Coming to Brooklyn this November

I'm so excited to announce that I'll be selling at the Renegade Craft Fair in Brooklyn on November 17 + 18th!

It'll be the perfect way for NYC-area friends to come get all their shopping out of the way before the holiday season gets too crazy.  Plus, you can see the Manhattan skyline as you shop, which makes it pretty much fabulous.  If you're worried about the weather, fret not -- our shops will be in heated tents! So fancy.

(I don't know my booth number yet, but I'll update this space once I have that info so you can come find me.  Hooray!)  

Find me at Fenton Street Market this weekend

I'm excited to share that I was chosen as this week's featured vendor for Fenton Street Market! You can read the little interview I did with them here.  (FSM interviewer Amina also put together a sweet little Etsy Treasury of FSM vendors and was kind enough to include my apple journal.  Thanks, Amina!)

I'll be there this Saturday, September 29 with my wares, including the NEW(ly packaged) AND (slightly) IMPROVED aerogramme sets in both bibliophile and philepistolist themes for your letter-writing pleasure. Come visit me in booth 57, right in the middle of the action.

Aerogrammes now in the shop!

My newest venture in stationery.

One thing that has been requested multiple times over the years at craft shows has been aerogrammes, or fold-and-mail stationery.  I love them too, so I've had ideas forming in the back of my mind for a while about what I would design if I made my own. 

Knowing that I had the September DC Meet Market coming up motivated me to get cracking on them and I was pleased to debut my first batch of them on Saturday.  I made two designs to start with: books and mail. Big surprise, I know.  

You can see the exterior and interior in this picture of the opened bibliophile aerogramme pad.

The binding on this first batch is done with bookbinding glue and covered with book-themed washi tape, allowing the letter writer to simply pull a page out when they'd like to write.  The guidelines on the inside indicate where to cut the corners out.

The address area on the book themed ones is based off an old bookplate.
Also, the spines of the books line up on the back when it's folded (!).

The flaps already have adhesive on them so once the aerogramme is cut out, the flaps just need to be folded in to give it its shape.

Of course there are mail-themed aerogrammes. Philepistolists unite!

I think the binding is fine on these, but I'm a perfectionist and wasn't totally satisfied with the way they came out.  The next batch might be in reuseable boxes.  (Don't worry; the first-run versions on Saturday were sold at a discount.)

It would be pretty ironic if I made stationery decorated with fountain pens that didn't take fountain pen ink, wouldn't it?

You can see the instructions for the letter writer on how to assemble their aerogramme in the lower left corner.  And luckily for those among us who use fountain pens on a regular basis, these are printed on thick part-cotton, part FSC-certified eco-friendly paper that takes fountain pen ink with no trouble.  It took only a couple seconds for the ink to dry.

I mailed one to Dan to make sure they'd work alright. Whew!

Based on some feedback from friends I mailed them to, I may add a small line on the back instructing recipients how to open them.  Apparently aerogrammes are too rare a sight in one's mailbox!
To order an introductory set of 6 for $8 on Etsy:
Bibliophile Aerogrammes
Philepistolist Aerogrammes

Come see me on Saturday!

I'm psyched to be a vendor at September's DC Meet Market this Saturday!  It'll be on the corner of 15th and P Streets, NW in lovely (and ever-cooling) DC.  The show will have over 30 other fabulous vendors, and will be open from 11 to 5pm.  I hope you can come visit us!

postal products

Benita of Chez Larsson put a post up on Friday that immediately caught my eye.  See if you can guess the reason:

Has the USPS ever issued posters of their old stamps?  I can think of several that I'd love in poster form.  Right now, I have to settle for framing the blocks of stamps themselves.

While we're at it, here are some Royal Mail products that I own and love:

 First Class Machin mug, available in several other color schemes:

 

First Class Chef oven mitt, available in one other color scheme:

I feel like other countries do marketing and sale of products featuring their postal service better than we do; I'm not sure, however, if it's that the USPS is just bad at it, or if it's that they're not allowed by Congress to do so.  The way our postal system is set up is so flawed for the world we actually live in.  I love them and want them to flourish, and they're so stymied by such ridiculous rules.

Any other well-designed postal products that I ought to know about?

Today I learned that during World War II, the American government committed German mail fraud. 

Part of Operation Cornflakes, as it was called, air-dropped bags of correctly-addressed propaganda mail that the US Office of Strategic Services had created into areas where German trains with mail cars had been bombed.  The idea was that the Germans would collect all the mail bags that had been thrown from the train and put them back into the mail system.  They forged the German stamps at the time, and included a Cinderella stamp inside for the receiver that had Hitler's head drawn as a skull, with a slight rhyming alteration to the words: "German Empire" was turned into "Destroyed Empire." 

It totally worked; 3800 of these propaganda mailings were air-dropped and picked up by the Germans in January of 1945, and subsequently delivered to their intended recipients.

Wikipedia doesn't say if it happened more than the one occasion, but I can't imagine the OSS went through all the effort of forging German postage, making their own Cinderellas, acquiring accurate German addresses, typing or hand-addressing all those addresses, and stuffing the envelopes with their propaganda newsletters just to test it out once.

I also found this site, which talks a bit about different propaganda campaigns the Allies had in various European countries.  According to their article, the OSS got the addresses from the German public death notices of Nazi soldiers, and sent propaganda to the grieving family members.  Harsh, but probably pretty effective.  It says they sent hundreds of these by "clandestine means" every two weeks from 1942 on, so that would make it a larger-scale operation than the Wikipedia entry would lead one to believe.  Possibly they got the mail into Germany by means other than air-dropping it before 1945.

Wherein Mrs. Morrigan comes home to roost.

You might know that I live in a basement apartment.  Our steps are super steep, so it's a mini-hiking trip every day when I leave the house.  I don't usually look up; I'm generally concentrating to make sure an ill-placed foot doesn't send me back down into the seven foot well that is my entryway.

So when I got about forehead-level with my mailbox and spotted this out of the corner of my eye, I'm not ashamed to say that I jumped.  Just a little.

Unexpected pigeon mail is unexpected.

Luckily, I've loved from afar the Pigeon Post kit from the Letter Writers Alliance, so once my heart stopped racing from the half second of thinking a real pigeon was on my mailbox, I knew exactly what she was doing there.

The view of Mrs. Morrigan from my upstairs neighbors' perspective as they ascended their stoop.

You can read all about Mrs. Morrigan's past life as a fortune-teller here.  However, this week she was helping Kim send a message to me that could not be delayed, nor could it be rushed by false electronic means.

She took exactly the right amount of time to arrive. 

Many thanks to Kim for sending her my way!  I fed her (well, I put her next to the cockatiels' seed bowl, thus terrorizing both Roo and Bigsby, who thought she was real and eating their food), and will let her relax here for a little while before figuring out where she should go next.

Craftgasm at the Eco-Chic Pop-Up Shop this weekend!

I'm excited to be selling my Earth-friendly stationery and prints at the Benevolent Media Festival's Eco-Chic Pop-Up Shop tomorrow at Mova Lounge! Click here to see my fellow eco-conscious vendors.

Mova Lounge is on 14th Street just north of W Street, NW. There will be a happy hour for the last hour of shopping, so come in and cool off tomorrow!

Letter-Writing Social Wrap-Up

Did you ever get a pony for your birthday while you were at Disney World? Me either, but I had the postal equivalent of that on Saturday.

The letter-writing social at the Smithsonian National Postal Museum was a huge success. We had three mostly-functional typewriters, TONS of free stationery designed by yours truly, and the creativity of hundreds of people who came through and made mail. It can't get much better than that.

Our inspiration board of supplies and completed mail art.

There was also some blogging royalty who traveled across state lines to be with us. Mary of Mary Has Sound, Becky of The Snail Mailer, Bonnie Jeanne of PostMuse, and Amber of A Thoughtful Blog all came from their respective states. Plus my dear friend Bethany of TeaOlive came from South Carolina with lino blade in hand to carve rubber stamps for a lot of attendees at the stamp table.

The only photo I have of her working is this slightly blurry one.

Partially-functional typewriters.

Answer: Whatever you can make it.

The stamp table -- both the rubber and postage type.

Collage materials laid neatly in their bowls -- at first.

This soon became a huge, awesome disaster area.

Crayons, markers, pencils, and more cancelled stamps.

Some "after" photos of all these tables. Remember, messiness is the sign of a good time.

Three typewriters, three kids. Start 'em young!

A lovely mess of making.

A patron hard at work on an artful letter

An especial thanks to Erin of the NPM, whose hard work made this awesomeness happen.  She's super-supportive of the letter-writing and mail art communities, and her backing of this project is what made it so successful.

Were you able to come make mail with us? What did you think of the afternoon?

P.S. Did you know about the #showandmail topic on Twitter that @postalmuseum popularized? It's a great source of letter-writing inspiration.

Letter-Writing Social at the National Postal Museum

I'm thrilled to announce that I'm co-hosting a letter-writing and mail-making event at the Smithsonian's National Postal Museum on Saturday, April 28th from noon until 3pm! I've always thought the atrium of the museum would be perfect for a letter lounge, what with the fabulous philepistolist tile under one's feet and the exhibit of mail trucks, trains, and planes around the edges of the space. (If only we could move a couple of fireplaces and comfy couches in there, too...) From their description:

Amaze a friend by sending an artfully handwritten, paper-based message instead of the usual tweet or text. They might just write you back!
One-of-a-kind stationery, unique postcards, pretty paper, ink stamps, retro airmail labels, cancelled stamps, a somewhat functional typewriter, and mailable supplies are provided in this veritable letter-writing lounge. Postage stamps available for purchase in the museum's Stamp Store.

The "one-of-a-kind stationery" is designed by me and will be available exclusively at the event, so be sure to drop by to take advantage of it! (A little preview can be seen above.)

I know of a few of the well-known mail artists who are active bloggers will be there, too, so don't miss your chance to meet up face to face. Hope to see you there!