Note to Anna B.

Hello,

This is a note out to Anna B. from Bellingham, WA, just in case she happens to read this blog. Can you send me your new address? My letter was returned.

Thanks,
Emilie

P.S. Better posts on the way.

Friends and Faux

In November I received a postcard from Friends and Faux after I entered the monthly "Lucky Draw".

Friends and Faux is all about faux postage, also called artistamps or cinderellas.

To participate you add on a faux stamp that you have created and then pass it on to someone else. 

I am just starting to get into faux postage and it's so much fun!

The stamp I had made turned out to be too big to fit into just one space. I hope that's okay!

Would any one like to try their hand at faux postage?? I will send the card on to the first person who wants it. I know a couple other people who make faux postage, but all of them have already done this project.  While I'd love to do another round, and I'm sure they would too, I thought I'd check to see if there were any new people who'd like to participate.

Update

Hello friends,

Just wanted to say hello and let you know that I'm terribly behind in everything right now (including sending out those giveaway winners packages).  After Clay getting sick, then visiting my parents out of state, and then me being sick, I am behind on work as well as all the things I love to do like writing letters!

However, Thanksgiving break is coming up and I'm hoping to get lots of things done.

Hope you are all doing well!

Incoming card and doodles from Aaron

I love narwhals!

Congratulation Cards

We have received several congratulations cards for our engagement from family and friends. Every one brings a smile to my face. It's so exciting and I am so grateful that I have such wonderful people in my life. 

--- up on the fridge ---

It's not over yet!

Sent for the Halloween mailart swap for the League of Extraordinary Penpals. The murder card was a leftover that I had made last year for the Elevated Envelope swap.

Curse of the Were-Rabbit!!!

Pumpkin Head Ale!

Napkin Mail

When I was at the Chicago workshop with Donovan Beeson I learned something fun and new!
You can decorate your mail with napkins!

Donovan had a few different packets of Halloween napkins and showed us how to use them.  You should peel off the top most layer to use for the mail art.  I believe she used a glue stick to glue them to the envelope, but I was a bit concerned that they would come off, so when I tried it at home I covered them with clear packing tape too.  :)

This one is a bit messy, but I like the end product and sometimes it's fun to be messy and it's therapeutic to just not worry about the wrinkles!

In this one I cut out the image from the napkin. It's still a bit wrinkly but I think it looks a bit cleaner.

I'm excited to do this more! It's fun to get pretty napkins sometimes (to eat with) and one napkin normally has 4 images because of the way that they are folded, so they are real work horses in terms of mail art equipment!

I also liked the Jazz stamp for my Halloween mail since it has a nice orange, black and grey color scheme.

Oh, and in the last envelope, in the lower left hand corner I had tried to draw a bat and it came out looking terrible! So I just slapped on some Charlie Brown stickers. Mail art is always salvageable. :)

Na Na, Na Na, Na Na, Na Na, Na Na, Na Na, Na Na, Na Na, Na Na, Na Na, Na Na, Na Na... BATMAIL !!!

Made at home... creepy wrinkly bat flesh!

Made at the Chicago workshop. I loved using black envelopes and shiny pens!

I hope my mailart didn't scare away any penpals!

Googly Eyed Horrors!

A letter to my cousin Aaron. This is one that I made at the Halloween mail art workshop in Chicago. The image I used was already pretty creepy but I think the googly eyes made it even better!  Also, the Johnny Cash stamp was pretty great for Halloween mail.  I still think that the USPS should make a Halloween stamp at least every other year.

"Have a horrible Halloween."

Lovely stamps given to me.

Big News!!

Hello friends!

I am engaged!!

I am so happy and excited. Clay and I have been together for over 5 years now and I'm just so very happy. We got engaged in October and it has just been a wonderful month.

Clay knew that I didn't want an engagement ring, so he bought me another kind of engagement gift... 

a typewriter desk!

Here it is covered with Halloween makings:

It has a recessed area to put a typewriter.  You push up the panel and the recessed area rises up.  It is reallllly awesome. I haven't put my typewriter inside yet as I need to get a new ribbon and fix something on it.  It is fussy about feeding the paper.

Anyway, here's another shot of glorious Halloween papers and a skull!!!
 

I need to post photos of the Halloween mailart I made. And time to move on to making envelopes with pictures of turkeys and other delicious food.

Thanksgiving here we come!


P.S. Can you even guess how excited I am about designing my wedding invitations??!!!

Rest In Peace

We recently had to put our sweet cat, Rascal, to sleep. At the end he had many problems and we finally made the hard decision.  It was also hard because his previous vet was no longer working and we had to find a new one. The vet we found had a wonderful manner and was very sensitive to our loss. Thankfully we also have Hubble and Ms. Bea to comfort us in Rascal's absence.

Chicago LWA Halloween MailArt Workshop

This past weekend I was up in Chicago and I went to the Halloween mail art workshop that Donovan hosted at Greer.  It was AWESOME!

There were 5 of us there including Donovan. I just had the greatest time. Here's what the 5 of us had made at the end of the two hours: 

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays and I'm so glad that I had this as an impetus to start making more at home! 

The Frankenstein's monster heads that you see in the photos are actually from napkins. I didn't use one while I was at the workshop, but I took one home to experiment with.  I tried one yesterday and it came out kind of wrinkled and I was nervous that it would rip, so I covered that piece of mail with packing tape. Maybe next time I will try a different glue stick.

At the workshop I also used glue tape for the first time.  Donovan recommended its use for heavier cardstock or thick things (not the napkin).  It looked a lot like the roll on white-out tape in the way that it was packaged. I think I am going to buy some for myself, because I really liked it. Here is a link to the Staples brand.  


More photos soon of the envelopes I made at home and at the workshop!

Outgoing

I love the look of using the sticker selvage from these star stickers. The color combinations look so great.

A letter to Mrs. Duffy... using one of my artistamps... it's from a painting I did a few years ago as a postcard.  PIE POST!

And finally a fun envelope made from a beautiful calendar I was given. I like how colorful the illustration is, but how it also looks so wintery.

And the winners are...

Jan, Hawwa, and Felicia!

Thanks for entering friends!

Three Year Anniversary

My three year anniversary of blogging passed me by a little while ago (Sept. 18th).  I'm really happy about my choice to blog and to keep at it through these three years.  When I first started I didn't have a clear idea what it was going to be about.  My first few posts were just about various things that I was interested in... horses for one!  I'm really happy how this has evolved into a mail blog and I've delved deeper into the wonderful world of mailart.

Also, since it's a special sort of occasion, I am having a giveaway.

Three winners for my three years.
The package will include some notecards, some handmade envelopes, and some artistamps designed by yours truly.

To enter simply comment on this posting and share something interesting!
If you are not one of my penpals (i.e. I don't already have your address) please leave an email address so I can contact you if you win.

I will randomly choose the 3 winners a week from today on Monday, September 30th.

Recently...

 I made a key lime pie to celebrate the end of summer,

 I received my first definitely autumn themed mail,

and other pretty mail as well, (I LOVE the Mary Cassatt stamp!)

 and I've been enjoying the company of my snuggle loving pup.

Please deliver to...

I promised photos of how I used the LEP printout address labels. Well here they are. I had a lot of fun doodling with crayons before pasting on the labels. 
 

Desk Drawer #1

I always love seeing fellow bloggers work areas and methods of organization, so I am going to share what some of my desk drawers look like. 

This first one is my middle main drawer. It definitely gets the most action. I have two cardboard "trays" to organize a bit. I believe they were the gift box of a bow tie that was given to Clayton.

I've got some of my favorite rubber stamps, an ink pad, my Jane Austen address book...

vintage stamps in glassine envelopes...

and address labels in glassine envelopes.

Over top all of it, my bag of stamps gets stuck in the drawer.

It's one of those plastic things that sheets are sold in.

I have a lot of stamp sheets that have just one or two stamps on them because I hate using the last stamp. 

I'm interested in how other people store their stamp sheets.

Incoming

from Taradactyl

from Adrienne

very cool stationery!

 

from Dana

from Connie

 I love the little mice on the front.

Outgoing and LEP printables

Two outgoing letters. I was on a slump for a while. Picking back up now and it feels really nice.

Finally used some of the free printables that come with being a LEP member! I thought that maybe I wouldn't be able to fit the addresses on the lines on the superhero label, but so far it's been fine. Photos coming up soon of the labels in action!