Incoming Mail

Incoming mail! I believe these are all the letters I haven't responded to yet.
Every one is a delight to receive in my mailbox!

Outgoing Mail

I've been joining lots of Swap-bot swaps lately. This one was for a mail art envelope and flat surprise inside:

I've been sending out more postcards recently. Mostly to family and friends as a little hello/thinking of you message.

 I think this is to a penpal I found from sendsomething.net, another great place to find people who send mail!
 

I was really feeling the fall vibe. There's practically nothing I love more than woodland animals wearing clothes and being ridiculously cute. Look at that awesome sweater vest! This illustration is from a children's reading textbook.

Top envelope illustration from the same children's reading textbook, and bottom is from a water damaged book about Star Wars memorabilia.

 Also made some more Halloween mail! If there's anything I love more than cute animals in clothes, it's spooky weird Halloween shit and the great color scheme of black, orange, purple, lime green, dark blue.

Making use of some pages from a medical dictionary...

and again here:

Pink Halloween  :)

I've been meaning to take more photos of my incoming mail to share here as well, since that's definitely half the fun of penpal-ing! I succeeded in taking ONE photo of an incoming letter. Lol. I'll do better.

1/4th of a social, and cousin mail

Here I am, watching the LWA social a day late, before being interrupted 30 minutes into it. No worries, just means I get to stretch out the fun even more. 

I'm using up some of my Ink Drop samples from Goulet Pens. I haven't ordered anything from them in ages, but I still get their newsletter, and they've discontinued their Ink Drop subscription. It's completely understandable. The amount of samples they were sending out is staggering! I'm just happy that they have so much business.

Semi-recently received from my cousin Aaron.

 I love his drawings.

And a reply:

Incoming

lovely bright circle mail from Taradactyl

 I just love this stamp of one of South Africa's national parks. Beautiful! I just bought a sheet of the new U.S. National Parks, which are absolutely wonderful! The one of Assateague is my favorite, of course, since I grew up about 30 minutes away. My second favorite is the painting of Bandelier National Monument.

More bright mail! This time from Donovan Beeson of the L.W.A. This envelope is made of vellum, or a vellum-like material and when the sun shines through it or on it, it gets even brighter, almost neon.

And a lovely letter from Hannah, who lives super close to me! It's fun talking about the places around town that we go to.

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!

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.

Artistamps

Before the move I was doing more with artistamps than I've done in a while. I had some more of mine printed and I also printed out some of the free downloads at the LWA.

I received some beautiful Year of the Ram artistamps from Juana, a member of IUOMA.

These dingo stamps are some that I had printed out. My artistamps are drawings I've done, scanned and printed. I've seen other people print out some sort of base and then use rubber stamps to finish the work. I think I'd like to try that soon.

This inkling Year of the Horse stamp is one of the LWA free downloads. I love it (of course)!

Orangey Book Chick Mail

I received a fun fold-and-send from the Book Chick.

No fish, and even the box is a monster! Lots of fun details.

And I sent her back an orange-y return.  The background envelope is made from an old poster I had by Gauguin: Woman with a Mango. I don't really like Gauguin all that much, but I saw this in real life in a museum a long time ago and just loved it.

I received several rolls of washi tape for my birthday this year and this pink and teal patterned one is one of them. I love it!

Horse Mail from Dear Detective!

I got another delightful piece of mail from Dear Detective and besides the lovely letter, I was so excited and happy to see the horse on the back. I think I'd be happy if I only ever got horse themed mail for the rest of my life. I mean variety is delightful, but if I had to chose one thing it would be horses.

I loved all the little details too, like these triangles cut out and this awesome awesome tomato post-it note.

Mail art is the best.

Incoming from Mrs. Duffy

I mentioned recently that there are some correspondents who I recognize immediately from the envelope or mail art. Mrs. Duffy is another one of these because of her incredible handwriting.

I used to write in a sort of hybrid of cursive and print; it was fast and easy. I'd forgotten a lot of the capital letters in cursive, like Q and Z. After getting a letter from Mrs. Duffy where she talked about cursive I looked up some of the letters I'd forgotten and started to write much more frequently in cursive. Sometimes I still use my hybrid. I really love writing certain letters. Lowercase z's are lovely, and I feel really proud of myself when I do a good lowercase r, which I feel might be the hardest letter to do nicely.

Today is a lazy Sunday. Because it rained last night I'm giving myself permission not to mow the grass. It needs to dry out more! I have a bachelorette party to go to later tonight, but until then, I plan on relaxing and writing some letters... maybe putting on the latest LWA virtual social which I still haven't gotten around to watching!

Flower Fairy Postcard

I received this lovely postcard from Caddi as a thank you for the giveaway I sent her. This reminds me of my childhood intensely, as I was basically obsessed with fairies. I used to make fairy houses in the woods and swamps near our houses with my best friend.

Thanks for the thank you Caddi! :-)

And a fitting abode for a fairy tale, though quite different from the fairy houses I used to build, here's the stamp it came with:

To and fro with Allison Anne

I received a lovely first letter from Allison Anne of Dear Detective.

Isn't that quilt gorgeous?

For some reason when I link to her blog it won't let me link to the specific blog post where she blogged about this, but it was on March 24th.  I had been wondering if the white labels saying Champaign IL 61821 were done by her or the post office, so it was fun seeing her post and discovering that they were put on by the post office! I guess they didn't like the way she addressed it. But I'm happy as long as I get my mail!

 She sent me some fun things inside as well as a great letter.

I really love these cassette tape labels!

I sent her back a letter in an envelope made from a poster I'd been hoarding since my Indianapolis trip. Such a gorgeous painting. 

I can't wait to see what her next letter will bring!