Happy Veterans Day!
A special thanks to John & Chester (pictured above) and all of the veterans in my family–dad, grandpa, uncle, cousins–who have served.
Photo from the Honor Flight Chicago website from our October 2, 2013 flight.
kimberly ah
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Vintage Paper Hoarder
I am working on my Thanksgiving invitations today. I have a plan and it involves using up some of my vintage paper collection. I have a giant bin of ephemera that I’ve collected over time. Many things were purchased from Saturday Morning Vintage (Xenia’s shop is so good and most of what is shown above is from a Thanksgiving paper pack that I bought this year.) and from flea markets and thrift shops. Few things in life make me happier than discovering an old box of labels or flashcards at the thrift store.
As I was sifting through my ephemera stash, I was thinking about my 2013 goal to spend out. While I’ve done a very good job wearing out my clothes, using up my stationery and scrapbook supplies, eating my Japanese snacks and hanging up my artwork, I’ve been hesitant to use up the vintage stuff…the stuff that I can’t replace quite as easily… But it’s better to let these papers live on in another form (as mail art or an invitation) than to languish in a bin, right? So I spent part of my afternoon sorting through things and pulling out pieces for certain projects (Thanksgiving and Christmas related right now) and sorting the rest by color or style. I am now prepared to use up and spend out some of my collection. I’m moving a little bit of it onto my desk so it’s handy for mail art and leaving the rest in the bin ready for the next project.
Hopefully, I can finish up the invitations this weekend and show them to you next week, once they’ve arrived at their destinations. In the meantime, have a good weekend!
Blush & Gold Gift
My mom’s birthday was in October. We got her a gift card (booooring!) and I picked up a pretty handkerchief for her in Japan. Such a tiny gift deserved a pretty package, so I whipped up a little decorated paper bag for her present. I love packaging things for my mom because she takes time to notice the little details. It’s a fun way to celebrate the special mom that she is. 
I started with a little flat kraft bag and layered on anything blush and gold from my craft cupboard (aka the hardware cabinet TV stand–those drawers are awfully handy!). I always have a variety of supplies on hand for mail art, scrapbooking and other projects, so once I collected everything I needed, putting the gift bag together only took about five minutes. It was a happy accident that the pink label fit perfectly on the doily…once that happened, I cruised along layering each piece. I cheered when I discovered that my favorite glue pen was strong enough to hold the tiny gold sequins. (I see more sequins in my future.) I finished off the gift with a little piece of washi tape on the back. Quick and simple. Now if only I could get my act together to fancy up the pile of Christmas gifts…
Supplies used: kraft bags, doilies, peach & gold washi tape, vintage sequins, Rifle labels (these are my favorites!), kraft flags, Quickie glue pen, Souffle pen (not shown), flair button (not shown in supply picture, but shown on package picture).
P.S. Thanks, Mary, for inviting me to the Celebration Link-Up!
Japan Does It Better 2: Public Toilets
If you know me at all, you know that I haaaaaaaaaate public bathrooms. They are always dirty, the toilet paper is often 1-ply, there is no privacy (Why are the cracks between the stall big enough for people to see in?!), washing your hands becomes futile because you still have to touch the faucet and the door unless there is a fancy automatic shut-off and unless you wait for someone to come along and open the door for you!
Yep, it’s all gross. It’s the stuff nightmares are made of.
So imagine my bathroom-phobic surprise when I walked into my first public Japanese bathroom (in Kyoto back in 2008) and saw this:
I almost had a panic attack.
I mean, what do you even do???
Why didn’t someone warn me???
Thankfully, in Tokyo, most of the toilets are “Western style” (the kind that I am used to here in the States). Many even have a bank of fancy and confusing buttons…so many buttons, in fact, that sometimes flushing the toilet can be challenging. (Which button is it?) 
The buttons are all part of the washlet–a bidet-like contraption fitted into the toilet seat. Washlets are in most of the public bathrooms and private homes in modern Tokyo. Most of the washlets include a seat warmer and a deodorizer, too. Some, like the one at the top of this post, have a music button you can push and it plays a little tune or water noises to give you a little privacy and drown out any…ahem…bathroom noises. In some public washrooms, the music/water noises start automatically. I’m a big fan of the music…I don’t want to know what’s going on in the stalls around me.
And you know the little paper seat covers that are in some (nicer) American public bathrooms? Many Tokyo bathrooms have these, too. And if they don’t, they have this:
It’s sanitizer for the seat! You just squirt some on a piece of toilet paper, wipe down the seat and it’s clean and ready to use. Genius, no?
Clearly, when it comes to public bathrooms, Japan Does It Better!
(In case you missed the beginning of this series, click here.)
Beginning a Quiet November…
This weekend, Naoto and I attended a Forest Park Community Garden fundraiser–the 2nd Annual Apple Pie Bake-Off. We did not bake a pie but we did eat the delicious pies in the competition. We had another fun night mingling with our fellow gardeners, having caricatures drawn (isn’t Naoto’s adorable?), goofing around in the photo booth and bidding on silent auction items. Naoto proudly walked away the winner of an hour lecture by a PhD. Our topic? Whiskey. I’m very excited to invite some friends over for a little whiskey tasting and lecture next month.
The Honor Flight Chicago season also ended last week, with our final flight of 2013 on Wednesday and our volunteer appreciation party on Friday night. As much as I’m going to miss my fellow volunteers this winter, I am looking forward to settling into the fall, finally, and preparing for a (hopefully) quiet holiday season. This week is light on responsibilities so I’m determined to get my Thanksgiving invitations made and get a jump start on holiday preparations around here. That means cleaning the spare room (the chore that never ends) and finding some art to hang on that pesky dining room wall… There’s nothing like a holiday to get you in the mood to work on your neglected home making skills!
Spooky Saturday: Halloween Letter Social
Last Saturday was Halloween themed. After the Casket Races on Saturday morning, I went to a Halloween Letter Social at Pieritz Bros. The Letter Writers Alliance once again teamed up with everyone’s favorite office supply store to host letter writing and typewriter typing. I used that festive orange number up above…it typed like a dream in a lovely cursive and I was able to crank out three letters during the social. 
Thanks to the Halloween Mail Art Workshop, the Letter Social, and a letter writing cram session on Monday morning, I have almost caught up on my correspondence. Almost. 
I used some of my vintage postage, but I really loved the look of the Johnny Cash stamp on the black envelopes.
It feels good to be participating in the world of mail again. 
Spooky Saturday: Casket Races
Last Saturday, Forest Park hosted its second annual Casket Races. Forest Park is sometimes known as the “village of cemeteries”–our dead-to-living ratio is 30 to 1–so it is only fitting that we have a race of caskets as a fairly new annual Halloween tradition. Basically, contestants build a “casket” (or a casket-like car) and one person rides in the casket while the other four “pall bearers” push it down the block. It was a super-fast moving race (in most cases), but the best part was checking out the different designs and costumes of each team. I love events like these, especially when regular people, organizations and businesses take part and create awesomely themed “caskets”. 
The casket above is made from a refrigerator…it totally lost (refrigerators have way too much drag to be real contenders!) but coming from an appliance store (Grand on Madison) it was the perfect casket for the race. 
This one was my personal favorite…the Stanley Cup casket was brilliant. 
The Grateful Dead casket was an entry from a local bar, McGaffer’s. Their runners were decked out in tie-dye, of course. The ice cream “trough” casket (peeking out from behind the Dead casket) was from Brown Cow Ice Cream Shop.
This team won for Spookiest Casket for the second year in a row. There were also trophies for first, second and last place, as well as funniest and coolest caskets. 
If I owned a local business, I would totally be taking a part in this community event. As a matter of fact, I think I might have to encourage my fellow community gardeners to participate next year. How fun would a garden vegetable themed casket be?
(For more–and better–pictures, check out the Forest Park Review’s article here!)
My Own Mail Call
Yesterday, I finally finished opening all of the mail call letters from my fellow volunteers. I’ve been opening a few each day since the flight…it’s been a really sweet way to read them. I left them on the sideboard in the dining room and every day picked up one or two to read…like a tiny uplifting break in my day.
I don’t know about you, but it’s really hard for me to read nice things about myself. I think even sitting alone and reading those nice comments made me blush and feel all “awe shucks” about things…
Maureen, Honor Flight’s longest serving volunteer, gave me the vintage Snuffleupagus card. She said she couldn’t find her plain stationery, but I think she should know that vintage Sesame Street makes me ridiculously happy. This card is going to hang out on my desk for awhile. 
And this card wins the award for making me laugh out loud. Paula pasted (actually pasted!) my face on this old WWII mail picture. It was so unexpected, I actually did a double-take, saying out loud, “Wait, is that meeee?”
My volunteer season is coming to an end this month. Tomorrow, Barb and I are packing up the mail one last time for 2013, next Wednesday is our last flight. I’m ready for a break from being the “postmistress” and I can’t wait to reclaim my home again (even with having the mail collection off-site, there is a lot of stuff to manage here at home), but I’m going to miss the warm hearts of my fellow volunteers over the long, cold winter.
North Shore Distillery Tour
A few weeks ago we went on a distillery tour of North Shore Distillery. North Shore is located in an industrial area all the way in Lake Bluff, Illinois, quite far from Forest Park, but totally worth it!
Last year, I tried North Shore’s Gin No. 11 for the first time in a simple cocktail at a local bar and I fell in love. I always try to research new-to-me gins and bourbons, so I went home and looked up North Shore and added it to my gin wish-list. When I found out North Shore hosts distillery tours and tastings, I couldn’t wait to go! 
Derek, the North Shore distiller, gave us a tour of the distillery. We got to meet Ethel, the handmade German still (seen at the top in all of her copper glory). Ethel really is the star of the show. She does most of the work at the distillery, and she even has her own Twitter account. She and Derek are quite the team it seems. Derek is a chemical engineer, so he brought a little bit of science to the discussion, but mostly talked about the craft and his passion for creating tasty gins, vodkas, absinthe and aquavit. Everything about North Shore is done by hand, from the creating of the spirits, to the bottling to the labeling–Derek even hand-signs each and every bottle. 
After the tour, we got down to business in the tasting room. We started with the vodkas, North Shore and Sol, a citrus vodka. I really loved the Sol. North Shore uses actual citrus and chamomile. And, unlike other flavored vodkas where the flavors are added at the end, the citrus peels and chamomile are incorporated in the vodka during the distilling process. The taste is really fresh.
Next we tasted the gins. No. 11 is big and bold and No. 6 is light and flowery…I used to think I liked No. 11 more, but once I tasted them side by side, I realized how much I enjoyed them both and that they each have a place in my cocktail repertoire.
Then we learned about Aquavit and tried it for the first time. Aquavit is originally Scandanavian and it’s a savory spirit. Caraway, cumin, coriander and other botanicals are distilled in the alcohol and then the Aquavit is aged in oak. It’s definitely something different. I kind of wish I had tried it in a cocktail (North Shore has some ideas here) so I could see how it works with other ingredients.
Lastly, we tried the Sirène Absinthe Verte. My only experience with absinthe is in a sazerac, so I kind of knew what to expect. North Shore’s absinthe was good–we drank it with a bit of icy cold water.
After the tasting, those of us who weren’t driving (thanks for taking one for the team, Brett!) enjoyed a cocktail. Because of liquor laws, North Shore Distillery cannot serve other companies’ alcohol. This limits some of the cocktails the distillery can serve. But don’t think this is a bad thing–it just means the cocktails are crafted with homemade liqueurs and fresh ingredients. All of our cocktails were amazing handcrafted creations.
If you live in Chicago I highly recommend a North Shore Distillery tour for a unique Saturday adventure. Thanks for having us, Ethel!
(And I definitely recommend taking along a designated driver!)
As If I Needed More Stationery…
Part of the fun of going to the Halloween Mail Art Party was getting to shop at Greer afterwards. For those of you who might not know, Greer is the place to go for stationery in Chicago. There is something for everyone: elegant, quirky, masculine, funny, exquisite, serious, sentimental… Chandra Greer has excellent taste in paper and she is a huge supporter of small, independently-owned businesses. I always have a good time shopping there because I see something new and unexpected from tiny stationery makers all over the world. 
In addition to a single greeting card (made by La Familia Green) and a box of Halloween cards (made by Rifle), I got these neon yellow notecards from le typographe (the same company that made this insect stationery I love so much). They are flat cards, one side is neon and the other is white. The envelopes are white with neon on the inside. I sent out some neon mail this summer and apparently a lot of my pen friends are fans, so why not have another go? I think they might be the perfect cards to send during the long, cold winter (which apparently is starting today…snow in Chicago??)
In subtler stationery selections, I picked up these gold foil, dip dye flat cards (from Fig. 2 Design Studio). Pool blue is my color and I fell in love with the gold K and the tiny arrow…they were made for me, obviously.
And finally…the item that made me squeal with delight–a PenPal Society key tag (made by Three Potato Four)! I’ve had my eye on these for awhile and I was so happy to find one locally!
Of course, there were a thousand other things that I wanted to buy, but those will have to wait until the next visit. I definitely need to go back to work on my Christmas list!
kimberly ah 