Summer update for etsy store: postcards only

Happy June! I know it's not officially summer until the solstice, but June pretty much means summer to me. I've hinted at some changes afoot for summer... I will save the big reveal for a post coming in the next week or so, but for now, note the heads up:

Over the summer, I will be selling only original postcards in my etsy shop.

If you want anything else - such as vintage V-mails, stickers, or vintage postage, buy it now or wait until late August...

I will be removing all options except the original postcards on this Saturday, June 4 - so make sure to buy them before then if you want them! Also on June 4, my etsy store will close briefly while we take care of some personal house business and I'll be unable to access my stock. It will reopen by the middle of next week.

More big news about summer fun coming soon...

Of postcards, music, and blog neglect

Nothing new here: grad school is still taking up most of my time and energy. I love it. I spent 5 hours straight yesterday transcribing Miles Davis and Eric Dolphy solos (and was happy as a clam, despite - or perhaps because of - the extremely challenging nature of the work) for a class assignment. That would have been letter time, but... work first.

I have been sending a lot of postcards, though, both to friends and pen pals, and via Postcrossing. My 10 year anniversary with Postcrossing came and went last month (how is it April already??). I feel like a real old hand now.

I've got some other big things I'm juggling in my personal life right now, both joyful and very difficult, that are taking up a lot of time and emotional energy. I feel awful that I've neglected my beloved blog, but I thank the longtime readers for hanging in there and understanding. April is gonna be all kinds of crazy. Come mid-May, things will open up in my life again... and I hope for a summer of much letter-writing and blogging.

Missive Maven on Etsy reopened for 2016!

Happy New Year! I hope everyone is as excited about 2016 as I am. I think it's going to be a wonderful year.

As one of my first major mail actions of the year, I have FINALLY re-opened my Etsy shop! I closed it when we moved in August, and while I had every intention of opening it again in September, my first semester schedule in grad school was just too punishing. I have a lighter course load for the second semester, so I'll have time to tend to any etsy orders that come in... and I finally got my shop inventory a little organized in my study at home. So, for anyone who's been waiting, or curious, pop on over to Missive Maven on Etsy and have a look around.

Pictured above is one of my favorite designs, Zesty French Postman, which is available as pack of 5 postcards, a set of 3 notecards, or as part of the Combination postcard pack.

May 2016 be a year of fabulous mail!

The postman delivers mail to the Red Army

This fine postcard was another very pleasant surprise from Postcrossing, in the form of RU-1125795. According to the sender, it shows a photo entitled "The postman hands a letter to the Red Army," from a set of "victory mail" released by the Russian Post "for the day of victory in the great patriotic war." You know I love any imagery of mail and mail delivery, especially involving mail carriers, and views of postpeople from other countries and eras always fascinate me. Plus, he's got a great bike!



The sender, Yury, even included this awesome stamp showing Vologda lace.

5 (fabulous) new postcard designs

Zesty French postman postcard

I am ever so excited to announce that I've finally finished FIVE new postcard designs in my etsy shop. I am really happy with these new designs, and and eager to share them with you all now.

First, we have the Zesty French postman postcard. This charming vintage-style French postman will bring zest to any mailbox he visits! Meta mail, anyone? He's got a bag full of letters - and he's offering a wax-sealed letter to you! Vintage-style French postage and a French mailbox grace the top of the design above the quote. The quote reads: "As long as there are postmen, life will have zest. - William James"

Unanswered correspondence: Do it Now! postcard

A lovely vintage graphic of a woman writing letters with a dip pen graces this stylish postcard. Her mail sorter is labeled "UNANSWERED CORRESPONDENCE" and the text at the top encourages "DO IT NOW!" I get inspired to write just by looking at this. Doesn't it just make you want to pick up a pen and send some mail? Hopefully it will inspire anyone to whom you send it to do the same.

Swallow's Garden Air Mail postcard

The colors on this one are even brighter in real life, if you can believe it... I think of this as almost Victorian day-glo. This design features a vintage graphics collage with a graceful flying swallow. The lovely bird bears an air mail banner, flying high above its day-glo lakeside garden, with an envelope gracing the corner - what's a mail enthusiast not to love about this postcard set?

WRITE: a letter is better postcard

This postcard can serve as encouragement, or a gentle reminder - put pen to paper (or postcard) and WRITE! An altered vintage postcard graphic featuring artwork with a letter writer dipping a feather quill pen into a bottle of ink, plus a dripping dip pen, the quote reads:
"WRITE
No news is good news,
but a letter is better."

Letterbird postcard set

Last but not least, a matching Letterbird postcard to coordinate with my existing Letterbird sticker seals.

Via airmail, via letterbird - par avian, anyone? This vintage-style swallow brings a new twist to airmail as it carries an envelope in its beak - and the envelope in its beak is sealed with red sealing wax and a sprig of flowers. The swallow is swishing through a blue sky with clouds, as I sometimes fancifully imagine my letters flying on their journeys... the bird presenting the envelope in its beak captures the excitement of the letter it seals.

I hope you all love these images as much as I do... and if you really love them, consider visiting my etsy shop and picking up some for yourself.

Zesty French postman postcard

Unanswered correspondence: Do it Now! postcard

WRITE: No news is good news, but a letter is better postcard

Letterbird postcard set

Swallow's Garden Air Mail postcard

If you want a variety, I also sell Combo packs of 5 postcards, and you can choose any combination of designs you like.

Have a great mail weekend, everyone!

Pony Express postcard by Rifle Paper Co.

I just received this adorable postcard today, from Carla of 365 letters blog. Squee! Love the cute pony express postman riding through a forest. Probably not terribly historically accurate to what the pony express was really like, but hey, it's so CUTE! The postcard is made by the Rifle Paper Co. but I've just been all over their website and can't spot it anywhere on the site. Can you?

Edit: Thanks to blog reader and letter blogger Anne of Letter Love for spotting these postcards on the Paper Source website.

Good mail day - thanks, Carla!

Postman sticker: we have a winner!

We have a winner!



Thanks so much to everyone who rang in on my request for feedback on two different Postman sticker designs. I heard from folks in blog comments, on Twitter, on Flickr, and in personal emails, and I appreciate everyone's opinions.



Formerly known as "Design 2," the guy without the obvious text was the very big winner, and he's now for sale in my etsy shop:

Postman stickers, set of 8


For those two of you who preferred the version with text, and the few kind souls who liked both, I may sell them separately soon, and I will definitely put together a combo pack because I have a couple of other random sizes floating around, too. You were all so helpful in making this decision, especially the suggestion of the combo pack, which honestly would never have occurred to me.

So now my sticker selection includes two options:

Postman stickers, set of 8
To Get a Letter, Write a Letter stickers, set of 8

I would never have even started selling stickers without feedback from readers and etsy customers (many of whom got "preview" versions of the stickers as freebie extras with orders, before I was ready to sell them), so thank you, thank you again!
Now, it's time to go write a letter...

Postman sticker design: which do you prefer?

Dear blog readers, I need your help! I have two different designs of new postman stickers I will soon be selling in my etsy shop, and I really need feedback on which design folks prefer.



Above is design 1. It is a longer shot of the postman, and shows only his torso and includes the ornate "Postman" script in red on the top.



And here we have design 2. It is a closer crop on our friendly postman, but no words.



Incidentally, both are exactly the same size, though one of them has the stickers set a little closer together. Don't let that sway your decision - I'm only lookin for which sticker design people like better. Would you comment or convo me on etsy and let me know which design you prefer? Thanks in advance for your feedback, I really appreciate it!

3 more new postcard designs in my shop

The creative juices are flowing fast this summer, and I am having a ball creating the postcards I wish I could find. So I've got three new designs up in my etsy shop!



1. "Solitude and good company: Lord Byron letter-writing quote postcard". I have always adored this quote by Lord Byron -- in fact, it's the very first item I put on this website when I was designing it a few years ago! -- and decided it was high time to design a postcard that featured it. The quote is at the bottom in white script on black, below a photo I took of three wonderful vintage stamps from the 1974 "Letters Mingle Souls" issue.

The text reads:
Letter writing is the only device for combining solitude with good company.
-Lord Byron



2. I jump for joy over snail mail postcard. When I found this graphic of a girl dancing on a snail, I knew I had to put it to postal use.

Does a good letter bring you joy? Do you jump up and down with excitement when you pull promising snail mail out of your mail box? Okay, maybe there aren't too many of us who are THAT geeky over mail, but you can show your love of good old fashioned snail mail with this vintage graphic of a girl dancing on a snail. What's not to love?



3. NEW re-designed Postman postcard. I was unhappy with the red-bordered old design (which is now discounted at 7 for $5 in case you liked that design with the poem better), so I cleaned up the graphic and removed the poem, and placed it all on a soft cream background.

Reproduction of a beautiful vintage postman illustration. Meta mail, anyone? Look at his bountiful bundle of packages and letters - and he's offering a letter to you!




I've updated my very popular combination pack of postcards to include photos of all 6 designs together, too. In sum total, they are:
Snail mail: Not Dead Yet
Postman (new design on cream with no borders)
To get a letter... Write a letter.
Email: when you care enough to send the very least.
I jump for joy over SNAIL MAIL!
Solitude and good company: Lord Byron letter-writing quote

I hope some of you have as much fun with these as I did - I am certainly going to be sending some of them myself. :-)

Now, in other shop news -- I'm going on vacation next week. I will be in the woods again, my annual pilgrimage, and I'll be far away from my shop. I think I will probably put my shop "on vacation" so that no one orders items and then gets disappointed that they won't ship for a week. But when a shop goes on vacation, the items disappear until the shop returns. So if you're thinking of getting anything from my shop, do it before Monday, or wait until the shop and I come back online on July 18.

Snail Mail: Not Dead Yet!

I'm really excited about these two new updates to my etsy shop. First we have the creepy, skully, "Snail Mail: Not Dead Yet" design.

Don't you hate it when someone says "snail mail is dead" or "no one writes letters anymore" or something like that? I do! I put those sentiments to work in my slightly creepy, goth-inspired, Monty-Python-quoting design.



The postcard reads "Snail Mail: Not Dead Yet" alongside a black-and-white graphic of a skull holding a letter, accented with a red seal on the envelope. (The real postcard won't say "proof," of course.) This skull design has a high-gloss image side, and the writing side has a slight gloss but is still fountain-pen friendly...



...so I took a picture to prove it! This is a close zoom with two different inks (Noodler's Eternal Hunter Green and Legal Lapis, for those who are curious).



I also have a reprint of my Vintage postman illustration design. The original set from moo.com is almost sold out, and aside from being not terribly friendly to fountain pen ink (a bummer, in my book), they are also quite expensive. They cost lots more for me to print, so they cost more for you to buy. I decided to try out a different printer for this run, and I'm really happy with the results, as well as the fountain-pen friendliness. I chose a recycled, matte paper for this postcard.

I have to be honest and say the precision at moo is better. I am a little piffled that the trim on the Postman postcards is inconsistent; nearly always uneven, but sometimes moreso than others. I think I'll have to size the next batch in a more exacting fashion. I'm learning as I go...



If you're indecisive like I am, or you like variety, I'm also selling them in combination packs: 5 postcards, you choose how many of each design.



Here you see the backs of the postcards, with the matte Postman on the bottom and the glossy skull on the top. The matte color isn't quite as bright white.



The frame on the back is a perfect fit for the current design of 29-cent postcard rate stamps, the correct postage rate if you're sending domestically within the USA.

I'm really excited about these postcards! I'm sure I'll be using them for a lot of my own correspondence, too. I'd really, really love your input, though: my blog readers give me the most valuable feedback, and I cherish it. What do you think? Would you buy? Why or why not?

Postman postcard in etsy shop

I found this great vintage notepad, and had postcards printed from the illustration on the front.



I'd like to keep a bunch for myself, but I'm selling some in my etsy shop, too.




The back has some vintage postcard script, and a spot for a stamp.



The poem reads:

HARK! HARK! a whistle now I hear,
Look out and you will see
The postman has a letter
I hope it is for me.



Postman postcard on etsy

Cute, no?

Vintage postal atoms for peace

One good red deserves another. In response to the letter I featured in yesterday's Raise the red lantern blog post, I wrote on vintage Hallmark Muppet stationery, which includes these bright red envelopes.

And I used some of my favorite vintage meta postal stamps:



I love the Universal Postal Congress old mail truck image, and I adore the 70s-feel U.S. Postal Service stamps with their pictures of mail on its journey, but how can you beat the atoms for peace stamp?

Aerogramme with meta mail stamps

Here's another look at the Chinese Sun & Clouds design from the International Girl aerogrammes. I used some of my favorite stamps. Let's have a closer look at those stamps:



Oh yeah. Super postal. How much do I love those U.S. Postal Service 8 cent stamps, with the big old 70s car? They look a little out of focus here, but that's just the way the artwork looks.



And finally, the lovely posterior of the aerogramme.

Singapore stamp: postal services through the years

I got this great letter a few days ago from a pen pal in Singapore, who always writes lovely letters in her beautiful handwriting. But she also shows me the array of gorgeous Singapore stamps, of which this has to be my favorite:



Love the barefoot postman with umbrella, c1910! What visions of old-time tropical mail this brings.