Supplies Envy...

So CappucinoAndArtJournal is one of my favorite mail blogs. I love her style.  She recently has put up a notice for two mail art calls, one of her own and one of a friends.
Her mail art call is about mail art travel kits.  I recently participated in a swap-bot swap for mail art travel kits where you put one together for each of your two partners. I just realized that I haven't done a post about that yet!
Anyway, in her most recent post, CappucinoAndArtJournal linked to this travel kit... the travel kit of Jennie Hinchcliff, co-author of Good Mail Day (my favorite crafty book EVER) and all-around mail goddess. 
Man, I drooled over these photos of art and letter writing supplies.  And at the very end of the post, was this:

Ok, so I didn't know what it was either until I read about it.
It's a hand-held perforator!
Completely awesome!!
Ok, so yes I am a complete nerd about office supplies.
Whatever.

I have been wanting to make faux postage for the longest time, and the perforation was my stumbling block.

Recently the Letter Writers Alliance did a post on "Perforating at Home".
I'd heard about the sewing needle method before, but I left my sewing machine in Wisconsin (oh, I've missed it so) and I was not about to spend the time to do it by hand.

I had no idea that there were little handheld perforators like Jennie's! So as soon as I saw it I googled it and came up with this.

 Definitely not as cute as Jennie's ladybuggish one, but functional.  I caved and bought it. Including shipping (within the US) it came out to about $7.50.

I felt a little guilty because I made a huge stamp purchase not too long ago and I kind of felt like I'd already exceeded by mail budget, but Clay told me I shouldn't feel guilty. So I won't!
And I'm so excited about making some faux postage when it arrives! I'm not sure what exactly the perforations will look like, but it'll be fun to experiment.
I'm definitely going to try to make some Halloween faux postage since the stupid USPS doesn't make any real Halloween Postage! BOO to them! (heh heh- get it? Boo, Halloween)

Hand Carved Stamps, Part Three

My most recent stamp: SNAIL MAIL!

Of course I just had to make a snail mail stamp. This one is also carved without tracing first, because I lost my tracing paper. (By the way, I'm a huge slob and the reason you never see photos of my work space is because it is super messy. Any other mail slobs out there? We can band together in the face of all the neat, organized people.)

Decorating an already beautiful envelope here...

Recently I participated in a swap for a Traveling Mail Art Kit inspired by the awesome Good Mail Day book by Jennie Hinchcliff and Carolee Wheeler. There will be a longer post on that soon, but included in the two packages I sent out were some labels stamped with my stamps.

I haven't received my traveling kits yet, and I'm super excited about seeing what's in them!

Happy Mailing!!