My Favorite Post Card

You guys! Check out what came in the mail for me on January 15th.

From PostCrossing user Fairy11 (a very active PostCrosser!) Can I just tell you, my face hurt from smiling at it. This made me so very, very happy. When I joined PostCrossing two years ago I hoped and hoped that I would be able to get some postcards from Germany with weimaraners on them. This is the first one. It's the first postcard I've ever seen, much less received, with a weimaraner on it. It says on the back "frame me or mail me". Here is the link to it.

I love it. I have it staring at me at my desk.

Incoming... Pineapple Swag!

File this under "I can't believe this happened!"  A few weeks ago I received an email from someone who reads my blog.  Seriously, those people exist.  Anyway, said person indicated that they live in Hawaii, land of the Pineapple, and that if I would provide my address she would send me some Pineapple Stuff.

Voila!  My mailbox was bombed with an awesome envelope, which I will take a photo of soon, a lovely note and this super cool Pineapple Swag!

Best mail day this year!

Vanessa: Incoming & Outgoing

My friend Vanessa is a non-mail friend, but she sent me this card because she knows I love mail. It's very appropriate, we both love profanity :-)  We've been friend since high school.

I wrote her back with this card I had received as a birthday gift.  You may have seen this at Hallmark.  You buy the cards, then you pick a letter and you stick it on using a white foam square.  The result is a slightly raised letter in the center of the beautiful pattern.

Laura DH: Incoming & Outgoing

This is my second received and replied from Ms. Laura over at The Suburban Pen Pal.

I wrote her back with this awesome black square envelope I had picked up at a Staples a few years ago.  Inside is a silver card stock circle.

I used a set of metallic sharpie-type markers to draw a little winter scene on the back.  That pink one basically vomited on the paper when I opened it, I think that one is dead :-/  But that was the best I could do with the splotches.

Laura is doing amazing things with transparent bags-as-envelopes.  She blogged about my envelope post here.  I love the wax seal with her monogram.

And that is a stamp she made!

Emilie: Incoming

So, you know that moment when you're going through your photos and you realized that you forgot to photograph your response to a letter?

That's this moment right now.  Either that, or I just didn't reply.  Emilie will tell me when she sees this!

Emilie sent me Thanksgiving Mail, which I thought was awesome.  I loved how she used the self-adhesive stamp leftovers as decorations!  Totally stealing that idea.

She wrote me on this beautiful gilded fall paper.

Caddi: Incoming & Outgoing

I am finally replying to Caddi, who had responded to a first letter from me back in August.  Caddi is located in Germany and has a mail blog here.

She blogged about my introductory letter here.

I love how she used Washi Tap to block off the addresses.

I wrote her back using the Letter Writers Alliance stationery that I got with my membership.  My intro letter to her was all sorts of scribbly, so I tried really hard to write neater this time!

Tara: Incoming & Outgoing

A few weeks back I sent out the bottle I had picked up on my trip to Colorado Springs.  I sent it to Tara because I couldn't remember if I owed her a letter or not.  I figured that mailing her a bottle would make up for any pen pal faux pas I had committed.  She blogged about receiving it here.

I ended up decorating the back with a few random stickers.

These bottles are really cool, it's unfortunate that you can't just order them online.

As it turns out, I did owe Tara a letter, I just didn't know because I hadn't gotten to her letter in the "pile of mail to be replied to" yet.

She sent me this great transparent envelope and wrote to me using the stationery she made for the Letter Writing Social that she hosted.

So I wrote back to her, using the very same paper she had given me!  That's Mr. Zip, aka Zippy, who was created to encourage people to put zip codes on their outgoing mail.  Really interesting wiki on the origin of the zip code here.  I had no idea that zip code didn't exist until the 60's!

Post Muse Mail: Incoming & Outgoing

I have received a few items from the prolific Post Muse since signing up for her amazing Orphaned Postcard Project.

These two post cards came in just the other day.

This came in back in August or September.  Shame on me.  Anyway, I love it.  I decided I love pretty much anything that arrives in a red envelope.  My photo does not do it justice, but the colors and texture on this is beautifully crisp.

I sent her back this super cute fold-n-mail that I had scored at the Letter Writing Social I went to.

Naturally, I ran out of room, so I folded up these extra pieces and put them inside.

I used my very first dinosaur stamp on this envelope.  Fortunately, when I was editing this photo I realized I was short postage, so I added some more.

Don't you just love these colors?

And the footprints?

This weekend in Post Cards

This weekend I went to the Cape and stayed at Boyfriend's house.  I packed up all of my mail swag so that I could devote the entire weekend to mail.  I even left my babies at home {sniff sniff}.  I'll be spacing the posts out so as not to dump it all on you at once, but everything I did this weekend will go out in the mail tomorrow and will be postmarked from the Cape.

I picked these cards up about two weeks ago from a shop in Mashpee Commons.  I love the texture of them  They are identical to the post card I received from my friend Jackie about Boston, only 4x6 instead of the larger {and preferable} 5x7.  The card above is heading to Melissa of Viva Snail Mail in reply to the post card she sent me below.

This was a reply to a letter I had sent to her in late summer.

I sent this to my friend Kathy, who loves sunsets and photographs and receiving mail.  I thought she would enjoy the oranges and reds.

I sent this to Post Muse, in addition to a letter, because she loves the Cape and I thought she would enjoy it.  Her letter will be shown in a later post.

Incoming & Outgoing

Late last week I sent out my reply to Stephanie, the only pen pal I have {so far} that shares my name.  Not only is her letter from August, but she has also since changed addresses.  So, I hope she has a letter waiting for her at her parents house next time she goes home.  But it's a long letter and I do hope she replies, she seems like a lot of fun.

The seal did not make it.

The card was glittery and awesome.

The inside also contained two awesome flip-flop papers!

This is the letter I alluded to earlier.  Please allow my mediocre photography to show you the most stunning piece of mail I have ever received.

This is from Melissa, aka Ms. Howard, aka the woman who invented plate mail.  The envelope was handmade, clearly, and I love how patriotic it is.

Inside I pulled out this great little folded booklet.

The booklet was actually a tri-folded three page letter, the back of which was all maps.  The front of each page was cobbled together like a treasure map of scraps and papers and pockets and stickers.  It was positively joyful to experience.  All of the pieces cut and pasted into the most beautiful mail art.

The downside to photographing correspondence is that I blur out the text!  Hard to do that and still show how great it all was!

Another pasted paper.

A great little tiny paper bag with an insert.

Really pretty green shimmer paper with a scallop trim and a yummy treat sticker.

Another little pocket...

Where the letter continued on these little tiny cards inside!

I am still typing my response to this letter, I've been working on it for almost a week now and I am pushing eight pages and I'm not even close to finished.  I hope to have it in the mail by Friday.  I wish my pictures would do this letter justice, but it really has to be seen to be appreciated.  Melissa has suspended her mail blog for the time being but she keeps several others that seem to be up to date if you want to look around.  I hope she picks back up with the mail blog, though, she sends and receives beautiful things.

More Belated Incoming Outgoing

I spent the mid-month of December working on mail, slowly but surely catching up on my replies.  These will be going out in the mail tomorrow.

Got this great envelope and letter from Anne Elizabeth from Letter Love.  This was her first letter to me and my second to her.

I love the washi tape and the labels.

I also love the stationery.

I am also replying to this great note from Erin Fickert-Rowland.  Her mail art can be found here at Elysian Studios.  She's kind of awesome and very adventurous.

I loved this card so much.  The texture of the paint left on the smooth stock was great.

This is a returned correspondant card from Katherine, who I think I found over at Pen Pal of the Week.

She has great handwriting and is my only Canadian Pen Pal.  I like the postmarks on her envelopes.

On the outgoing side, I sent all three replies in these airmail envelopes I had bought from Amazon forever ago.  Not fancy, but better than a plain #10.

This is the international stamp for Katherine's letter.

Also outgoing tomorrow is the awesome Pneumatic Post.  This will be its third trip through the postal system.

The Pneumatic Post comes from the LWA and is awesome.  The best part is finding fun things to fill it with.  The first time I mailed it out, I sent out a bagel dog bone and addressed it to Kathy's dog.  When I got it back, I received some great beauty samples.  I am not going to mention what I am sending out this time in the event she reads this post.

The LWA does a great job of explaining how it all works so I won't re-hash it for you here, but it is a fun mail toy.  I thought I would have a hard time with the postage removal, and it did take some work, but it was not too bad.  I soaked it for a few hours yesterday in hot soapy water and got as much of the sticky stuff off with my nails as I could.  Then I hit it with the Goo-Gone and it was good as new.  Probably should have tried the Goo-Gone first.

My plan tomorrow is to go to the main RI post office to see if I can finally get my hands on some $2 Waves of Color Stamps and hopefully pop one on this thing.  Either way it's getting mailed, but I am having the worst time finding that series.  My local post office said the don't have them and won't be getting them.  They called a second post office in my city who said the same.  The third post office I tried had never even heard of them, I had to show them a photo on my phone.  So we shall see how tomorrow goes.