Schmoomunitions cat postcards

I don't even remember when I found out about the fabulous Schmoomunitions on etsy, but I've been very enamored of her cat postcards ever since. They mostly looks sort of forlorn, but very feline, and they pull at my heartstrings without being excessively cutesy. The one shown above is from her Worried cat postcard set of 5.

When I lost my dear cat Memo, I received quite a few very sweet letters and postcards of condolence. They really brought me a lot of comfort, and it was part of my ritual to respond to a condolence letter/postcard immediately, and I always did so on one of the Schmoomunitions postcards. I ended up ordering more when I ran out, just because the mood seemed perfect to thank someone for acknowledging my grief.



I wrote a few in one day and photographed them all sitting on my table, knowing that I'd eventually do a blog post about it.

I love how she describes the name of her shop so I'm going to quote it directly:

And the name Schmoomunitions comes from my dearest deceased cat "Schmoo" and ammunitions as in artillary as in things needed to protect yourself from the harshnesses of modern life. So having one of my artworks will protect your emotional state just like a bazooka!!!!!

In the days and weeks right after Memo was gone, I certainly felt like I could use some extra protection of my emotional state!

She also notes that she takes care of a group of feral cats, and purchases from her shop will help with their care.

I wish I'd taken a photo of the backs of some of the postcards, too - some of them are different, but they're all really cute.

Dogsled mail

As further proof that I need to continue the blog posts about great stamps, a Canadian blog reader sent me a fine letter with these great Canadian meta-mail stamps showing historical mail delivery methods in the hinterlands of our neighbor to the north. I think they are a new release? He explained them quite nicely, so I shall quote him directly:

The first stamp tells the story of the winter of 1910 in the Magdalen Islands. A telegraph cable snapped and left the inhabitants cut off, so they put their mail in that barrel, rigged a sail to it, and sent it off with a letter asking the finder to mail it. The second stamp shows a dog sled carrying mail, which until airmail was the only reliable method in northern Canada. It was still used regularly until the 1960s, and it's still possible to have mail delivered this way by the Gold Rush Trail Dogsled Mail Run in January!

Wow. So incredibly cool. And I am so very delighted to have received these stamps firsthand!

So... anybody ever had mail delivered via the Gold Rush Trail Dogsled Mail Run?

Tarot reading envelope

I felt that my response to the most exceptional "Unpick to open" sewn letter deserved something special, so I sent it in this envelope I made from a painting of young girls reading tarot. It came from one of those 1980s Time/Life "Mysteries of the Unknown" books. (Those are fodder for some fine envelopes.)



On the back, a vintage-image sticker... I think I might dig one of those pedestrian hobby horses.

Unpick to open

I warn you this is going to be a photo-heavy post - quite possibly my most photo-heavy post ever, but I must share all the details with you, as this is quite possibly the most amazing piece of mail I've ever received.



This came from a woman who is clearly a talented seamstress, as the entire envelope was hand-sewn. I picture it being hand-delivered gingerly and with reverence from one postman to the next, because it arrived in absolutely pristine condition; had I packed this in my luggage in an international flight, it would not have arrived any more perfectly. (In fact, it probably would have been considerably more smooshed!)



I have to zoom in on all these little details, because they just blow me away. Embroidered air mail! Multiple different kinds of stamp fabric! Meta mail to make me swoon!



Check out those vintage stamps! Shillings, people! (I am one of those Anglophile Americans who can get a thrill just by whispering "shilling" to myself. Don't ask.)



And postbox stamps! Glorious red postbox stamps! Does it get any better than this? I don't think so.



I don't sew myself, not anything, not ever, not even a button - so I am even more impressed by this. Does this sort of hand-embroidering of every single letter not take a ridiculous amount of time? It seems to me it must.



Now, on to the back. It had that "Unpick to open" embroidery with which I started this post, plus a hand-embroidered return address. And opened - there's even DIFFERENT liner fabric! You can see a bit of the letter peeking out here.



Now check out the fabric of the envelope lining: old letters and postcards! Gaaaa! (Clearly I am at a loss for words now, just making sounds and happy mail drool.)



Also, because two is better than one - another hand-embroidered air mail label, this one complete with hearts.



Lest you think it couldn't get any better - as I did, after I'd unpicked the stitching on this envelope (which I did very, very carefully, having no idea of the proper unpicking technique) - here's what was inside the envelope. This is like the "stationery," the fabric with all the vintage-esque cursive writing on it.



And last but certainly not least, the entire embroidered letter! What handiwork! I seriously cannot even imagine the hours this took her. I suggested to her that people would pay big bucks for this sort of thing if she sold it on etsy or the like, so if she opens a shop, I will refresh this post and link it here for sure.

Aside from all this kvelling, I must say this letter really touched my heart. It is now hanging over my writing desk, where I look at it every single day and smile. I don't even think I deserve a gift this wonderful, but I knew I had to share it with you all, my mail-loving readers, who could share my joy in such an incredible creation.

The flaming juggler

I sent this weird card via Postcrossing a number of months ago, but forgot to blog about it. It was US-952559 to suraizgyta in the UK, which took a whopping 29 days to arrive (a record for me, for sending to the UK. I think she took a while to register it). I found this postcard randomly in a discount store, for the whopping price of 10 cents. I think I bought 4 of them; now I wish I'd bought more! It is a vintage image, in the vein of bizarre that delights me beyond words.

Sealed with ribbon and wax

This letter came to me wrapped in ribbon, sealed with wax - all inside the envelope. That was might smart, as it made it through the mail beautifully intact.

I stupidly forgot to photograph the envelope, too, so I've now forgotten exactly who sent this. My humble and embarrassed apologies to the creative sender! It looks a lot like the work of the mighty Catwrangler, though.



I hope this closeup photo shows not only the detail of the wax seal and the beautiful ribbon, but also the texture of the paper in which the letter was wrapped. It was like unwrapping a present when I opened this envelope. What a treat!

Another sort of penvelope

This lovely meta-decorated envelope came in from Sirpa, my favorite Finnish mail-artist pen pal. I think every one if Sirpa's letters has been a work of art - literally, as she hand-paints many of them! She took my love of pens and meta-writing themes and crafted a beautifully decorated envelope.



More nibby goodness on the back.



Here you can see a bit of her hand-painted border stationery peeking out from beneath photos of her adorable new kitty, Killi! Yay for getting a cat!

In her post "Letter to a fountain pen lover," she posted more photos of this letter, including a better one than I took of the way she painted around the edge of the paper.

I think it's so much fun to see before and after mailing photos of letters. This one survived beautifully, as mail from Finland usually does.

Thanks, all 300 of you!

Oh my golly, today I hit 300 followers. I am so touched and humbled! The occasion probably deserves a better post than this, but I'm so excited to have access back to blogger (how frustrating was a whole day without blogger, and two posts removed while they fixed the data??) that I just have to kvell about it immediately.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!