My stationery is not stationary swap envelope

Way back in July, I participated in a wonderful Swap-bot swap called My Stationery is not Stationary, hosted by the lovely PostMuse. She sweetened the deal with a giveaway on her blog, too.

I knew any swap she hosted was going to be well-organized, and it sounded great, so I participated with glee. Above you see the envelope I decorated for the swap,



...plus a little glitter-pen embellishment to the deco tape. The recipient liked birds, so I used a bird theme for the stationery and used more birds on the envelope.

I miss the summertime, when I had time to decorate envelopes like that...

PostMuse later did a summary of the swap, with her wonderful follow-up, if you're looking to read more about it.

It was one of the best swaps I've participated in - thoroughly enjoyed it.

Send me a million postcards (the website project)

Somewhere, through someone else's mail or postcard blog, I saw a link to Sendmeamillionpostcards.com. Hmmm. Interesting. So of course I had to send one.



Of course I wondered why the mysterious postcard collector was undertaking such a project, as I didn't find that really explained on the website... and felt the question was better underscored and outlined in glitter. (What isn't?)



The postcard front isn't terribly exciting, but a cool billboard message from John Lennon in NYC, so since someone will ask, there you see it.

The curator must have agreed that my decorated side was more interesting than the front, since that is what got uploaded to the site.

Check out Send me a million postcards if you're looking for a place to send a postcard. As of this writing, the mysterious postcard collector has only received 295 postcards, so there are still 999,705 to go! I did get a response, which I will eventually post... someday.

Rosie the Riveter

I sent this postcard, US-737314, via Postcrossing back in June. (Yes, I am behind in posting, no need to note that in the comments.) Loved the image, photographed it to share, am finally getting around to doing so.

This is a famous Norman Rockwell depiction of the WWII figure, Rosie the Riveter.

Very creepy vintage postcard poem

Belen sent me this very bizarre vintage postcard. Lovely image, but whoa, man, that poem! She commented on its strangeness, too. I wonder if these sentiments were common??

The poem reads

Mother cooking, no one looking,
Kiss her like a real man should.
Footsteps running, papa's coming,
Beat it while your shoes are good.

Ewww, creepfest!!

I feel like this should be some kind of PostSecret postcard.

A Vintage Reproduction Page

Here's an interesting mail art postcard from Fluffy special tiger.

I thought it was a letter and I tried to open it, so the front is ripped. Oops.

A trio of terrific dumpster-dived mail art

Here are three more fine offerings from Carroll the Dumpster Diver, mail artiste extraordinaire. Love the very puffy chubby cat stamps, complete with paw prints. More on this envelope here.



I think I've blogged about these stamps before, she's used them on other items to me. I am absolutely in love with them.



Embellished by "a touch of spilled ink"... how can you do better than an artistic elf?

If you can't decipher it from the photo, the quasi-limerick reads:

E was an exquisite elf
Who enjoyed being quite by herself.
She delighted to play
In an elegant way
With the things that she found on a shelf.

Paper elephants, all in a line

This fine letter, with its own special Letter Writers Alliance postmark, came to me from Donovan, one of the LWA mavens herself.



She often indulges me with bats.



The stationery has to be one of the most charmingly re-purposed examples I've seen: it's a line of paper elephants, connected by a string. Very fun to read and open!

Purple cat lady envelope

It's been AGES since I posted about a sent item instead of something received, so this is long overdue. I had a crazy fun time making this envelope from a page of the crazy weird book "Why Paint Cats" by Burton Silver and Heather Busch. (You can see more of the book on Amazon.com.) It is a parody of art books, and I hope that is sort of obvious as the shots are kind of hilarious, but anyway... they make killer envelopes. I have a hard time looking at that photo without smiling.



Because of the light at the time, I scanned this instead of photographing it. So the sparkly stickers may not look their best, but you get the idea.

I sent this to some very fun people in the UK; hopefully they've received it successfully by now.

Have you ever wanted to mail a letter from an airport?

I know I have. I am often eager to mail things from airports, be they postcards or letters... either because I want that area's postmark, or because I've been writing letters and postcards in airports and on airplanes while traveling.

But airport mailboxes can be really hard to find! And sometimes the airport personnel don't even know where the mailbox is, or even that there is one on the premises.

Now, letter-writing friends, we have a new resource to aid us in our travels! Meet airportmailboxes.com.

I just learned about airportmailboxes.com from today's post on The Letter Writers Alliance website (where, for mysterious typepad reasons I don't understand, I am somehow unable to comment today). Isn't this fabulous??

I just looked up mailbox locations for two airports through which I've traveled before, where airport staff have told me there is no mailbox - HA! Now I know there is! I also just submitted the airport information for my local airport. Traveling letter-writers and postcard-senders, rejoice! (And, if you can, submit info for any airports with which you're familiar, to aid other postal travelers.)

Here's to 21st century air mail...

Meta mail art: a pen and ink collage

Just another gorgeous piece of mail art from Carroll. She wrote more about it here. I think everything she makes is amazing, and I am lucky to receive her art.