An Expired Postcrossing Card That Worries Me

Mail sometimes does go astray. Sometimes a postcrosser forgets to register a postcard. Things happen. I understand that. Usually an expired Postcrossing card, one that has been traveling more than 60 days, doesn't bother me much. The one shown above does.

It was sent out on March 6th and it returned to me this week. So, it isn't lost. I know exactly where it is and exactly where it has been. If you look at the photo closely, you may be able to make out the postmark.

Nagareyama...

JAPAN

Now you see why it's worrisome. A postcard returned to sender appears to be an isolated, almost insignificant event. However, the ramifications of what that returned postcard could indicate are troubling. I rechecked the profile of the user...a young 32-year-old woman with a husband and a 1-yr-old daughter. She wants to see the aurora borealis. Some of her favorite things are dogs, coffee, spring, and stamps. She was last seen on Postcrossing over two months ago.

Aya, I hope you and your family are safe. I hope the reason you haven't been online is that your electric service has been disrupted, or that you've relocated to a shelter or to stay with family or friends. I'm concerned, but won't think the unthinkable.

Kailey Teaches Nana

In my last post, I talked about Kailey's Mail Art pictured above and mentioned there are lessons to be learned from this 3-yr-old. Well, here they are.

#1 Work quickly. From start to finish, this little mail art project took maybe a total of 3 minutes. Probably less.

#2 Work intuitively. When I handed her the plain, white 4 x 6 inch piece of
cardstock to use for her base, she immediately ripped it into two pieces. No boundaries for Kailey's mail art.

#3 Work with what you have. It didn't bother Kailey that the materials I gave her were things I didn't really care about. She was happy to work with the items I'd put in her very own box of treasures. No extra items needed, no trips to Michael's, no specialty orders required. She worked with what was available.

#4 Don't worry about what others think. I can say quite confidently Kailey didn't give a second thought to what others might think of her work.

#5 Think outside the box. What box? The 4 x 6 in base card didn't box little Kailey in. Her art didn't have to fit within those confines. Notice both the heart sticker embellishment and the main image extend outside what was left of the original 4 x 6 in box.

#6 Be happy. When I asked her who she was going to send her mail art to, Kailey looked at me and said, "To you, Nana. I need a stamp." So I helped her write Nana on the back side (dots to trace), and then let her choose whatever stamp she wanted from my REAL postage. She chose one and enjoyed licking and placing the vintage stamp. Then she solemnly placed it into my mailbox and raised the flag. We each have mailboxes where we correspond. Her mailbox is Cinderella-themed, while mine is a more sedate blue box with white spatters (thrift store finds).

Are there any lessons you can learn from Kailey??????

Crockett's Got Talent

Yep, that's right. Crockett's got talent. No, I'm not talking about me and my attempts at mail and journal art. Crockett's got talent when Kailey, my 3-yr-old granddaughter comes over.

During her last visit, she asked what I was making and I said, "Mail art."
She replied, "I want to make mail art, too."

So I handed her a blank white 4 in x 6 in card to use as the base for her art. She immediately ripped it into two pieces and began looking through my box of already cut images for one to "blue" down with her own bluestick. (G's are hard to say when you're 3)

She chose the Max Headroom photo, used her very own scissors to whack off the lower right corner (obviously it didn't belong there), blued it down, and finished off with the heart sticker embellishment.

There are lessons to be learned here. More on this mail art later.

A Mailbox Trifecta

This may be a first for me...three, count them, three wonderful pieces of mail in the same day. Well, the same day, if you count part of Thursday and part of Friday as the same day. Anyway, all three are from Bobbie Cade, aka Limner. If you don't read her blogs, you are missing out.



First up is my favorite, this long handwritten letter. Isn't her handwriting lovely. Sigh.



Next, was what see calls Cross Over Art, wherein she repurposed some of her scrapbooking materials to make this personalized card just for me. I feel special.



To complete the trifecta, Bobbie sent me these three gorgeous photo notecards with envelopes. I'm fairly certain these are made with her own photos.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. These seem like such little phrases for mail that makes me so happy. How about you? Any happy mail brightening your days?

How Cool is This!!!!

If you're a regular reader of Just Letter Rip , then you might recognize that all the words in the word cloud above are from previous blog posts.

I spent hours choosing the words, deciding which to emphasize, and setting up the layout in Photoshop. Whew, I'm tired.

NOT!

Wordle did it all for me in about 2 seconds. All I did was type in the URL for my web page, hit Submit. And Whoomp, there it is.

You can also cut and paste text into Wordle or type your own list of words and phrases.

I use this little word generator all the time at school and my students love it. Wordle has been around for a couple of years now, but I'm still amazed that not many people seem to know about it. How can all this coolness be hidden?

Put in the lyrics of your favorite song, or a recipe, or a passage from the Bible, or your favorite quote. See what happens. You can tinker with different fonts, layouts, color combos. It's addictive and you can spend hours there before you know it. You've been warned!

True Story

This arrived in my mailbox yesterday.
:-) Happy Face.

It was from a new correspondent.
:-) Happy Face.

It was empty.
:-( Sad Face.

Moral of the Story: Glue is fickle. Use tape.

A Couple of First Evers

Here's my very first handcarved eraser stamp EVER. I was so proud and showed the carving and my first stamped images of it to my husband.

Me: Look! My first handcarved stamp.
Him: What's wrong with his pecker?
Me: Uh...that's his hand.
Him: Looks like a pecker to me.
Me: It's his hand. So he can hold a letter. I'm going to make another stamp of a mailbox.
Him: He looks like a mailbox. (Pause) With feet. (Another pause) And a pecker.

What do you think? In my first ever poll, cast your vote in the sidebar at right.

Envelope Templates

Several people have asked how I made the Laura Ashley wallpaper envelopes. I use the Kreate-a-lope templates from greensneakers. Three or four years ago at a sale, I found a set of about 8 templates for $8. It was 8 bucks well spent. I use those templates all the time. They work really well. And, by the way, I don't work for Kreate-a-lope because if I did, I wouldn't say that I'd have a really hard time coughing up the cash they're asking for these babies.

Check out the video below. The only difference is that I usually trace out the template and cut it out instead of tearing. I prefer the clean edge look.



Edit: I was so proud of embedding a video. This was my first time doing this. But, now I see it's out of whack and encroaching on the right sidebar's space. I don't have time to figure this out right now, so it will just have to stew on the back burner for a while. Grrr.....

Silly Me

Yesterday I pulled this piece of mail out of my mailbox, looked at the writing, and thought. Wow, somebody's handwriting looks remarkably like mine.

Then I realized why.

It was mine! I'd ordered some stamps and included a self-addressed stamped envelope.
Silly me.

Mail Register: Keeping Track

Different people have different systems for keeping track of their mail. Misty Davis posted about her system here. Still, she continues to have a bit of trouble knowing which items have been responded to and which still need answering, etc.

Let me tell you about the system I use to keep up with my incoming and outgoing mail. I base it on a system I perfected years ago for my sewing, crafting, and crocheting projects. My main problem then was that so many of the things I wanted to keep track of fit into more than one category. For example, I had a crochet heart pattern that used red, white, and blue yarn and resembled an American flag when completed. Would I file it under crochet, or hearts, or Patriotic/4th of July??
Do you see the dilemma? No matter which category I picked, I was afraid I wouldn't remember it could be an option in the others.

After much trial and error, I finally worked out a system that made sense to me and was manageable. I could locate instructions for any pattern in seconds. And that was the goal, after all. I catalogued all of my items with a simple numbering system, 1, 2, 3... New instructions were labeled with the next number and everything was filed in numerical order.

Next I made an index file with cards for each type of craft or activity. Birthdays, Christmas, Crochet, Hearts, Patriotic, Valentine's Day, etc. Say item #32 was that crocheted heart I mentioned above. On the index cards for Crochet, Hearts, Patriotic, and Valentine's Day I'd list #32. That way it could be filed in several categories all at once.

Conversely, if I wanted to make a heart, I could pull out the heart index card and find all projects that dealt with hearts listed by number, so easy to find. Oh, and to jog my memory, I typed up a master list, also in numerical order with a description of each item so I didn't have to dig through the actual files. Does that make sense?

I have a similar system for my mail log. All my correspondents are listed by name on individual index cards. The card contains name and address, email, and website info. Sometimes I include the person's birthday if I know it and a few notes about their hobbies or interests. Every time I receive an item from that person, the number of that item of mail gets written on his/her card.

As I open the day's mail, I assign the next numbers in sequence to each new item of mail. I also note the date it was received. Next I update each person's index card with the newly assigned numbers. As I answer back to each item, I list that on the envelope as well. If I want to locate all the items of mail Misty has sent me, I simply pull her index card and fish out the numbered items from the files.

Works for me. If you have any questions, I'll be happy to try to answer them.