Letter Writers Alliance

The Making

I really enjoy videos of things in production. I am pretty sure it comes from early exposure to factory videos of crayons being made when my young brain was glued to PBS. Of late, I've been smitten by a Japanese show called The Making. There are over 300 of these short documentaries on all kinds of crafts and products. It's a good mixture of mundane and also really specifically Japanese products. I can't read a word in Japanese and I watch them with the sound off; still, I find every video to be clear and fascinating. I thought you might enjoy them too, especially the videos on fountain pens, pencils, scotch tape, Japanese paper, erasers & ink.

Getting Organized: Stamps!

Alyson Kuhn has a lovely post over on the Felt & Wire blog of how she's re-organized her stamp collection to start celebrate the start of 2013. She has a good mix of vintage and current stamps and various ways of sorting them, but I found her simple idea of adding glassines to a notebook to hold stamp singles most beguiling.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I love organizing my stamps. My current system is similar to Alyson's. I, too, use philatelic supply files to hold my sheets of stamps, and employ glassines. I currently have all of my vintage stamps that aren't in sheets organized by value, but I like the idea of doing them by color as well.

How do you keep your stamps in order?

P.S. Thanks to Ana of the Well-Appointed Desk for the link tip!

Throw a Mail Art Party!

Last Sunday, I threw myself a party; my kind of party- a mail art party! It was easy and fun. How fun? Look how fun!

It was also easy. I simply set a date and time, invited some lovely people, gathered supplies and set it all up and then had a blast. I understand that you might want a little more information than that; so I have some slides and a prepared text for you.

STEP ONE: Set a Date and Time. This is the hardest part. You should see my schedule. My schedule is insane. Instead of trying to coordinate with others, I just found the first open spot in my calendar. The thing about mail art is that it's fun with others or by yourself. I knew I'd have a good time even if no one came.

STEP TWO: Invite Lovely People. I invited friends, co-workers and pen pals and most of those people are two out of the three. My house was small and the three people who could make the time that was free on my schedule were just enough.

STEP THREE: Gather Supplies & Set Up. I decided to theme my party around Halloween. It is my most favorite of holidays and one of my favorite motifs. You could pick any theme- a color, an animal, a presidental election..., but it's easier if you pick something familiar. Halloween has a fair amount of craft supplies available for it, making it easy to amass a great number of supplies with very little effort. I went through my collection and pulled out anything spooky, anything weird, anything black, grey, silver, purple, or orange. Our paper sponsor, The Curious Collection by Appleton Coated just sent over a bunch of sparkly paper which was perfect. I also picked up a pack of six glue sticks and three pairs of scissors at the trusty office supply store. From my basics I added ink pads, stencils, and blank labels.

The kitchen was the best place. I pulled in another table from my porch and put an artboard over the top of it so there was a smooth place to work. I put down a craft paper runner so that no one would have to worry about messing up my tables. (Not that they could have, but it's nice to feel free to get glue on things.) I put papers on one side and embellishments and rubber stamps on the other. Everything was going to get mixed up anyway, but it was nice to start out in an orderly manner.

BONUS STEP: Make Goodie Bags. What's a party without a goodie bag? I put together some of the best pieces of Halloween ephemera I had, plus a new Halloween card from Rifle Co., and gave them to my friends when they came in. I gave them out first instead of at the end because I wanted them to be able to use the supplies in the bag.

STEP FOUR: Have a Blast. Then my friends came over and we drank cider and ate goodies generously supplied by Kimberly. (I've been eating dark chocolate Trader Joe's peanut butter cups for breakfast ever since.) All we did was play with the paper. There wasn't any need for "instruction", but I did offer a tip or two regarding a certain thin tissue  and tool use. We mail arted for about 3 hours and it was relaxing, fun and all together a pleasant way to spend a Sunday afternoon. Plus, I now have a giant pile of Halloween envelopes for the rest of my mail this month.

Phew! Did you read all that? If you did, here's your prize. I have one of these goodie bags left over. If you'd like a treat on Halloween, leave a comment with your favorite Halloween postage stamp (mine are a tie between  the 42 cent Edgar Allen Poe and the 10 cent Sleepy Hollow). I'll pick a winner by random chance on the 26th at 8:45AM CST. Fun and easy, just like having a mail art party!***A winner has been chosen. Commentor Bonnie, number 17, who likes the Witch Canoe stamp suggestion, won my goodie bag. Yay!***

Trick or Treat,

Returning Mail, My Way

Whenever I put something mail-related at my other blogging venture, it is always tempting to re-post it here. Well, today, I give in to temptation. Plus, I think the tips are helpful.

Sympathy Note Writing

I am all for letters all the time, but there are some cases in which you should absolutely, every time send something tangible. No Facebook message, Tweet, or text is ever, ever, EVER a replacement for a sympathy letter. I know that they can be challenging to write; that you feel like you don't always know what to say, that you don't want to sound trite.

Fortunately, you are not alone. There are experts you can turn to in this for guidance. Most recently, I found a great wealth of points on what not to say in sympathy writing over at the European Paper Company blog. This article, written by Cole Imperi, really analysed some of the typical items mentioned in sympathy notes and had insights that I hadn't considered.

Most importantly to me, she said, "I didn’t say I knew or I understood when I really don’t know and I really don’t understand. Plus, I was positive. I wasn’t talking about death, I was talking about life. Be considerate of this when you sit down to write a sympathy note."

Thanks for the insights, Cole. I'd make you an honorary Alliance member, but the record shows you already are one. By the way, Cole frequently writes about episotolary issues on her own blog, Simplicity Embellished. It's worth checking out.

Stamped Eggs

You know, I could swear I made a post about this years ago, but I searched and searched and did not find it. Nevermind! What matters is, here's how that clever team at Martha Stewart incorporates stamps into their Easter decor.

From their directions: Working in sections, coat a blown-out eggshell or a wooden egg with water-based glue sealant (such as Mod Podge or Elmers); position stamps so they overlap. When done, paint a thin layer of glue over entire egg.

Now, what they don't say is that blown-out eggs are a bear to make. I remember doing some as a kid and how much my cheeks hurt afterwards from all the blowing. I'd say go for the wooden option or even use a plastic egg coated with gesso.

Thanks to everyone who sent this link our way!

 

Envelopogami

Got some security envelopes lying around? Here's yet another project for using everyone's favorite "junk" mail material. The pictorial step-by-step at Zakka Life is super easy to follow. When you're done with this, you could make some tape, or some bats, or any number of other things!

P.S. Spotted this on the Shoplet Office Supplies blog.

Bloesem Kids DIY Stamp Collecting Book

The Bloesem Kids blog has a whole bunch of how-to projects up for kids, but I think it's unfair to let kids have all the fun. They have easy instructions and pictures to guide you along the way on their project page. It wouldn't be hard at all to increase the size of the pages if you wanted a larger book for your ever-growing stamp collection. You could be more precise about the maps you choose and put the stamps from the countries on their corresponding map pages. And remember, as always, if you make something fun and postal related, share it with us over on the Flickr page!

P.S. Thanks to Paper Pastries on Twitter for the heads-up on this!

Get Kids Writing Cards

If I ever have kids, I hope to be like Merrilee of the Mer Mag blog. She's always inviting and involving them into her creative life and it looks like a blast. Not to mention that her kids are adorable and quite photogenic. One of their holiday projects this year is thumbprinted Christmas tree cards. What I liked most about it is that the making of the cards seemed to inspire her boys to really write in the cards as well.

Look at that face! How is that not a future Alliance member in the making? Merrilee also has a download of the tree graphic, all ready for your inky fingers on her blog. Keep on writing boys {and everyone else too}!

P.S. As with all free downloads, it's always polite to say thank you and show the creator how you used their design. I think they appreciate it.

Holiday Paper Reindeer Postcard

This is a free download and tutorial available from Eat Drink Chic for this darling of deer card. Get working on those handmade cards! The 25th will be here soon.