Total failure at LetterMo btw.

I made it a week and a half into Month of Letters. I was doing great, frequently writing letters in the morning or a quick postcard at night even if I was exhausted. But then I worked a ten hour day and went out immediately afterwards to celebrate with a friend who got a fly-out interview, and that was that. Oh, well. There's always all the rest of the Februaries of my life.

I did manage to send out quite a few Valentines though.

Congratulations if you made it to the home stretch!

Start of Month of Letters and Valentines

It's that time of year again! Lettermo, where I try to write and mail a letter or postcard a day for the month of February. Some of these were done at the end of January, but on Jan. 1st I wrote two, Jan. 2nd I wrote one and after this blog post I'm going to do my day 3 letter. This is the first time I'll be trying to do this while also working a job where I have 10 hour shifts, so we'll see how that goes. Although I've never successfully finished the challenge before, so...

Anyway, Valentines energize me and I generally do very well in the beginning of the month when I want to make everything pink and crazy. For this month I'll be erasing the name and address of the recipients and posting the photos right away instead of waiting for them to arrive before putting up photos.

Clayton saw this (above) and said "Cute." Not what I thought his reaction would be. haha

As you can see I like my Valentines to be mostly goofy.

Anybody else trying Lettermo? Good luck!

Feb. 4th thru 7th

 Letter Mo is going really well for me. I've written at least one letter every day since Feb. 2nd.

The top letter here was for Feb. 4th.
Bottom letter on the 5th, as well as two of the postcards below.




























The 3rd postcard was for Feb. 6th.

Feb. 7th was a pretty great mail making day. Sent three letters and a postcard.

I've broken out my Mod Podge which I never really used after buying it because it seemed so messy and I had to find a paintbrush. However, using doilies really eats up gluesticks, so I brought it out. It's not too bad, just a pain washing the paintbrush every time I think I'm done with it and then, it turns out, I need to use it again.

I love love love Valentine mail though. And doilies are one of the best parts!

Month of Letters, Feb. 2 & 3

Every year I participate in Letter Mo. The objective is to write and send a piece of mail every day of the month of February when the Post Office is open.  So, no Sundays and no holidays.

Every year I fail to a greater or lesser extent. But it's still fun and it still encourages me to get into the habit of writing every day.

Here are the outgoing for the first two days, February 2nd and 3rd. 

 I will post most of them with the recipient blurred out so that there won't be ruined surprises.
Except for friends like Ian, who I'm pretty positive don't read my blog.

 I've made a ton of Valentine's Day envelopes in preparation. I think I have 12 left. I used to have an enormous stack of scrapbook paper and I got rid of most of it, because I just wasn't using it. I had gotten it all for free so I thought I should pass it on to someone who would use it. I did keep a bunch of the Valentinesy looking paper and a lot of the envelopes I've made are done with that. This envelope to Ian however was made using "Pack - O - Fun" the only scrap-craft magazine!

The envelope used the cover of the February 1968 volume. The things inside are mostly ridiculous or slightly creepy like the above "Frilly Snail".

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.

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.