Spoiler Alert: Don't Look, Limner.

I usually forget to scan outgoing mail, but as the post office is closed today, I have time. This Independence Day envelope goes to mail pal, Bobbie. The return address and flag cutout on the bottom left come from one of those mailings seeking donations for veterans. The flag postage stamps are ones from my most recent order from Errol Murphy and my red and blue pen work on the address complete the theme.

Now, everybody sing along with me and The March King.

The Stars and Stripes Forever
Hurrah for the flag of the free!
May it wave as our standard forever,
The gem of the land and the sea,
The banner of the right.
Let despots remember the day
When our fathers with mighty endeavor
Proclaimed as they marched to the fray
That by their might and by their right
It waves forever.

Happy 4th of July!

Walltype-- Sent One, Got One, Plus NL-690084

Thanks to Missive Maven for the heads up on Walltype. I registered and here is the first card I sent out.



And, I already have received my first card as well. Check out this gorgeous scenery from Colorado, courtesy of Dede.



Also in today's mail is this postcrossing card of Kathedrale Basiliek van St. Jan from The Netherlands.

Purple Coneflower

Check out this First Day of Issue postcard by Elle. Lovely, just lovely.

Greetings from Virginia

Back in late winter, I went to Cracker Barrel to buy postcards to use in my Postcrossing mailings. They no longer sold postcards. :-( Sad Face

Imagine my delight when I found bundles of 5/$1 at a local flea market. I bought all they had....about 7 packets of them. Many of them are duplicates, but I have enjoyed sending them out. I love the retro look of the photo letter ones. How about you? Any great finds lately?

One Good Envelope Deserves Another

Or, four will get you five! Elle over at Art of a Letter requested a set of the Laura Ashley wallpaper envelopes I'd offered a while back. I sent them and look what she sent back...five GORGEOUS handmade envelopes. I love the patterns on all these papers and am having a difficult time choosing a favorite. I've narrowed it down to the first two, but am leaning toward #2, the pale aqua one. They're all lovely and I will enjoy using them in my correspondence.



However, the envelopes weren't the only thing sent. Check out this lovely postcard on which Elle sent her message. Isn't it beautiful? At first, I didn't see the sunglasses nestled inside the foliage. One certainly doesn't need rose-colored glasses to see this is a great card. Thank you so much, Elle.

This Just In: Davy Crockett Surfaces in Bermuda Triangle

Bobbie Cade, aka Limner, sent me a letter a few weeks back. It was dated May 26th. She went all out on the Davy Crockett envelope you see above, even going so far as to persuade the postal clerk to cancel the stamp with a Crockett, TX postmark. (For those of you who don't get the connection, I live in Crockett, VA.)

Well, the letter was missing. I kept waiting for it to arrive. Bobbie kept trying to track it from her end. Nada.

This morning I mentioned the missing letter to my husband. He asked, "Have you checked in the Bermuda Triangle?"

I had not. But, I did. And, voila...the missing letter has surfaced.

The Bermuda Triangle (Crockett affiliate) is located in my vehicle. Nissan calls it a Door Pocket. I have lost, AND FOUND, my cell phone there twice, as well as various and sundry other items. I don't know why I don't just check there first when something goes missing.

Or, stuff it full of something so items don't fall into it.

Or, stop driving like a maniac, careening around these curvy mountain roads on two wheels, making items skedaddle across the passenger seat only to land in the abyss. Not likely to occur.

Greener than Green Mail

Back in March, I sent a letter to Donna Parker in Mexico. I used an inside-out envelope my bank statement came in, collaged a few bits on it and sent it on its merry way. You can see the envelope in the stack of mail pictured on my blog post dated March 14th.


Donna, whom I have dubbed "The Green Queen", collaged it some more and sent my return letter back in the same envie.



Here's the back side with its extra embellishments. But, she didn't stop there!



Check out the letter. The writing on this side is mine to Donna. I added the car in the background and Barbie over to the side. The new images in the foreground are the ones Donna added. She answered by writing on the flip sides of all these pages which were blank.

What a fun letter to receive. It reminded me of some letters my piano teacher let me read when I was a young girl. Those letters dated from Civil War times...but that is way off subject and fodder for some post in the future.

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.