Today is the LAST DAY for my Etsy store!

UPDATE: I learned at 11:45am on May 16 that Etsy has pushed back the deadline so my shop stays open until May 31. Learn more here

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Today is the very last day to buy anything from my etsy shop, Missive Maven on etsy. After today, it closes forever. It is a long and complicated story involving policy changes at etsy that relate to payment, which affect the buyer somewhat and the seller dramatically. You can read the whole story in my prior post if you're interested.

Letterbird postcard set

The quantities of stickers are somewhat limited and what is listed on the site is what is accurate. When they're gone, they're gone. There are more cards and postcards available, but that point is moot since the shop closes at the end of the day today, so buy now if you want anything! (I do not know exactly what time the shop will close. That is up to etsy.)




I'm very sad and upset about this, but there's nothing I can do except exit as gracefully and gratefully as I can. I may look to re-open another online store elsewhere next fall (suggestions and opinions are welcome!), but nothing will be sold online before then... and I may decide not to reopen. I thank you for your great support of my shop over the years, and to everyone who's bought more items in the last few days and shown a lot of love. It's been a lovely time.

Last chance to buy Missive Maven etsy goods!!

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...

2016 sticker organization system

In my previous post about my newly organized writing desk and study, I mentioned I had a new organization system for stickers and stamps, and that I was considering separate blog posts about said organizational systems. Blog readers were so enthusiastic about that prospect that I must deliver! So here's a look at my new organization system for stickers.

A little background: I have a lot of stickers. You will see that in this post. I use them almost exclusively for mail and mail art, decorating envelopes, letters, postcards, etc. Previously they were fairly loose and unorganized, floating through desk drawers and scattered on my desk in piles and mis-matched envelopes... they were a mess. I could never find anything. I would say, "hey, this person loves owls, I know I have some adorable tiny owl stickers somewhere," and then I would root through desk drawers searching for them. It was a waste of time. I always meant to organize my stickers, but it was a pretty huge project. As I was setting up my writing desk, I had both energy and inspiration, and decided to do it. I should have taken photos of all the piles of my stickers as they were spread out across the entire study floor, but I didn't. Oh well.

So, my current system involves the following components, all of which I will show and explain:

Large sticker books

Small sticker books / boxes of stickers

Loose stickers sorted by theme in pocket dividers in a 3-ring binder

Loose stickers sorted by theme in drawers

Above we have the large sticker books, all together at last. They are all the same size, mostly but not exclusively from Dover. I am particularly fond of the Edward Gorey and Kliban cat sticker books. These live on top of my stationery shelves, normally tucked in next to my mail organizer. (If you want to see the whole setup in contect, see my previous post about my newly organized writing desk and study.)



Small sticker books and sticker boxes, which fortunately are all about the same size, are stacked in a pile on top of the stationery shelves, right next to my writing desk. This seems haphazard and isn't completely ideal, but I have in my head a fairly accurate idea of which stickers live there. The small books are almost all Dover, and include essentials like the Glitter old-time cats and kittens stickers (kitty kitsch!) and the Cavallini Par Avion Tin. There are also a couple of random notebooks and journals in there. Ooops. Nothing's perfect, folks!



And now, the meat of the matter: loose stickers. These were the biggest nightmare. I do not assert that my system is ideal, and I created it on the fly with materials on hand: a 3-ring binder and a few extra plastic 3-pocket postcard holders. Each pocket has a theme, and here we have fauna (glitter and non-glitter) and fantasy/mythical creatures (hello, unicorns!). You can see through to some of the pages behind it. I will spare you each and every one of the sections, but others include glitter/sparkle stars and rainbows, bats/Halloween, flora, objects, etc. This system clearly still has flaws, a major one being that it's very easy for stickers to fall out the top, so I'm careful when I'm handle it. A minor flaw is that I still have to pull them out of the sections to find something, but it is less of a hassle than rooting through entire drawers as it used to be.



The drawers still contain loose stickers, but each drawer has its own exclusive theme: the largest themes of the lot. This drawer holds exclusively CAT STICKERS. Ha. 'Nuff said.



The other drawer has one main theme with a smaller unrelated subset. The main theme is mail / meta / writing (air mail labels, mail-themed stickers, stamp-themed stickers, stickers of pens, etc) and the minor theme is snowflakes, because I tend to use a lot of snowflake stickers, and I like them close at hand.

So there you have it. My system is highly idiosyncratic and tailored to my own tastes and collections, but so far it is working extremely well for me. I'm curious to see how this system holds up over time; I am sure I will develop some complaints, but it's better than a mess of unorganized stickers!

Who's excited for Halloween?!?

Halloween is my favorite holiday. If you've been following my blog for long, you'll know I've done many, many posts about Halloween and Halloween mail. Partly this is because I adore bats, but also because I just like the spooky autumnal mood. I can't really explain why I love Halloween so much, I just do.

So it tends to be around Halloween that I'll jump back into Swap-bot for a couple of Halloween-type postcard swaps. I just participated in a Bat-themed Halloween postcard swap, which involved a handmade bat postcard. Can do! I had great fun using my bat washi tapes and stickers.



Of course this was a perfect occasion to use one of my brand-new Batman stamps, just issued last week.

Now that I'm posting the photos, I just realized that I never used any of my great bat rubber stamps on it! Oh well, there is plenty more mail (October and otherwise) for that.

Happy Halloween mailing!

Roses and unicorns: new sticker seal designs

I'm very excited to share with you three new envelope sticker seal designs I've just listed in my etsy shop. First, as seen above, we have a magical unicorn!



Who wouldn't want to seal a letter with a unicorn? Okay, I can think of some people who wouldn't, but I am not among them.



Next up, a lovely bright seal with a single red rose in full bloom.



I love roses in real life and in artwork, and this large, lush red rose bloom in a vintage illustration is one of the loveliest I've seen.



Last but not least, there is a vase of blooming roses, overflowing with blossoms in yellow, pink, and red.



I really enjoy the colors in this old-fashioned vase of roses, which is more subtle than the single large red blossom.

These three new sticker designs - unicorn, red rose, and old-fashioned vase of roses - are the new additions to my other three sticker designs - postman, To get a letter, write a letter, and letterbird - which have been around for a while but have proved fairly popular. I hope there are other letter writers out there who may enjoy these new designs, too.

Last mail art of 2012

A postcrosser who received one of my postcards asked me if I did any mail art. It occurred to me that I haven't posted about anything I've sent in absolute ages. It's long overdue! I had a tough fall for letter-writing, and my sent stats have been fairly paltry until December, when I really tried to plunge in again as best I could.

I wrote and decorated this letter on December 31, 2012. I had so much fun breaking out my washi tape, stickers, rubber stamps, postage stamps, and all the fixings... they had sat gathering dust for quite a while. My cats Soda and Memo (of blessed memory) adorn the photo stamps, and in fact that stamp of Memo with the fur wig is the last one I had.



The back of the envelope isn't quite so busy, just some red and black and of course a fine Red Tango cat sticker.



Happy New Year! My best wishes to all blog readers and postal enthusiasts for a fantastic mail year in 2013.

Of course I spent money in the Edward Gorey House giftshop...

I promise this will be my LAST post on my visit earlier this week to Edward Gorey House (at least for a while...?), but I thought it essential to share with you my purchases from the gift shop. Of course I was highly excited about the gift shop, and indeed, they had a very fine Gorey selection.

Above, we have the poster for this year's exhibit itself, Edward Gorey's Envelope Art. The poster doesn't show Gorey's actual envelope art, but it does show some lovely mail-related Gorey artwork. I wish they had this poster available as postcards, or this artwork as a postcard, but oh well. I was so taken with the poster that I just had to buy it, for decor as well as a fun commemorative. It is adapted from Gorey's cover art for "Other People's Mail," Berg Collection, NY Public Library, 1974.



They had a fine selection of Gorey postcards, so of course I had to buy a bunch. Here they all are. I included the paper back they came in, because it was pre-stamped with bat stamps. SWOON!



I bought one postcard of the artist himself...



There's the full info from the back of the postcard, for those of you who (like me) want the full story.



I was terribly excited to see these "The World of Edward Gorey" stickers, because as far as I know, they're discontinued. I used to buy them regularly online and in certain bookstores/stationery stores, but I haven't found them anywhere in years! So I had to buy three sets. Yay.

I wanted to chronicle my finds before I sent any, but now I think it's time to go write some Edward Gorey postcards.

"To Get a Letter, Write a Letter:" new round sticker design

When I listed my "To get a letter, write a letter" square envelope seals in my etsy shop, a number of my blog readers and pen pals commented that they would like the sticker better in a round design.

You know what? I do, too.



Now you can get this design in either the original square with rounded corners, or the new round / circular design.



Sealing an envelope with this sticker is an excellent reminder that the best way to get mail is to send mail!

Par avion, or par avian? Letterbird seals

I've just listed a brand-new item in my etsy shop:

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.



The letterbirds are sold in packs of eight (8) self-adhesive glossy round circle sticker seals. They are 1.5" square, full color printing of a vintage-style bird with an envelope in its beak. You can use them to seal envelopes, spice up mail, or decorate letters - an excellent mail art tool!



If you like mail-related envelope seals, you can check out all 3 designs I currently offer.



Happy mailing, and write on!

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!

To get a letter, write a letter... stickers!

I've been sending little "extras" in orders from my etsy shop, and a few people have asked if I'd be selling them. So, here we go with the official debut of another new Missive Maven original: "To get a letter, write a letter" stickers.



I personally have a lot of fun using them as letter seals and envelope dressing, but these 1.5" square stickers with rounded corners have endless possibilities.



I now have two items in this design: the pictured stickers, and also a postcard set.

Silver Halloween letter

Yes yes, I am terribly behind in blog posts. I'm working my way through October letter photos now. So, here we have one of my more decorative and exciting Halloween letters! I do hope the metallic silver envelope went through with no problems, along with the day-glo green gel pen ink for the address. (That ink isn't totally waterproof, so I covered it with tape.) The envelope features some of my favorite Halloween stickers, and is being modeled by a cute bendy skeleton I got from one of the Letter Writers Alliance RSVP Halloween packages.



Naturally, Soda had to get in on the photographic action. I took a bunch of her with this letter - she seemed really to like this one especially - but in an effort not to barrage you with a million Soda pictures, I just picked my favorite.



And ta-daa! - the back. I love those stickers that make a play on words with favorite alcoholic beverages and spooky imagery... skin and tonic! Eyeball highball! HA!

More spooky Halloween letters and postcards to come in future posts... because I know a lot of you readers, just like me, love Halloween year 'round.

Red + black&white washi tape

I'm really into washi tape lately! Washi tape, for the uninitiated, is decorative Japanese masking/paper tape. You can just tear it with your hands, you don't need scissors, and it's really easy to handle. You can even remove it and replace it, and the variety of designs is really lovely. I myself am partial to the black and white patterns, but there's a lot of different options out there. I get my washi tape from Pretty Tape on etsy. I also used an official Letter Writers Alliance mailing label, but I can't link to it directly because it's a members-only purchase. (Go join!) Oh yes, and some cute cat stickers and a little sparkle-pen embellishment.



I sealed it with a sticker from Glitter Old-Time Cats and Kittens sticker book, which is full of weird gems like this one.

I've blogged a lot about postcards lately - and while it's true I've been doing more postcards than ever, I still write lots of letters, too! (It was high time for this letter post.) For a little statistics break - I don't post my sent stats regularly any more, but I still keep them for myself - June was an unusually post-ful month. I sent 104 postcards and 48 letters.

Happy summer mailing, everyone!