Even MORE Halloween!!!

Today before I left work for the weekend I opened my desk drawer in my office and found this!!

 I have been BOO'D!

I love it! I share an office with several other teaching fellows and apparently they used to BOO people all month in October. I am going to have to get on this and make some fun BOO packages myself.  P.S. It was filled with yummy candy too!

Then I came home to a WONDERFUL mail day!!
Received this from Dana:

She included 3 awesome stickers from the National Book Festival in D.C.

AND I got the first mailing in the LWA's October RSVP mailing!!
Yes, I was one of those that shelled out for fun stuff in the mail.
By the way, I love the name of the group; RSVP stands for Royal Society of Ventursome Parcels! 

In the little orange suitcase were orange and black sequins! I'm excited about using those in a mail art project soon.

Because I love Halloween so much, one of my goals is to send all of my penpals a Halloween card or postcard this month.

Here are some great stickers I got from Trader Joe's.

I always ask for some stickers when I go and no one ever gives me a hard time about it.
One time a cashier even told me that she loved it when adults asked for stickers. :-D heeheehee

I ALSO received in the mail today my kit for brewing my first beer!!
I have a three day weekend so I'm hoping to start it this weekend.  Another post on that sometime soon! 

Two more Halloween Postcards!

Halloween postcard sent out to a swap-bot partner who liked pugs.
I had fun painting again. I hadn't done much since school started.
Most of my art supplies are still at my parents house... right now I'm just using one of those kids watercolor sets in the plastic containers.    :-\

And here is an incoming Halloween postcard! Very spooky! :-)

By the way, the USPS is counting down to Halloween on facebook.
Although they've never issued a Halloween stamp (darnit!) they are spotlighting past stamps that have spooky subjects. They are choosing one stamp each weekday until Oct. 31st, starting with the Edgar Allen Poe stamp. 
And I just have to brag a little bit here, because I love my home state of Maryland so much.  Though he was born in Boston, Edgar Allen Poe lived for a long time in Baltimore, MD and that is where he died and was buried.
An interesting bit of Baltimore history, for many years (since 1949) the mysterious Poe Toaster has visited Poe's grave on the date of Poe's birth, bringing a bottle of cognac and three red roses. Sadly the tradition ended last year when the Poe Toaster failed to appear.  You can read more here.

Something else that I'm proud of...
I LOVE the Baltimore Ravens, our awesome football team.  And they were named after Edgar Allen Poe's poem The Raven!  I believe they are the only football team named after a literary figure. :-)

US Fuggle

In a recent letter to my friend David I included this empty, but still scent-ful packet of hop pellets that went into the last batch of my boyfriend's beer.
Have you ever smelled hops? It's a very interesting aroma.

And as stationery, I used part of a beer 4 pack container of one of my favorite beers!!

Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout. 

DELICIOUS!!

And I'm happy to announce that I just purchased a kit for making my own batch of Imperial Stout!
It will take 4 months to brew it.

The description from Northern Brewer:
"A strong, pitch black beer with tan head, resounding with burnt, bitter chocolate character, hops, syrupy malt, and a warming alcohol note. A nice companion on a cold winter night or accompanying chocolate dessert."

I can't wait!!

By the way, this letter was sent in the last purple envelope from the last post.

purple-y mail

 Purple- the color of royalty...

Idea for sheets of stationery

I've read several blogs this year with people bemoaning the scarcity of sheets of stationery paper.  Notecards are definitely plentiful, but I agree it has been harder to find stationery sheets.

Well, I've discovered a way to get lots of sheets of decorated stationery for a real bargain!

Just buy a journal with decorated pages!
There are lots of nice journals with decorated pages that cost only about 10 to 15 dollars.  For this amount of money you get so much paper!
Journals that are bound with rings or have perforations on their pages are the best for this, but if you have an exacto knife, you can easily cut down the side of the page for journals that are more sturdily bound.

I started out doing this with a journal that I had started and then abandoned. It had pretty blue peacocks on the paper.  I didn't want to waste it, so I put it to use!

This is the first journal I've bought specifically for the purpose of using it as stationery:

 

I found a couple of journals on line, but the best way to find a good one is to go to your bookstore, because lots of online stores don't show the inside pages of journals. Stupid, I know.

Of course, they don't come with envelopes, but I use them mostly for when I'm writing on a notecard and run out of space. And of course you can always make your own envelopes or buy a cheap pack to decorate!

1st try at origami

I won some origami paper in a giveaway (among lots of other wonderful things), and this is my first try at origami folding!

I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. It is identifiably a star shaped piece of paper.

I chose one of the easier folds on a website, but it was still kind of confusing at some points.

Oh, and I wrote a letter on the back. Mainly because I wouldn't know what to do with it if someone sent one to me.  I've seen pretty mobiles made from paper cranes and those are really nice.  My boyfriend is so tall though, there aren't many places in our small apartment where I could hang one where it wouldn't be in his way.

To other origami-ers: What do you do with them when they are finished?

Making it better.

 I was woefully late sending out one of the consolation prizes for my first give-away... I made some envelopes and decorated one to send them in. These are the two before pictures.

 I was pretty unhappy with how it turned out, so I decided to add more to it and see what happened...

a little paper border, some crayons and polka dots later...

I actually liked what I saw!

Moral of the story : don't Give Up! 

Cover up! Color In! Add On!