Taradactyling

 

Received this lovely woodsy letter from the dactyl and had to reply in kind.

 I really love those Martin Ramirez stamps.

Best sticker ever!

All through the house...

My Christmas card to my little niece. Love her so much.C

Merry Christmas!

Taco mail!

This is one of the coolest notecard sets I've ever seen.

A tin foil envelope,

 avocado sticker seal,

and taco card!

Sent to me by my lovely sister-in-law, Dana.

Apple Pie with Gingersnap Crust and Bacon Streusel Topping

So, the title really says it all, huh?

You might know that I don't really like regular apple pie. But this pie. This pie was amazing.

I not too long ago bought two different pie cook books. One of which, The United States of Pie, has a recipe using a gingersnap crust. It's just like a graham cracker crust, crumble up some gingersnaps and add melted butter and a little sugar. So that sounded fantastic, but it was paired with a lemon cream filling and I wanted something a little more festive for the Christmas party we were going to. So I googled gingersnap crust pie and found this: Apple Pie with Gingersnap Crust and Bacon Streusel Topping. 

Just to reiterate, it was amazing. When I first read that cookbook it was like a revelation! You could just crumble up any kind of cookie for a pie crust!! I'm greatly looking forward to exploring this.

Merry Christmas!

Turns out when you are a cheese-monger in training around the holidays, you don't have much spare time.

But I did manage to watch the LWA social two days late on my day off and write a few Christmas cards.

I've mostly been using washi tape and stickers to decorate my envelopes this Christmas, but I hope maybe after the holidays that I can make some more collages or drawings.

What have you all been up to?

Oh, I've also been feeding my pie addiction. More on that later.

Happy Halloween!

An Arthur Rackham spooky envelope going out. I hope it gets there with that poison sticker on there!

I felt in the mood to even decorate my bills!

Some of my favorite Halloween mail this year started off with a green jungly base envelope made from a nature calendar I had last year.

I also used some pages from the medical dictionary I have.

Several years ago Abby gave me this paper and I cut it up to make an envelope for her this year. "Women fly when men aren't watching."

Sigh. I took this in to the post office to see how many stamps it needed and the woman took it and covered up the wonderful scalpels on purpose!! She said "this doesn't look like it should be on mail."
:(

Computer out of commission

Test post to see how it is blogging from my phone. What I really want to know is how big the photo will be since I can't figure out how to change the size. 

Last Year, Halloween Mail

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays to send mail for. All these photos are from last year when I had a little Halloween party with a mail art component. Some of these I sent, and some of these my friends made and sent to our friend Ian, who moved away.

 front and back, above and below

 This was a cool thing I bought at a Halloween sale the year before when everything was half price after Halloween. Holographic image.

 Clay has had a book of R. L. Stine's Goosebumps postcards forever. So this year I commandeered it.

Fun, fun, fun!

Transition your castle for the new season!

For those of us with a small budget, the changing season offers a challenge to transition our summer castles over to a more appropriate look for fall and Halloween. 

Here's a simple how-to for revamping your look!

First, find that castle you've been enjoying all spring and summer with those bright blue skies and flower pots out front

 With a few simple supplies I can show you how to transition into fall.

- a black sharpie (it goes much faster if you have one of the King Size ones)

- orange glitter glue




First, using the Sharpie color in those blue skies and flower pots.

Next, trace the outline of the castle with the orange glitter glue.

Ta da! A Halloween castle, made from simple things you can find in your craft closet at home!

If you want to layer on some more accessories, don't forget to wait until the glitter glue dries.

Fun letterhead

I got some fun paper at the IDEA store several months ago. There were a few sheets of this:

but only one of this awesome one:

I sent it to Donovan and Cathy of the LWA along with a note about a book I found and am reading- The Pigeoneers. If you don't know about the LWA or their Pigeon Post, go check it out.

Second batch of outgoing