Valentine Weekend

I spent my weekend lazing around.  I feel like I'm coming down with something. I've been slowly working on my mail mess.  I thought this would be a good weekend to get some mail backed up for the week ahead as part of LetterMo. I also thought it would be a good weekend to write out my Valentine's. Two years ago or so I stocked up on them and then never sent them out. Aside from just generally not writing for all the reasons I mentioned earlier, I find that one of my biggest problems is I'm too precious about my mail stock. For one reason or another I'm "saving" things that I love for some other person or some other time. Just like they say about fancy clothing being saved for a "special occasion". Every day is a special day. Wear the darn dress. So I'm using my postage and sending my stock.

I got an entire sheet of this dino postage that I never broke in to when the postcard rate was .32.  I was going to use them for my Toy Story postcards. Sadly, I'm not sending mail to that person any more, so I'm using the stamps anyway.

Also went through and used all of my old postcard stamps, I had 2 polar bears left and several apples. I wasn't saving them for anything, I was just not consistent about using up sheets. 

A few years ago I got these from Emilie over here now but formally Winnie's Girl. I forget if she had an Etsy shop or not, but I loved these and she was selling them so I bought 20. She did that drawing herself. 

And these things are super retro-cute, are they not? They have three different designs that have this perforated edge, I think they only had one when I bought these. You can check this design out here and then poke around. They are $10 and totally worth it. Now I wish I had all three :-) I even put the stamp off to the side so the recipients could see the little sketch of where the stamp goes.

This cupcake is a little Hallmark 8 pack I had picked up, I don't even remember where. Possibly the Target dollar bins a few years ago.

Some more old postage. That PS Write Soon set came from the one and only Missive Maven and her Etsy Shop. I used them all up finally, been sitting on those since 2012. Shameful.

Can we talk about how much I love these weathervane stamps? I only have about 4 or so left now, and I'm sad about it. There are surprisingly few on eBay. The problem I ran in to was that I only had three 10 cent makeup stamps. I need more makeup postage. I'll also need to buy more of these weathervane stamps.

Also finally using my cloud series of stamps. This was the other card, they go in the white envelope. Another Hallmark 8 pack I bought along with the cupcakes.

Saturday Special: "Vintage" Postage

So one day I was bored and got a little crazy on ebay buying postage.  It had never occurred to me to buy postage on ebay, but it was awesome.  Most of the stuff I bought was intended to use on the post cards for Preston & Hailey, but I use them on post cards for anyone because they are fun.  Now I have a watch list of postage I want to have, eventually, to use.  But I am making myself use ALL of the stuff I have first.

I bought these creepy looking ones specifically with Preston in mind.

I bought this just because I like sea mammals.  I haven't used any of them yet.

These, which I love, I got from the lovely Missive Maven by way of her Etsy shop, which I highly recommend.  I love that the little bottom stamps say "P.S. Write Soon."

I bought an entire sheet of these, which are worth 4 cents.  I'm not sure why I bought it but nothing looks vintage like a stamp with all words on it.

I bought these to use on stuff I mail to boyfriend, you'll note I haven't used a single one yet.

I have a lot of these Patriotic Quill stamps.  These are my most favorite stamp ever and they are now no longer available directly from the Beyond the Perf magazine.  So the hunt for my hoard is on.  I also love the weathervane set, so country and rustic looking.  {As a side note, the quill is the stamp I used on all of my requests to famous people to mail my brother.  They got one on my letter to them and I enclosed a stamp for them to use when they sent him a note, so it would literally cost nothing more than their time.}

This is another set I picked up specifically for Preston.  I broke that one in the corner out for my letter to Post Muse.

And how much fun were these fruit ones?  I love these!

I don't ever remember seeing these, but they came up as a suggested option during my ebay purchase binge and here they are.  I use these for my mail to Auntie Pat.

These I've had since they came out, I love polar bears, and I just have not used them up yet.

Another set I bought to put on the post cards for the kids.

I also love any form of flag stamp.

And how beautiful are these?

This next set of photos is another series that I had never seen or heard of, but they are great!  I don't care about the characters so much, but I love that these are postal themed scenes!  Again, I bought these specifically with the kids in mind, but they make me laugh so I am going to use them for whomever.

If you are looking for vintage postage to use, I suggest eBay, Etsy and a legendary stamp dealer that Missive Maven recently posted about.  I haven't personally purchased from him, but you really can't get a bigger endorsement than Missive Maven.