Black History Month

This new job is making me so exhausted and I have so much less free time, but I'm very happy to be employed. 

Here is something I sent to Limner to celebrate Black History Month:

sealed with a ...

I've been trying to use my sealing wax and seal more often.  I still don't use it on the outsides of envelopes, only for the letter inside.

Envelope made from the USPS catalogue

And a postcard from the "America Dances" postcard book

My LetterMo. plans got derailed because of the job, but I'm still happy with the progress I made in my pile and I really enjoyed writing all the letters that I did.

Weekend Update

First of all, I am deleting the post about postable.com that contains the link to my account there.  After rereading the privacy info, I decided I didn't want to do it. They promise to never share your information with anyone, but they also say that if they sold the company all of your information would be given to the new owners.

To everyone who gave me their info, I transferred it to my paper address book and deleted it off the website, although it is probably still accessible to the company.

Secondly, and this is a super big achievement for me...
I am caught up to the month of December in my mail replies! And I currently have only nine more people to respond to before I'm totally caught up. I haven't been this good since I don't know when.

And finally, here is a teaser of something that I bought at the I.D.E.A. Store for $15.

Addy Labels

So, I recently made some address labels (using the lettermo. image) on the computer because I bought a few sheets of blank labels at the I.D.E.A. store (more about that later). 

I thought it would be a nice cheap way to get more labels. Wrong.

I don't have a printer so I had to go to the FedEx store to use theirs. But I also had to pay approximately $1 per minute I used the computer.  And $1 for one sheet of colored printing. Still- I thought it would be quick and I'd just print a couple sheets. 

But the template I used did not fit the labels even though blah blah blah it was supposed to.

So long story short, I paid like $13 dollars for not very good quality labels.

But I still like the design and I'm still using them.

You can see in the photo how they aren't aligned properly.

But I was disappointed and I don't think I'll do that again. So I ordered some from a website in three different designs (two flowery and one space-y!) that I hope will look much nicer.

AWESOME NEWS ! ! !

I GOT A JOB!!!!!!!!

eeeek!

It's as a receptionist at a health clinic. Full time, benefits, etc!

I'm so so so happy and relieved.

Now to mail.

For Day 8 of Letter Mo. I sent a package to my friend Dana to share with our friend Michael.

Who knew? It was Michael's first Sour Patch Kid!

Those are one of my favorite candies.

"Each bird keeps singing his own song"

I'm listening to the song "It's a beautiful morning" by the Rascals....


Some Hubble/Ms. Bea photos.  :-D

I am so so so happy that they are cuddling sometimes!
 

Other times, it's chasing and swatting and spitting, but we are making progress.
 

 

And now for some mail.

Received from Limner

Such cute correspondence cards. They remind me of Moby Dick.
 

A lovely letter and lovely stamps from Rusty.  This is a Missive Maven card and I just love it! Great quality, bright colors and such a great image.

 

 

Sent Mail

 A very cute postcard I've had for a while. The back is blank and where you write the message.

And finally, an awesome fortune!

I put it on my fridge. :-D

Mailed on the 6th and 7th

 So I've gotten into the swing of things with lettermo. I most frequently write letters in the evening, but it's not a whole lot of fun to drive out to the postbox after I've gotten into my jammies, etc. So I still write every night and send the mail in the morning, so that I'm not writing and mailing the SAME piece of mail every day, but I'm still doing both activities. Works well for me.

 

I've had this for a while and didn't know who to send it to. I hope the recipient likes it!

Simple decorations with selvage from the Pixar stamps, but a lot went into the letter.

 

A Welsh Green!  :-D This dragon was a coloring book print out that I then cut along the contours. I think coloring books/pages are an easy way to start with mail art especially if you have doubts/low regard for your artistic skills.

I love these fake V-day stamps. (and the real one)

 In other news, I'm really frustrated because I misplaced the fountain pen I was using with my new brown ink. :(

What I Sent on Day 2 (really 3)

Okay, so for Feb. 2nd I did write a couple letters but only sent them out the day after. After reading the rules/guidelines for lettermo I find this acceptable. People who do not have home mail pick up are allowed to write everyday and mail at least once a week. I am definitely mailing more days than that.

I normally do not post the mail I send on my blog right away because I don't want to ruin the surprise, but for lettermo I'm going to post the mail but hide the recipient's name and address so no one knows who's getting what. That way at least there will be some surprise.

Here goes! 

As you can see, I am having a lot of fun with Valentines.  The postcard is one that I made and had printed. I have many of them left and I'm ostensibly selling them on Etsy but no one has bought one from there. Last year my mom and some friends bought some personally. I'm fine with being an Etsy failure, at least for now. Maybe someday I'll really apply myself to it.

I LOVE the new apple postcard stamps!! Also, I found this rubber stamp in my stash. I have so much I really don't know what I have! Many of my rubber stamps were given to me in a large box by a family friend.  Anyway I thought that this stamp was very cute and perfect for Valentine's Day. I also like the fact that both of the hands look rather masculine.  In case you didn't know, I support gay marriage and I'm extremely proud that my home state of Maryland has legalized it.  Love is for everyone.

Didn't completely obliterate the name here because I'm pretty certain that my cousin Katie doesn't read my blog.

An international piece of mail! Woopee! Okay so I have a question here. Does anyone know when it is appropriate to use an AIRMAIL sticker?  I don't want to put them on things willy-nilly because I'm concerned that I will be charged more and the letter will come back postage due.  So now I only put them on international mail because I figure that it's pretty safe. I love the way they look though and would love to decorate more with them.

Okay, so I took away the name from this one... but I'm pretty sure that a certain someone will know it's for them when they see the back...

The envelope for this piece of mail is a partially see through goodie bag/candy bag that you would give as a favor. I love them and think they make great envelopes. I think I got a bag of 50 for pretty cheap too.  I do tape everything down for these though. I don't trust my glue stick on them.

:(

Sigh...
It's happened.

In the U.S. postal service on Saturdays will be cancelled as of August 5th.

Organization for the new year

Many other mail bloggers have shared their mail record keeping systems. I have not been very good at keeping records in the past and I think it's easy for things to slip through the cracks for me. So this year I am trying something new.

At the beginning of the year my bank was giving out free planners.
I got two: one for mail and one for my schedule. 

Not super beautiful, eh?

But functional. I think having the days already set out makes it easier for me to fill in what I sent and received. There is a pretty good amount of room to write for each day. I haven't had trouble fitting everything in yet.

And then because it was so boring on the outside I decorated with stickers. I'm hoping they stay on well because I used some of my favorites: Missive Maven's "To Get a Letter...", "Write Me" from the Red Letter Day book, and some treasured airmail stickers. I love the Goulet Pen Company ink blot too, but they give them out with every order so I have a lot. I figured I'll be looking at this every day for a year!

Does any one else have trouble using certain stickers/stationery?

SUPERBOWL ! ! ! ! ! ! !

GO RAVENS!!!

Day 2 of Letter Mo. - VALENTINES!!

Hello,
So I have succeeded in day 1 of Letter Mo.  Let's see how far I can take this! I "failed" at MailArt 365 in the sense that I did not mail once a day for a year, but I still think of it as a success since I did mail a lot of things and I met a whole lot of nice people.

Remember I said I'd had people over to make Valentines? Well here is the mess we made:

Cocktail glasses, pens, markers, paper, tape, postcards, envelope templates GALORE!

:)

And here are some of the Valentines that I made that have already been sent out. Hopefully I'm not ruining any surprises here.

I just got the new love stamps yesterday. LOVE THEM!!! :D 

So I was using last years love stamps, anything red, and the cherry trees/D.C. stamps for the Valentines that were sent before.

I really love these Earth stamps. It was hard to say goodbye.

Cranberry harvest is pretty awesome. When I lived in Mass. I saw some cranberry bogs but sadly not when they were in season.

 One made with odds and ends for my parents. In the corner in the left you can see a phone book. Someone shared this trick with me a while ago (I'm sorry I've forgotten who it was)... When glueing put the piece you are glueing on top of a sheet in your phone book so that the page catches the extra glue. Then just rip the page off and recycle it and repeat! Every time we get a new phone book they give us two, so I used one of those, but you could also use any old ones you have lying around if you don't want to sacrifice your only phone book.  Catalogues can work okay too, but I find that the pages don't rip out as nicely if the pages are stapled together.

Month of Letters begins!

So I have joined the month of letters (http://lettermo.com/) and today is the first day!
My first letter going out is actually very sad. A very good friend of mine had to put her dog down last night, so I am sending her a card. Different strokes for different folks, but to me this is an instance where a Facebook post/message just doesn't cut it.

In happier news, one of my new friends here made it one of her New Years resolutions to send more post! I was super excited about this of course. I mentioned before that I had had some friends over to make Valentines recently. Well Caitlin posted about what she made on her blog, http://champaigntoast.com/2013/01/30/from-illinois-with-love/#comments.
She said she wasn't sure who else to mail to, so I'm going to give her some leads.

In other news, our poor cat Rascal is wearing the cone of shame. For a couple weeks he had this blood blister type thing on his ear and we finally took him to the vet because it wasn't going away on its own. I won't go into gory detail but the end result is that he has a suture in his ear and has to wear the cone so that he won't tear it out by scratching.

He's pretty pathetic looking and one night he suddenly reminded me of the Pixar lamp. He was siting up sideways to me and he moved his head at just the right angle that it looked like the swivel that the lamp does.