The fabulously crafty Melissa Esplin has a delightful blog full of all sorts of fun things. One of her oh-so-handy [and clever!] tutorials is about how to make unique sewn envelopes and gift packages. She makes me really want to A] ship out the dinosaur of a Singer my grandparents gifted me with and B] get over my fear of using it.
Check out the tutorial here.
{I found Melissa through Black*Eiffel.}
When I went to San Francisco for Renegade this year, Pod Postess and L.W.A. member Carolee kindly took me to the Curiousity Shoppe. It was, of course, chock-o-block full of awesome things many of which tickled my postal fancy.
I especially like these stitch your travels cards. You use the provided needle and thread to denote where you are when you send the card or where you've been or where you'd like to go, what-have-you.
{Full disclosure, the Curiousity Shoppe is so awesome that it carries some L.W.A. stuff too!}
L.W.A. member Wendy sent us a link from The White House blog about the process behind which letters get selected to be part of the 10 letters that President Obama personally reads and responds to every day. He hand writes every response. Mike Kelleher is the "Director of Presidential Correspondence". Awesome title, no? They get 65,000 letters a week, sort them by issue, and then pick the ones that best represent what is going on in the country right now. Do watch the video, if only to ogle the great White House office supplies. Also, President Obama uses a fountain pen, a ball point according to the Missive Maven. Whoops.
The mailing address for the President is:
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
There are also a couple of books available of childrens' letters to President Obama: Kids' Letters to President Obama and Dear President Obama: Letters of Hope from Children Across America.
L.W.A. member Kathryn sent me the link to this project which I think is radical and remarkable and really, really awesome. [I tried to think of another "r" word and failed.] Lenka Clayton & Michael Crowe started a project where they sent letters to everyone in a small Irish town. They documented each of the letters they sent at this site, and there are a couple I've included at the bottom of this post that I rather liked.
Here's what they have to say for themselves:
"In April 2009, we sent a personal, handwritten letter to each of the 467 households in the small Irish village of Cushendall. We hoped these unsolicited letters would prompt neighbourly discussion, spreading across the town, promoting community curiosity.
The art work consists solely of the discussion between the recipients about what on Earth these letters are, who sent them and why, etc."
Thanks again to Kathyrn for the link. Remember, trusty members, that we are always happy to hear from you and thankful for any postal news you may have!
Tell your pen pal just how great they are with these three award badges! Simply cut out the awards, fold the badge over a safety pin (diagram included with download) and secure with tape on the backside. Pin the awards onto the lapel of amazing letter writers or mail to your awesome pen pal. Repeat as necessary.
LWA member exclusive, login to download.
I've missed a mess of stamp releases, sorry! Here is a little roll call:
• Early TV memories, 20 pane/20 designs, 44¢ (Check out Felt & Wire's post about the release party for these stamps)
• Anna Julia Cooper, Black Heritage series, 20 pane/1 design, 44¢
• Bob Hope, 20 pane/1 design, 44¢
• Gulf Coast Lighthouses, 20 pane/5 designs, 44¢
• Redwood Forest, Priority Mail, $4.75
• Old Faithful, Express Mail, $17.50
New items have been added to the "vintage postal finds" in the LWA shop section. Login and check it out! The ledger paper these two items above were posed on is a big hint to the new project Donovan & I are working on. We are hoping to reveal it next month, so keep your eyes peeled!
Happened upon this project over at Design*Sponge. I like that it minimally harms the postcards involved. A nice and neat way to display your cards to the world, or at least, to your living room.
On the long, long list of things that I must do in Paris, is visit the Musée des Lettres et Manuscrits, the Museum of Letters and Manuscripts. It houses a collection of 250 original letters and other documents which are a " priceless source of information for better knowing the characters and the events which 'made' the history of humanity." Letters from Napoleon and Voltaire, the letter from Eisenhower announcing the ceasefire of WWII, and many other marvelous treasures with document our history are on display there. I especially like they they have the originals on display and not facismiles. Some of their collection is available to view online through their website, but I found the photos to be much, much to small to fulfill my desire to inspect these letters thoroughly. There was a letter from Einstein which seemed particularily intriguing.
My boyfriend remarked the other day on how digital documents are designed to mimic real-world documents. For example, in Microsoft Word, when you type, your view is essentially that of an 8.5 X 11 piece of paper. Anyway, I happened across this project today as I was rummaging through the archives over at Uppercase. It's an Olivetti Lettera 22 typewriter which has been rewired to communicate with a computer so that the typing writes an e-mail message and when the paper is removed from the typewriter, the e-mail is sent. This blows my mind. But I also think, what if you want to write more than one page or how do you make corrections? Still, it's totally rad project. Personally, I like the idea of a hard copy e-mail which could then be actually mailed. Hmmmm.... Maybe that can be a new fun download!
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