mail art | kimberly ah

Apr 01 2019

National Card & Letter Writing Month

It’s April and my favorite month of the year: National Card & Letter Writing Month!

As usual, I will be participating in the Write On campaign, and trying to write a card or letter every day this month. I have a little set-up on my desk with some cards and stationery, all easily accessible for a quick note or letter. I am ready to write this month and I’ll share my set-up here soon, along with some other letter writing related posts.

Happy letter writing!

P.S. I found this vintage Dennison (I think?) letter carrier decoration on eBay last month. Isn’t he dreamy?

Tagged adventures, celebrations, holidays, letter writing, mail art, National Card and Letter Month, snail mail, vintage, vintage Dennison

Mar 08 2019

International Women’s Day

Happy International Women’s Day! I’m celebrating by sending these great postcards by Natalie Harney to a few of my pen pals. It’s also Women’s History Month, so I plan to honor women all month long (here on the blog and in my everyday life.) I was also going to try to only read novels by women writers, except we’re reading George Orwell for book club so, I’ll be reading him too.

Three cheers for women!

Tagged celebrations, International Women's Day, mail art, postcards, snail mail

Feb 03 2019

1 Comment

Chicago, Forest Park, Letter Month, snail mail, washi weekend

Snow Mail, No Mail

The weather has been insane in Chicago lately. After a very snowy weekend, we had sub-zero temperatures on Wednesday with wind chills of 45 below. It was colder here than it was in Alaska. It was so cold, the entire area was pretty much shut down. No school, no work for many people, no Metra trains, even no Trader Joe’s and no mail service since Tuesday! (Update: mail arrived Saturday night!) It was almost as cold on Thursday and it snowed some more Thursday night, but now this weekend it’s warm and rainy. Now every thing is a mess of slush and dirty snow. (Dirty snow is my least favorite part of winter.)

I took some inspiration from the weather and used some of my wintry Japanese stationery to kick off the Month of Letters. The snowflakes are an old Midori set I bought a few years ago and the polar bears are from Maruzen. And the washi tape is old mt and I was kicking myself because I have other snow washi, but I packed it away with the Christmas stuff…

I sat under a blanket right next to my space heater while I wrote the letters…a cup of hot tea and a warm kitty nearby. It was a cozy to kick off the month.

Tagged letter writing, mail art, office supplies, snail mail, snow, stationery

Feb 01 2019

2 Comments

adventures, Japan 2018, Letter Month, My Love Affair with Tokyo, snail mail

Kitte Letter Room

Kitte is located next to Tokyo Station. I’ve talked about it before, the Tokyo Central Post Office is one of the best, carrying a huge variety of postal treats and the best selection of stamps. And many of the shops inside the shopping center carry postal themed products. This time on our visit, there was a new set-up in the Station Master’s room. It was set up as a “Letter Room.” Signs encouraged visitors to write a postcard and mail it from the post office downstairs. We stopped at Kitte on our way to catch the shinkansen to Osaka. I wrote a couple of postcards from the letter room and shopped a bit before we went on our way. The Letter Room was a nice, quiet respite from the shopping center. Naoto enjoyed the view while I wrote. This display shows ten different letters sent from Tokyo Station by ten different people from all over the world visiting the heart of Tokyo. It’s hard to see here, but the words and illustrations were so wonderful.

Speaking of letter writing…is anyone doing Letter Month this year? I’m going to attempt it again. I have a stack of love cards I pulled from my stationery drawer ready to go and I my Valentine bin is ready to go. I’m aiming for these three things this year:

write a letter, card, or postcard every day, and hopefully send something every day, too
spend out some of my Japanese stationery…my drawer is full
spend out some of my vintage postage stash, which means, taking the time to make 55 cent matches

Here on the blog, I have some more postal related things from Japan to share, and I’ll be posting my mail over on the Instagram.

Happy writing!

Tagged adventures, I *heart* Japan, Japan, Japanese Post Office, kitte, mail art, snail mail, Tokyo Station

Jan 02 2019

4 Comments

celebrations, holidays, Japan 2018, Office Supplies, snail mail, Spending the Yen

Spending the Yen: Year of the Boar

We really hit the sweet spot during our trip to Japan this year. I was able to shop for Halloween and fall things, as well as planners, Christmas, and New Years. If you’ve been around for awhile, you may remember this post that explains the Japanese tradition of sending nengajo, or new years postcards. We found the regular New Years postcards (the two on the right) at Itoya. Many stationery stores offer printing services for New Years cards. We could have ordered something personalized if we had more time (and wanted to send a bunch.) And on our very last day and our very last trip to the post office, we saw the Japan mailbox postcard with the boar. There were Christmas ones too. I just love these cards…it’s always fun to visit the different neighborhood post offices to see what they have available. There’s usually a seasonal one and sometimes regions have their own styles. I picked up a couple of styles of stickers with Japanese new year symbols and the little boar. From left to right: a paddle (I thought it was a bottle of sake, which is why it’s upside down in my picture) for hanetsuki, which is a game like badminton played on new year day, a drum that brings good luck, the boars, and an ema, a placard where you can write a new years wish and hang it at the shrine. A kite, the boar, and kadomatsu, a bamboo arrangement common for new year. I put all of the postcards in envelopes because of the odd shape of the post boxes and because Japanese postcards are oriented vertically instead of horizontally. I didn’t feel like making weird adjustments on the cards to meet USPS standards, and also this way, I could decorate the envelopes, too.

Happy New Year! May your mailbox be full in 2019!

P.S. If you’re interested in seeing our New Years cards from the past, here’s a link to those posts.

Tagged celebrations, crafts, holidays, I *heart* Japan, Japan, mail art, office supplies, snail mail, washi tape

Dec 31 2018

1 Comment

Christmas, holidays, Office Supplies, snail mail

Stationery Christmas Gifts

Naoto hit it out of the ballpark for me this Christmas. He went with the always popular stationery theme. He did a lot of shopping at Greer, THE best stationery store in Chicago. He found a couple of enamel pins, a travel eraser, and a tiny matchbook notebook. He also got a calendar, but I’ll talk about that in my annual calendar post. He gave me a post box enamel pin (which I may have directed him toward.) And this very sweet Japan post rubber stamp of a girl mailing a letter. Niconeco Zakkaya is one of my favorite online places for Japanese stationery. They offer so many unique things from indie designers and small makers. He also gave me some letter socks from Constellation & Co. This makes my third pair of mail-themed socks so maybe a sock post is overdue. And he gave me a cherry blossom stamp and a gorgeous Superior Labor pouch from Baum-Kuchen. I’ve been trying to use my Travelers Notebook more for the past couple of years…there’s still work to be done to get into a good habit, but I’ve found that using nice things is a great incentive. I bought a matching pouch by Superior Labor when we were at the Traveler’s store in Japan, so I’m very excited to get everything set up for 2019. I’ll share more about Travelers and my notebook soon!

Now, I’m working on getting my desk organized so I can get back into the habit of making things again. A fresh desk for a fresh start in 2019…that’s the goal.

We are going to a New Year’s Eve party at our friends’ house tonight–same as last year. And tomorrow, hopefully I’ll have the energy to take down some Christmas decorations…I LOVE the lights during the season and I’m always sad to see them go, but I also love how fresh and bare our house looks with all of the extra stuff put away. But, even still…it’s one of the more depressing chores of the new year.

Wishing you and yours a Happy New Year!

Tagged Christmas, crafts, holidays, Japan, mail art, office supplies, rubber stamp, shopping, snail mail

Oct 09 2018

3 Comments

homemaker's challenge, homemaking, In My Mailbox, snail mail, Sweet Tooth, vintage

In My Mailbox: Vintage Recipes

My pen pal Danielle has been sending me a string of vintage recipes lately and I love it! Each on is a little time capsule from days when sweets and treats were most often homemade and sometimes a little strange. (At least strange compared to what we’re used to eating nowadays.) This is my little collection from the past few letters. I’m most interested in trying this one. (I keep forgetting to add butter scotch chips to Naoto’s shopping list.) I love how it’s handwritten, creased, and well-used. It sounds very sweet, right? Maybe I need to do an Instagram Story from my kitchen so we can all be surprised at the outcome! And who doesn’t love a chiffon cake? I don’t think anyone makes these anymore. (Or maybe we just don’t call them chiffons anymore?) It sounds so light and fluffy. I wish I had a reason to bake a cake this week. The fact that someone clipped this out of the newspaper and wrote, “MAKE AGAIN” on it makes me verrrrry curious. It’s called Desperations for goodness sake! I can’t picture what the finished product looks like…any ideas?Here is where I draw the line… Canned pears and pimento cheese? Topped with green pepper? Nope. (I don’t think the salad dressing looks bad though…)

I wouldn’t eat that…would you?

Tagged food, homemaking, mail art, snail mail, vintage

Oct 01 2018

In My Mailbox: Halloween Mail…Candy Included

Last year, Donovan surprised me with the best kind of Halloween mail, the kind with candy! She mailed a package of pumpkin Peeps with a little note taped on the top. It was so fun to receive and I’m trying to keep it in mind when I send out my Halloween mail this year. Happy October, everyone!

Tagged celebrations, food, holidays, mail art, snail mail

Sep 19 2018

1 Comment

snail mail, some stuff about me, summer manifesto

Summer is Almost Over…

…and I still have some things to check off in our Passport to Adventure! I’ll do a real update about that at the end of September. I’ve definitely met my goal of sending fifty pieces of mail though. I’ve been so good about mail this summer, I’m a little surprised at myself. Right now, I have a bit of a stack to return, so I’m trying to catch up so I can start October fresh and jump into Halloween mail! Yesterday I took down my summer decorations finally and put away my summery stationery. I tried to use up all of my neon paper and envelopes and cards but I failed miserably, so away it goes until next year. (Though it is 90 degrees today, so it feels like I should still be sending popsicle mail!)In other news…over Labor Day weekend, we always celebrate Presley’s “birthday” since we got her on Labor Day back in 2006. Well, this year, she got a case of pancreatitis and ended up at the emergency vet’s for two days. It was extremely stressful and worrisome, but I think she’s feeling back to normal finally. It was so good to be able to bring her home and let her relax in her normal setting. She wouldn’t go to the bathroom or eat at the hospital, but once she got home, she was comfortable enough to do her thing. (Sorry.) We did have to feed her an appetite stimulant to get her back on track for eating. She refused her normal wet and dry foods for awhile so she ate loads of treats and -ahem- freshly baked salmon that we made for her with our own dinner. And thankfully, our regular vet made a little house call to help take Presley’s catheter out so we didn’t have to drag her back to the regular vet after her traumatic emergency vet stay. (The emergency vet was lovely…Presley just does not like the vet.) Presley has some lovely human, dog, and cat friends who sent her get well cards and treats. She’s very lucky. And eventually her little shaved arm will grow back, but in the meantime…we’re trying to fashion her a fancy bracelet.

So…other than getting ready for my three craft shows this month and nursing Presley, not much has been keeping me away…I’ll be back with a little Galaxie Safari news tomorrow and then hopefully I can share a little news from Naoto’s kitchen. He has completely taken over the cooking and it’s wonnnnnnderful.

Tagged adventures, mail art, snail mail, summer

Aug 28 2018

1 Comment

adventures, crafty adventures, Forest Park, GalaxieSafari, snail mail

Garage Galleries Recap

We had such a great time showing at Forest Park’s Garage Galleries last weekend! It is such a neat local event and we are so happy that we participated. Our Forest Park neighbors came out in full force–we had over 140 visitors* in our garage! Here was our garage set-up. Jerry was our host and he had a huge, clean garage with doors that opened on both sides, which was perfect for sunlight and a light cross-breeze. It was so hot and sticky on Saturday. He also had a beautiful garden that was a great place to retreat to when traffic was slow.

I shared a garage with Claire, a young artist who was showing her work for the first time, and Jason, who was a total pro with his own gallery walls and lighting. So many people recognized me from the Review article, so it was fun that they sort of knew my style already. (Who says print is dead?) And of course so many people recognized Naoto from Trader Joes. It was fun meeting fellow artists and art lovers from our village. Usually for each show I create something new, a framed piece or a card, and this time I sold out of a few new things, so this week, I need to beef up my stock and add some new pieces on Etsy. I have three shows coming up in September, so I need to get a jump start on what’s looking like a busy month!