I knew if I was going to keep up with Letter Month, I would have to keep a little mail kit in my bag. I decided to make things simple for myself: I would return proper letters at home but I would write quick, fun postcards when I was out and about. So far it’s working, as I’ve been able to write postcards while waiting for Naoto at the doctor, while waiting to meet friends for coffee, and while waiting for our food to come at a restaurant. If I didn’t carry a little kit, those postcards would have never happened. 
Inside the kit (which is really just the box that held my New Year cards) I have a handful of postcards, pens, stamps, my travel address book, my return address stamp and ink. I could probably drop some stickers or some washi tape in the box, too, but I really just want these postcards to be simple. Write a postcard, stamp it, and drop it in a blue box. Done!
kimberly ah
kimberly at home
Category Archives: Office Supplies
Happening Today: LWA Virtual Social
Happy Virtual Letter Social Day!! Although I won’t be able to participate in the video portion of the social (I hate it when work commitments get in the way of letter writing!) I will be finishing my Valentines and writing letters throughout the day (or as long as Presley stays off the table.)
Happy letter writing!
Coming Up: Letter Month 2015
Letter Month* is right around the corner again! I’m dusting off my postal-themed rubber stamps, gathering my stash of postage, and sifting through my stationery. I will be all ready to reply to the stack of letters growing on my desk.
My goals this year are simple: write at least one letter a day for every day in February, respond to each letter I receive in a timely manner, spend out my stationery, sticker and vintage paper stashes, and to visit my neighborhood blue boxes as often as possible (inspired by my postal council work). For the actual goals of Letter Month, go here.
Are you participating in Letter Month?
*Also known as International Correspondence Writing Month or InCoWriMo
P.S. If you want to find the blue box in your neighborhood, go here. And, to see the other Letter Month posts from previous years, go here.
Stamps pictured above are from a variety of shops: Paper Source (all discontinued), Paper Pastries, Wit & Whistle, Kia Hing Fay (shop closed), Well-Appointed Desk and the Letter Writers Alliance. If you have a question about a particular stamp, let me know in the comments.
A Simple Tool for Book Club Readers
A long time ago, while reading Kathy’s blog, I learned about these neat little things called Book Darts. They are tiny, thin page markers made of metal that slide on and off the paper without leaving a mark. I know some people like to fold the edge of the page over or use little sticky note page flags. Those are fine options, too, but I usually get my books from the library so folding the edge is not an option and the sticky flags sometimes damage older paper. (Our book club reads so many old books that often, at least one of us is reading a crumbling copy from the library!) So far, I’ve never had a book dart hurt even the oldest books.
The most genius thing about them is that they can be used to point to the exact words on the page that you want. I often try to take notes while I am reading for book club so that I can remember what I want to talk about during our meetings. But sometimes, I’m so into a book that I don’t want to stop at take notes. Grabbing a dart and marking a passage is often enough for me to remember what I wanted to say.
(Of course, for longer notes or questions about the book, I keep a trusty notebook set aside for book club. This one was a gift from my pen pal, Cath.)
Do you have anything special you use for book club?
P.S. Sorry for the quiet this week. I am hosting book club tomorrow morning and I’ve been reading and rushing around cleaning up and finally putting Christmas away.
New Year’s Cards 2015
On January 1st, I spent the day catching up on all of my mail. I sent out a big stack of seventeen New Year’s cards and thank yous on the second.
For New Year cards, I sent three different versions–two different Japanese postcards and letterpressed greeting cards. We got the Japanese postcards at Mitsuwa again. Roughly translated, the fan one says “We humbly wish you a happy new year” and the bamboo one says “Thank you very much for all assistance rendered the previous year. We ask for your continuous guidance this year as well.” The little bamboo drawing on the bottom is a classic Japanese New Year symbol called a kadomatsu.
The greeting cards are from Saturn Press, a letterpress printing company in Maine. (They don’t have a website, but I found some information about them here, which I think is quite interesting.) The card features two juncos sitting on a branch and the quote by Rainer Maria Rilke, “And now let us welcome the new year, full of things that have never been.” I love everything Saturn Press does, but these are my favorites–from the birds to the simple phrase and the gorgeous paper stock with its deckled edge…these cards are dreamy. 
I put all of the cards in envelopes (even the postcards) and decorated them with washi tape, metallic stars, and old Japanese Woodblock Cavallini calendars. (I had several in my stash, so I picked out the wintry months to use. Cavallini uses artwork by Hasui Kawase, the same artist who was on our Christmas cards.)
And to seal the deal, I got to use my shiny new Letter Writers Alliance member stamp. It feels good to start the year out with a stack of mail…let’s hope I can keep up the postal momentum!
Merry Zinemas
I think out of all of my gifts, I liked my stocking gifts the best. (Well, that’s hard to say…but they are awesome!) I mentioned here that I like to ask for zines for Christmas. My stocking was stuffed with zines, socks, postcards and a stamp. Here’s what I got:
Collage & Art Journal IDEAS zine
Parcel Ghost Super-Supernatural zine pack
(I’ll talk more about zines in an upcoming post, but until then, I highly recommend all of these zines!)
Donuts socks: These socks are so cozy! I gave Naoto the Beer ones a few years ago. The sock bottoms are lined with terry, giving a little extra cushion. I’ve been padding around the house in these for a few days now. I may never take them off.
Letter Writers Alliance Official Seal Stamp: I love all of my LWA stamps and I’m so excited to have one with my member number on it. I’m ready to send more mail in 2015!
Victory Garden postcards: I’m excited to NOT hoard these!
So that was my stocking. Santa Naoto did a great job, as usual. One more Christmas post…and then we can put the holidays behind us!
P.S. Though some of the makers (of the zines & stamp) are friends and acquaintances, this post wasn’t sponsored by anyone but me. 🙂
Thrifted Treasures 2
On my drive down to my parents’ house a few weeks ago, I stopped in our favorite thrift store. I had fifteen minutes before they closed, so I hit the office section, the greeting cards and the dishes–my three favorites. The greeting cards were a bust. Although they had several boxes of Christmas cards to offer, nothing was vintage enough or sweet enough to buy. (I still have no idea what I’m doing for holiday cards this year.) And the dishes were equally disappointing, unless you like those country patterns of the nineties. (Think hearts and ducks and other country patterns.) 
But the office section never disappoints! Within five minutes I snagged up all the best stuff: some Care Bear stickers, some jumbo gold stars, and most exciting of all, two vintage accountant work sheet pads. The largest is 11×16 and I love all the little grids and warm colors and the yellowed paper. The best part about the ledgers is that yellow tagged items were 50% off that day, so one was 75¢ and the other was 50¢. My bill at the register for all four items was $2.12.
I’ve already written one letter on the smaller ledger paper and I look forward to using up all four in mail upcoming mail projects!
When you go thrift shopping, which department do you head for?
P.S. For more thrifting posts, go here.
JC Penney Museum
One of our first stops while we were exploring Hamilton was the J.C. Penney Museum. The museum is part of the local library and is filled with items used by J.C. Penney personally as well as in his first stores. There is a wax figure of Penney himself anchoring the exhibit…it was a little alarming at first, but he felt like an old friend by the end. 
Some of my favorite items in the museum were the office supplies–so many fantastic rubber stamps and little notebooks and handbooks. 
And there was a tricky looking calculator and a gorgeous Underwood typewriter. Swoon!
I love this picture from the JC Penney Golden Jubilee Convention in 1952. It was held at the Edgewater Beach Hotel in Chicago and it looks like it was a fabulous event! 
Brannock devices and other shoe-selling tools make me miss good customer service in the shoe departments of today. 
This is a plate that was made for J.C. Penney’s eightieth birthday. Isn’t James Cash a terrific name?
Ah, catalogs…so good for browsing, so bad for the environment.
I didn’t do any research before we went to the museum, but J.C. Penney’s desk is in the museum and unlike most museums, you are invited to sit in his chair. I’m bummed that I learned this after we left and the museum closed. We did thumb through the catalogs though. There was no one working in the museum, so when it came time to buy postcards (which were only 10¢ each!) I took them into the library side to pay for them. I love how quaint and laid-back it was!
A few blocks down the main road is the J.C. Penney childhood home. It isn’t open for touring and it’s not in its original location (Penney grew up just outside of town in the countryside.) In the 80s it was saved from being torn down and moved into town and renovated. It sits among the businesses downtown Hamilton, a charming reminder of the man himself.
Packing Tape Postcards for Halloween
I started reading blogs in 2007 when a coworker told me about Angry Chicken. Angry Chicken is a personal blog by Amy Karol where she shares a variety of things from homeschooling and sewing projects to homemade deodorant and cake recipes. I love that it’s an unpredictable range of topics and that there are no sponsored posts. (Not that there’s anything wrong with sponsored posts…it’s just nice to have a break from them once in awhile!) I was so fascinated with her blog that I stayed up late one night reading all of her posts from the beginning. It’s one of the few blogs that I continue to read after all these years.
Over the summer, I was inspired by this post about packing tape postcards. I love how her three girls sandwiched anything and everything between two strips of packing tape and made it a postcard. Simple, but genius. I thought it would be fun to try but I was out of packing tape and kind of forgot about it until last week when I broke out my Halloween mail stuff. I have loads of confetti and ribbon and some chunky copper glitter that I felt would make a perfect Halloween packing tape postcard. 
I only made two, but I hope to make a few more before fall ends. I forgot the glitter in Margaret’s, which is fine…there’s no right or wrong, but I love how the glitter pieces fill the void. I also didn’t write messages on them, but next time I will. My postcards ended up being about 5×7 inches so I used a Forever postage stamp on them (stuck on the outside of the packing tape!) And because I didn’t write a message or sign the postcards, I stamped my return address on them with StazOn ink, pretty much the only thing that will dry on the slick packing tape surface.
I can’t wait to make more of these! It would be fun to make one with bits of ephemera from a vacation or an event. For now, I’m just hoping to make a few more fall-themed ones.
P.S. I finished my 31 Postcards in 31 Days project on November 1st! Yay!
October Paper Parcel
I know it’s been awhile since I’ve shared my paper parcels from Saturday Morning Vintage. It’s not because they haven’t been wonderful, they have! I just got a little bit tired of writing about them. (Is it okay to admit that?) But i figured, since Halloween is fast approaching and this months paper parcel is right on theme, I would share some quick pictures of all the amazing vintage bits! 
The parcel came wrapped in a kraft paper bag with a sweet vintage bat cupcake topper taped on the front. 
Most of the paper parcel was orange and black (obviously!) but there were hints of purple too. Some of the larger pieces included patterned papers and a page from a vintage insect book. There were also tickets, price tags, milk caps, game board money and a Sleepy Hollow stamp (one of my favorites!) 
I loved the Halloween Charade cards. 
Some of my favorite pieces were the horoscope card complete with bats, owls and cats and the vintage pharmacy labels. 
And, last but not least, the array of playing cards completed the paper parcel. The witch and the jack-o-lanterns are my Halloween favorites! Oh and the round scalloped leaf is a vintage paper coaster–cute right?
I’m excited to use some of the pieces for mail art this month. I just started decorating for Halloween yesterday and it’s gotten me in the mood for the season. I’ll share more soon!
To see the other Paper Parcel posts, go here.
kimberly ah 