VACATION!

I'll be posting again pretty soon.  :)

Father's Day

This is what I sent my Poppa for Father's Day:

PENGUIN #8 Busman's Honeymoon

Adopted by Serena in the United Kingdom

Serena's description of Busman's Honeymoon made me really want to read it! She describes it as "a wonderful mixture of crime novel, love story (it describes Lord Peter's marriage to Harriet Vane and what happens on their honeymoon) and, in parts, social comedy."

She says that it would be one of her desert island books.

I love the stamps she used too:

Thanks so much Serena! 

Busman's Honeymoon is on my reading list now!

Mandy Mail

Received this lovely birthday card from my friend Mandy:

And sent her back:

PENGUIN #7 The Great Gatsby

Adopted by Dana in Pennsylvania

This postcard got quite a bit of wear and tear in the post system. You can see where the color was scraped off on the bottom left!

Dana wrote that she read The Great Gatsby in high school and hated it, but read it again in college for a 1920s class and loved it.

I was somehow never forced to read it in school. So perhaps that's why I loved it right away when I read it.

For a long time my favorite quote was from the Great Gatsby. I still love it:

“Her face, above a spotted dress of dark blue crêpe-de-chine, contained no facet or gleam of beauty, but there was an immediately perceptible vitality about her as if the nerves of her body were continually smouldering.”

I've seen many beautiful pictures of Gatsby themed picnics and parties. I would love to dress up that way and party! Here are some great photos from Vixen Vintage.

                                                                       Thanks so much for participating Dana!

Mom's Birthday Card

Sent to my wonderful mom for her June birthday

For my birthday my parents gave me an awesome new camera. I'm still figuring it out though. It has lots of settings and I'm trying to find the best one for mail art!

PENGUIN #6 The Conquest of Gaul

 Adopted by Malyss in France

Her blog: http://chroniclesfromtheshore.blogspot.com/

Malyss chose this postcard because she lives in a place where Romans used to live. There are statues, monuments, bridges and roads that they built that can still be seen (and some of them used) today.

Malyss studied Latin in high school and had to read this book. Because of living there, she felt that she already knew the story, the country and even the man himself!

When I studied abroad in France I lived in Aix-en-Provence for 4 1/2 months. My parents came to visit me while I was there and with them I went to see the Pont du Gard. It was incredible to see something so old still standing.  It was made by the Romans in the 1st century AD!

And here, the beautiful stamp Malyss used,

a painting by Jean Bazaine.

 

Malyss also sent me this beautiful envelope and post card. 

Merci beaucoup Malyss!

Supporting the Arts

Clay and I stopped for a bite to eat at a little hole in the wall Chinese place when we were out late one night.  The atmosphere was considerably brightened because of the wonderful art decorating the walls....

I decided that I just had to buy something for the apartment and I came home with this gem, having paid full price:

SUPPORT THE ARTS!

Check out those new pics!

If you look to the bar on the left you can see some more photos of my family's mules.

If you can't tell from the captions, Livee is my favorite. :-)

White Dresses

An affinity for white dresses might be part of my love for Emily Dickenson.

Elephant Mail

 Sent to my grandparents

My grandfather loves elephants.

I put the address on the back side of the envelope because I thought this image was too beautiful to cover up.  This is an envelope I received through Swap-bot.

Incoming

lots of fun incoming mail

Recently I've been limiting my swap-bot activities to group swaps. I find that people are more dedicated in a group.  Also it's nice to swap with the same people several times and get to know them a bit.  These photos below are of what I received for a "Geek Central" swap. I love it!

Here's another swap-bot swap- the nesting envelope swap.  I love the bird envelopes my partner made for me!! So beautiful, and she included lots of goodies.

And here is another swap- 3 handmade envelopes. My partner for this swap also made me a fold and send! I've used 2 out of 4 of these already.

LOVE MAIL!!

Treat for your mailbox

I love this one. It was a lot of fun to make.

Budget

I just bought 50$ worth of stamps from usps.com...
I think it will last me for quite a while though. It'll be a good mail day for sure when those arrive!

I believe that mail supplies come third in budget, following rent & food.
I've made a real effort recently to stop buying stationery- unless I find it at the Goodwill which means it's only 2$!  This forces me to use up the oodles that I already have and to make my own out of stuff lying around. Sometimes it's still hard to resist certain notecard sets, but I find that I've mostly conquered that temptation.  Now my temptations run to labels and art supplies.

Coming up soon...
My first handmade stamp!

And here are some ridiculous elephant postcards my friend Dana has been sending Clay and me:

Intergalactic Mail

 Mail from Chris of Girls Go Postal

He told me I should tag it with "intergalactic mail".

This time his personal postmark came through without any extra post office marks. It looks great! I wish all post offices still hand cancelled personal letters. I suppose that would be a hell of a lot of work.

LOVE his "par escargot" stamp!!

And now, some intergalactic mail I sent to my boyfriend...

We both love Star Wars as well as the Baltimore Ravens. Ray Lewis is one of our favorite players.

I thought this made a fun combination.

Outgoing Mail

For a handmade envelope swap-bot swap.

For another swap-bot swap.  For this one I had to create at least five nesting envelopes and include a little surprise at the end.

an Egyptian postcard I made with a study abroad promo as the base.

 a letter to my parents with fun vintage stamps

my parents have actually seen Old Faithful!

a wolfy-doggy piece of mail 

: )

and a doggy-kitty postcard

and a bright letter to my old friend-

notice the lovely stamps, a butterfly and a Native American doing a butterfly dance

Birthday Continued... Mule Stick

A year or so ago I was in New York with my family and my dad and I went to the National Museum of the American Indian, to see a special exhibit called "A Song for the Horse Nation".  The exhibit was incredibly beautiful, and very moving for me, since I love horses and because my horse had passed away.  One of the things that I loved the most in the exhibit were the horse dance sticks, carried in ceremonies.  They were carved and decorated in the likeness of a special horse, usually one who had died in battle. 

This is one of the horse dance sticks shown in the exhibit.

You can see a few others as well at the online exhibit of A Song for the Horse Nation.

When I went back home I wanted to make a horse stick of my horse Windsong (Winnie) who had passed away. It was hard for me emotionally and physically and I didn't get too far.  

For my birthday this year, my dad made me a mule stick in the likeness of our mule Livee.

Here it is:

It is a beautiful work of folk art and it is so special and meaningful to me.

Thanks so much Poppa.