss the summertime, when I had time to decorate envelopes like that...

PostMuse later did a summary of the swap, with her wonderful follow-up, if you're looking to read more about it.

It was one of the best swaps I've participated in - thoroughly enjoyed it.

Slow owl post from the Philippines

I exchange postcards occasionally with The Archer in the Philippines, but it ends up being very occasionally, as her postcards arrive incredibly slowly. I don't know which end has the sluggishness, but it's often rather amazing. I had one sent in August arrive in October, and this lovely Philippine owl sent in December arrived in March!



Check out these incredible stamps, though - I am in love with the cartoon mailman!

When you give a hoot, we deliver

This spooky envelope came to me from Carla of 365 letters. It looks like all these decorations were printed right on the envelope. My favorite is the Owl Post: When you give a hoot, we deliver. Love it! (Have I mentioned I'm a huge Harry Potter fan?)

Owl Post

This subtle Owl Post logo is my favorite aspect of the Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone postcard book. It tends to get hidden under writing, but I had to share this image with you.

The owl post concept is one of my favorite aspects of the Harry Potter world - AND that they still write letters (with quills, no less!).



Each postcard is different, but here's a creepy view of Professor Quirrel.

Owls for an owl

Once again we have the fabu Red Tango stationery set from the Dark Horse Comics stationery line. I just love this one so much.

On this owlish envelope, I matched some vintage owl stamps, with an American Kestrel thrown in for fowl play.

Maybe even vampyres like to receive letters...

This blog reader letter from Germany has to be one of the most creative and lovely ever. Of course it included bats so I'm sold, but it's also a fine letter. It is a self-fold, a really fine job that was secured with stamps and included the clear note of where to cut without marring the contents. I tried to blur out some of the text in a careful way so that you can see the fold lines in case you want to fold a letter like this.



Bats! An owl! A vampyre reference (love the Euro spelling)! I've left the first paragraph and postscript intact so you can read them: View large. Oh - and I've just gotta say how much I love that bat stamp.



And you gotta get a closer look at this fine artwork (View large, and here's the P.S. larger.

In case you can't read it, she wrote: "My little drawing here is not to say that letter-writing is dead, but on the contrary to show that it is going to outlive! And maybe even vampyres like to receive letters..."

Indeed! I am absolutely certain that they must. (Anyone read Elizabeth Kostova's "The Historian?" Yeah.)



Even the front was fun, with cool stamps and a Luftpost sticker. And what's the little sailboat saxophone dude? Love him!

Hammerpress card with UK Fairies stamp

So I read about the release of the fantastic UK Mythical Creatures stamps from the ever-informative and delightful Letter Writers Alliance blog. I have been in awe of these stamps since their release - even contemplating paying international shipping for the very expensive Stamp cards of these gorgeous images... and then one of my pen pals from Scotland sent me a gorgeous letter with one of them! I was so excited to see one of these up close:



But the loveliness doesn't end there. This Scottish gal often uses lovely stationery, and this letter was also my first glimpse of the Hammerpress cards from Chronicle Books. (Sorry for the general link - I'm not sure if these are the Correspondence Cards or the Notecards. Chronicle Books, if you're reading my blog posting - your descriptions and image varieties on your website leave much to be desired.)



This card included more of the silver-ink highlights of the envelope, and had a green theme with a fantastic owl.



Even the back of the envelope was lovely - I'm really charmed by the use of silver ink on the brown paper envelope.

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."

Green Owl from Red Tango

One of my new favorites from the Dark Horse Comics stationery line is the Red Tango stationery set. Each designed page is a different color theme, all with kind of cute retro-type images. The cat is wonderful, too, but this green owl has to be my favorite. Maybe it's because I'm a child of the 70s, and this reminds me so much of the decorative arts from my childhood.

Fountain pen users who are wondering - it's fairly good FP paper. The coated colors make some inks play more nicely on it than others. With some pens there is bleedthrough, with others, not. My Parker 51 loaded with Waterman Black is always a safe bet on any Dark Horse papers, and that combo never bleeds through or feathers.



This went out to a LEXer (a person from The Letter Exchange, that is) who responded to my listing in the winter issue.

For anyone out there who's reading this and is a LEX member, I'm #12447. Someday (soon, really.... yeah...) I will dedicate a post to just how cool LEX is. (In the meantime, read a bit more about it here.) I'm kind of waiting to see how many more people I actually do get letters from, since I've only got one regular correspondent from that venue - but it seems like a wonderful resource so far. More to come.

Pearl says: it's only a paper moon

I just finished off my last Jezebel card last week, and the very next day, my fresh order with new cards arrived! This one is called "Pearl says: it's only a paper moon."

A special correspondent deserved one of the precious "letters mingle soul" stamps, plus some groovy owls. Yay vintage stamps.

I found a rubber stamp on eBay with the same image, but inverted, so I used that on the back:

Owls + California

My grandfather, who worked for the post office for most of his adult life, has bequeathed his stamp collection to my mother and me, on the condition that we'd actually appreciate it and use it. We're saving some, I think, but he has masses and masses of them. My mother has the stamps, and she's taken to sending me a few sheets in each letter, so I get her letters PLUS the gift of cool vintage stamps!

They are such a treasure. More wonderful old stamp photos are sure to come.

(On this letter, I was proud of myself for using the California stamp, since this letter went to California.)

One nota bene for vintage stamp enthusiasts: old glue does not hold well. They tend to fall off envelopes, as my mom and I report to each other on our letters which ones make it and which don't... (and some of my faithful correspondents have clued me in to this as well). The letters still seem to come through okay, but my little tip is to dab just a tiny bit of glue on the envelope where the stamp goes, to ensure a safe passage.