Letter Writers Alliance

The Dark Side of Mail

I've gotten these letters. I'm sure you've gotten them too, or something very, very similar. They are crafty little pieces of devious work. There's a really interesting run-down of some of the worst junk mail offenses commited by these "official" looking missives over on Evil Mad Scientist. I liked seeing the collection and knowing what to watch for in the future. Of course, they aren't totally useless; you can always turn your junk mail into mail art!

(Found via BoingBoing, a keeper of my company for many, many Internet hours)

Lux Looks for Lamp with Letters

I followed a breadcrumb trail via Twitter to the electronic door of Olga Nunes' new album release entitled LAMP. A curious circumstance surrounds its creation which speaks directly to my set of obsessions- namely secrets, ephemera and love of letters. As part of the concept, Olga is soliciting letters:

"The story of Lamp and Lux doesn't exist without you. Their story has been woven together from love letters and ephemera that you've sent in. Email your letters, one's you've received or written, to be part of LAMP. (Don't worry, It can be made anonymous upon request.) Don't have one? Write a letter to someone you love, and email it to lampletters@olganunes.com "

There's also a message in a bottle to be found and deciphered if you live in San Francisco. (All the best crazy mail stuff happens in San Francisco.) You can find out more by following @letterislost on Twitter and perhaps over at this website.

Please excuse me while I go write a bunch of love letters,

P.S. We have a Twitter too! @_lwa for updates and postal tidbits. It's like an electronic postcard from us to you.

 

Delivery for Dr. Jones

There's a mystery in the mailroom at University of Chicago. It seems someone is trying to send a package to one Dr. Henry Jones. The package contains an old style journal, purporting to the be work of one Abner Ravenwood, along with other bits of ephemera. The package itself is wrapped with twine and old Egyptian stamps.

They can tell the journal is a replica, but they really want to know how sent this to the admissions office (and why, and how seeing as it doesn't have any U.S. stamps on it and definitely does not have proper customs forms or enough Egyptian postage for International delivery). You can read all about it here. They've even set up an email for tips: indianajonesjournal@uchicago.edu

Being a huge Indiana Jones fan and a huge mail fan, you can tell that this made my day. I'm willing to grant the sender an honorary membership to the Alliance if they come forward. If that's not having fun in the mail, I don't know what is.

Half Moon Specimen

Since the color of the postage and envelopes of our Moth Mail set varies depending on the moon phase, I thought I would pin down a specimen of the Half Moon phase for you all. The half moon phase shows the most variation that any of the sets may have, so it is a nice sample of the different postage and envelopes you can get in a set.

The Stellate Moth is a tricky species, so will every Moth Mail set you get Dr. Shoggoth's Field Notes regarding these sleep-inducing creatures. It is sealed with a crescent moon wax seal, as shown in the specimen at the top of this post, but you can see the full field notes above.

I think the cancellation stamp is my favorite part of the set. Not only can it cancel two stamps at once, but it also turns plain envelopes into something swell. Oh, did I mention that today is a half moon? Perhaps you should get yourself a set - all moon phases are unlimited editions, so you can collect as many as you want when you want. Just make sure to send them out into the world so your pen pals can admire your moth training abilities.

Laser Lace Letters

As you could guess, we get a lot of mail here at L.W.A. Headquarters. Last week, Kathy was going through it and opened up a package.

"Oh, " she says, "I'll leave this for you. It's got wax seals and stuff."

"You can open it," I said.

"It's a federal offense to open someone else's mail."

"I'm sitting right here and I said you could open it. Plus, it's addressed to the Alliance."

"Well," she says, "You're better at opening wax sealed things than I am."

And so the smart, sealed package waited patiently to be opened until our craft fair was over and I was able to read the mail on Sunday night. Inside the envelope I found an exquisitely crafted letter box, emblazoned with the words Laser Lace Letters, wrapped with twine and sealed with wax. It was beautiful and compelling. An aged-looking note accompained it, explaining a bit about the project.

Laser Lace Letters is the brain-child of Haley Moore of Dallas, Texas. It is a collection of laser cut cameo brooches made of felt. Each comes folded into a special envelope that tells the story of the person depicted, through the letters, diaries, newspaper clippings, sketches, photographs, and other objects they left behind. The Letters tell seven steampunk tales of adventure and technological horror, which you can also read as a digital book.

Now, mind you, I am neither a steampunk or brooch lover, but this concept of story through letters and other ephemera, I love. I LOVE IT. I love it so much that I supported it on Kickstarter*. The project offers tons of rewards, including custom cameos and wax seals. Haley even put up an Instructable for making your own wax seals with a laser cutter. I'm proud to support her endeavour which seems original and exciting. I hope she makes it. She's got one day left on her support page. If you think the ideas behind her work are pretty neat, consider joining me.

Good luck Haley,

*Regarding Kickstarter, I'm not a big fan and I don't want this blog to be totally spammy for those kinds of projects. I honestly thought this one was different from everything else I've seen, but don't expect me to put a lot of these up.

Mail Voyeur

Is our Letter Writers Alliance Flickr group just not enough to fulfil your desire to look at pictures of other people's mail? Well then, have I some recommendations for you!

Cut Paper Paste

I've always enjoyed Dawn's collage work. She's a very gifted artist and has a real eye for design. Here are some photos of her recently sent and received mail:

Send More Mail

Our neighbor to the North, Jaime's blog has photos that bring me to a very calm place, full of stamps and good mail:

Postal Freak

A tumblr blog devoted to what we are all devoted to; the love of mail:

Good Mail Day

We've mentioned the G.M.D. tumblr here before, but it's full of such fun that a reminder is in order.

Finally, there's a fun new hashtag on Twitter for all you member users out there. #ShowAndMail was started by the National Postal Museum. Send a tweet with the tag of your latest incoming/outgoing mail to join the fun. Do you have any places you go for pictures of mail? Mention it in the comments and share the mail love!

The Elevated Envelope Project

When I first found out about Tara Bliven's Elevated Envelope Project, I was bummed out because the deadline had passed and I couldn't sign up. The Elevated Envelope is a sort of combination pen pal/mail art swap.The Elevated Envelope is an artistic pen pal project designed to bring back the fun of checking the mail.  You’ll create a work of art in envelope form, execute it about 10 times, and mail them to 10 people.  Those 10 people will do the same, each sending their own creation to you.  So, you give 10, you get 10. (Well, 10-ish.)

You can see the entries they got in the first project here. I elected to join the electronic mailing list to be informed when the next round would be. I got a heads up that there will be another project coming. There aren't any details yet, but Turns out the deadline to sign up is this Friday, the 17th. Check out the links in the comments.

Yay, more mail!

-Donovan

365 Letters of Love

 
 

Made as a wedding present for friends, artist Nishat Akhtar took her inspiration from vintage slide and specimen containers. The specially-made box contains 365 tiny envelopes, each containing a note about love, excitement, or adventure, one for every day for their first year of marriage. The tiny envelopes are handmade out of vintage paper, stuffed with a little note and dotted with a blue seal.

Nishat Akhtar is a freelance designer and a lover of horse back riding, walking in the woods, bicycles and Coney Island. Our kind of new best friend to be sure.

{Found via Handmade Charlotte}

Mark Powell's Art on Envelopes

I'm so in love with the art of Mark Powell. He draws with a Biro pen on old envelopes and other ephemera. You can see more of this work on his website.

Thanks to Cinnamon, L.W.A. member and the maker of our amazing bags, for the Twitter tip-off. Do you have a suggestion for the site? You can email or tweet it, and you can also, you know, write us a letter to our Chicago headquarters. The address is at the sidebar.

P.S. And speaking of art on envelopes, did you enter our 2000th Member Cover Contest? Be sure to send your entries before the 31st of January. Winners and prizes will be announced on Valentine's Day.

Flickr Group Favorites : December

Some of you may be aware that the Letter Writers Alliance has a Flickr group that members and non-members can contribute to. We have been always gotten some amazing images of incoming and outgoing mail (and other postal related items) on that group and I thought it was time to share our favorites on the blog. If you weren't included in this round, no worries, we are going to show our favorites every month on the blog. We hope these images will keep you motivated to keep writing letters and to inspire you to push what a letter can be. (All links to original images are listed after the images.) Enjoy! - Kathy

1. Santa's special mailbox, 2. Mail Art 365, 3. Aloha mail art outgoing 12/5/11, 4. My WSPS response, secured with nib head skull sticker, 5. driftwood, 6. Cat pouch envelope front, 7. Book as Envelope, 8. 164annamaria, 9. incoming Oct 11 06 b