Envelopes (Part 1)

It's my opinion that a letter's contents ought to arrive in style.  It's awesome to get a personal letter in among the usual fare that arrives in the daily mail.  Who among us doesn't mentally go "Bill.Junk.Junk.Bill.Junk.A LETTER!Bill.Junk." as we flip through the contents?  (Just me? No?  I didn't think so.)  But a plain envelope, however distinctive against the business filler surrounding it, just doesn't cut it for me when I'm sending out to a pen friend.  No.  I want them to notice it immediately.

Until recently, I haven't had a lot of spare time to invest in making my own envelope/mail art.  And usually when I do, the size is "off", so that means a tiny hike in postage... which I'm having to monitor a bit closely for the time being, whilst I get my financials in order and more secure.  But I'm slowly getting around to using those paper scraps in the studio for some amazing new envies. :)

I've decided to divide today into two posts because I wanted to show you some of the past pieces I have made and sent, but I also want to do a photo filled tutorial on how to make your own.  So here we go with the:

Stuff I've Made:

A simple tri-fold made from a calendar page,
but one of my favorites!

Scrapbook paper and stickers.  That's all it takes. 

All 23 envies for my first LetterMo last year.
 Made from calendar pages.

I love ships and the sea, so this is obviously a fav. :)

Kendall has gotten some of my best envie art.
She's an Alice fan, so I took a mini pack of
cards I had, and some cut outs of Disney's
madness and created this.

Alice envie back

As I said, some of the best ones have gone to Kendall.  She's a
massive Harry Potter fan, so I got some HP scrapbook paper (that's
a Gryffindor crest on the front there), made my own owl "postage"
and even ran it through the printer for a faux "owl post" postmark
stamp.  The back had all kinds of Quidditch stickers and art, and
the actual missive was written with quill and ink on parchment.
The Alice and HP letters were a couple of months apart, I think.
The envies behind the HP were made using calendar pages.

Delightful Desk Accessories

Letter writing stuff I would buy if I won the lottery.  This stuff is just made of awesome.

A desk I'd want, once I have my own house again:

Go HERE to see more images, including the inside!

Decadent Stationery:

Hand engraved peacock feather cards from Crane Stationers.
 I think I even featured them (or something very like them)
before on TMP, but they are so lovely, they deserve repeating!

Reproduction RMS Titanic stationery and matching envelopes!
You can get them here.

Pretty much the entire Josephine Wall collection from Leanin' Tree Stationers.  Here are a couple of my favorites:

I also found this fabulous Peacock Desk Set:

(Available at Sears and Michael's)

Confession: This post was kind of hard to come up with.  Totally phoning it in.  But tomorrow's is easy: all about Envelopes! :)

Character Post

During the LetterMo challenge, the participants could earn different "achievement badges".  If you ventured to a new postbox drop-off location, for example, or sent a birthday or valentine greeting, you'd get to display your achievement for the rest of the LetterMo community to admire/envy/mirror with their own.

 One such achievement that I couldn't stand to NOT earn was the "Austen Style" badge.  This puppy could only be earned if you emulated Jane Austen herself and broke out the parchment, quill, ink bottle and wax seal, finally sending the letter folded up as its own envelope.  Bonus points if you wrote it in early 19th C language/subject matter.  I sent out a few- three, to be precise- but none of them as Lucy Jane or in 19th C character.  I just couldn't break into the time travel for some reason.  (Where's a Tardis when you really need one?  I ask you.)  But my usual vocabulary/style of writing leans to the old fashioned as a habit, so they really weren't that bad.

One of the three was replied to, in Regency character!  How could I not answer it back in kind*??  Finally, with her help, I had unlocked whatever the previous thing was that had blocked my writer's imagination.  Using this fantastic resource on my hometown area in the late 1700s/early 1800s, I was able to flesh out Lucy Jane more than I have ever done, and really develop her backstory and history.  It was marvelous fun to blend historical fact with fiction!  My creative brain, rather starved for that sort of exercise and entertainment of late, just bloomed with one scene and timeline possibility after another until I think I may have enough to write a novel if I get it all down on paper. (NaNoWriMo, anyone?!)  I always told myself I would never be a writer.  I'm a terrible liar to myself.  I'm not saying it will get published or make it to the NY Best Seller list, but who says it has to?  I'm enjoying it. :)

Here are a couple of photos of my "Austen Style" offerings.  I can't wait for Charlotte's next letter!

Have you ever sent a letter as a character? I'd love to hear about it!

*Although I have been SUPER busy lately and have not updated the website and/or blog in a few months, most of you know that I have a creative outlet under a pseudonym/character called Lucy Jane.  If you are new here, follow the link to see "her" wares. :)

Backlog

When life has practiced its pitching arm and starts slinging things at you, one after the other (not all bad!  A lot of it good!), and when a whole community of wonderful people are sending you lovely letters to fill up the mailbox... this happens! :)

I've had a rotten cold the last 2 days because of the pollen, so that has also kept me from attacking the backlog stack with alacrity.  But never fear!  I'll get caught up hopefully by the end of the week! :)
How do you handle your letters when you get behind?

Addresses

Happy First Day of the A-Z! :)

I'm going to start my Snail Mail themed challenge off with a few words about mailing addresses- how I have gotten them from pen pals, how I handle my own, etc.

Internet Databases
First, the LetterMo event in February was just spectacular!  I made so many new friends, reconnected with old ones, and generally had a ball.  By participating in LetterMo and logging into the forums as a member, I could find pages and pages of biographies with addresses of people to write to.  The rules are the same as any other social setting: only post your personal info if you are comfortable with people seeing it and using it to write to you.  Some participants didn't want to post their stuff for the world to see, so we had the option of sending them a friend request and private message first to introduce ourselves.

LetterMo introduced me to the use of a site called Postable.  It's completely secure and encrypted.  You send a link which takes whomever to a short form.  They fill in the info and TA DAA!  Now you can send out Christmas cards, graduation/wedding/birthday/your cat's baptism/Marvel comic book reading party/whatever invitations with ease!  I really love mine and it has been super useful.

Another online tool I have used to meet pen pals is a site called Maarten's Snail Mail Pen Pals Online.  I found it around 2 years ago.  Again, people can list their info if they want to, or they can ask that prospective pen pals email them personally for it first.  I have sent and received some of the most fantastic letters to people from this site.  You can search for pen pals by age, gender, country or state.  The site is updated every few weeks with new and current listings.

Street Address VS P.O. Box
I've been pondering whether I should change over to a Post Office Box for all of my letter writing, instead of my street address.  There is added security in a P.O. Box, as people can't just Google Map it and start knocking on your front door one day.  But to the rest of the world who hopefully aren't weirdo stalkers live really far away, I think a street address is like a little snapshot of you and your corner of the globe and is therefore more fun than a P.O. Box.  I don't know.  I DO know that I tend to over-think things way too often, and this is probably one of those times/things, but I just can't seem to make up my mind.  What's your opinion, fellow bloggers?  To P.O. Box, or not to P.O. Box??

Posting Photos (especially concerning other people's addresses)
One thing that has come up often in discussion among those of us who not only Snail Mail, but then Blog about said snail mailing, is that if you are going to post photos of your incoming and outgoing mail, even if you care nothing about hiding your own address for privacy, for Pete's sake, hide the other person's info!  Some of us cover over the addresses with a scrap of paper, others take the photo before adding the info, and still others use image editing software to cover the addresses.  I do the last one, like so:

Other Fun Address Stuff
Two of the longest street names in the world:
Bolderwood Arboretum Ornamental Drive, in the UK
Northeast Kentucky Industrial Parkway, in Kentucky, US

Arguably the longest town name in the world:
Llanfairpwllgwynllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, in Wales

Two "longest place names" of the world (as found here):
Tetaumatawhakatangihangakouauaotamateaurehaeaturipukapihimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuaakitanarahu, a hill in New Zealand

Krungthepmahanakornamornratanakosinmahintarayutthayamahadilokphopnopparatrajathaniburiromudomrajaniwesmahasatharnamornphimarnavatarnsathitsakkattiyavisanukamprasit, the official (native) full name of Bangkok

Whether your address is an Avenue, Street, Boulevard, Road, Route, Drive or anything in between, I think it's simply amazing that a letter gets from one place in the world, to the intended recipient- very often on the other side of this planet we call home!  I'm not even sure what's the furthest away I have gotten a letter from.  Probably Australia.  But I've received some from China and Hungary too!  What's the furthest away you've ever gotten mail from, readers?