Oct from Samantha - the tool/style chart - part 2

 Welcome to Samantha. I think this is her first exchange envelope but I could be wrong. It is a nice layout and we're all happy to see another troll. This one will be fun to do if I decide to use envelopes I have received when I send the next month's exchange envelope. This assumes the person signs up again.

There are an infinite number of styles so this might get complicated. There are also a couple styles that I will not include because I don't like them. Gothicized italic is one of them. I've never been able to put it into words, I simply don't like it and I won't even post it on my blog. If you don't know it, go ahead and Google it. It's pretty - but I just don't like it.

One style that will be tricky on the chart is italic. Italic is not just one thing. It has a multitude of variations. For now, we will just leave it as one style and we'll deal with variations later.

Here's my preliminary list of styles:

Runes

Uncial

Blackletter

Italic

Copperplate

Neuland

Romans - a basic non-serifed set of capital letters

Foundational - the basic non serifed lower case letters

Serifed lettering

Brush script - pointed brush

Brush script - flat brush

Fonts - this category has an infinite number of styles

***

These were added very late in the day that this post popped up.

Spencerian

Carolingian

Versals

Handwriting 

Ruth sent me some photos of several tools that were not on my list - so - this topic is to be continued. 

Oct from Hadley - the tool/style chart - part 1

This is from Hadley, one of our college student exchangers. I like the alternative positioning of the stamp. The artwork is also very nice. I'm not home so I can't look at it closely to see if it's been done with a regular tool or if Hadley is dipping into the world of dip pens.

Maybe today is the day to make a list of every single writing tool that we might consider for our experiment to apply every single tool to every single style of writing to see what we get.

Here are the tools.

Please email me or leave a comment if I have forgotten any. 

I will not include anything that is not USPS friendly, like charcoal. It has to be tools and mediums that will stick to the envelopes.

Graphite pencils 

Colored pencils

Carpenters pencils

Ball point pens

Gel pens

Markers - many sub-groups - based on the type of tip, the size, the shape, the amount of flexibility. We will have to come back and decide how many of these to include.

Brushes - flat and round are two huge categories. Sizes are wildly different. And then there is the medium so we have to figure out how to include those variations and how many to include.

Nibs - pointed and broad edge -and- the very cool scroll-tip nibs

Folded pens

Optional -

bamboo pens

and there must be others.

I'll be curious how many writing tools I have forgotten.

Tomorrow we list the styles

 

Oct from Maggie - Mark Twain - part 2

The orange moon stamp is perfect for Maggie's floral design that is Octoberized with a pumpkin. The lettering is one of those fun styles I'd be able to do if I pulled out nibs and ink. I have no idea who did it first but it's a cross-pollination of uncial, a very old broad edge style with pointed nib. It would be fun to make a chart with all the different tools along the A-axis and all the different styles of lettering along the B-axis and then try them all. That would be a good exercise to start in 2026 to keep the blog educational. Shall we do that?

First we need a statistician to tell us if I'm using the right terminology with my A-axis and B-axis. Then we need a list of every tool and every style. I will start that after I finish my Mark Twain story.

A few minutes ago I had two things from the Mark Twain biography that related to mail. Right now, I can only think of one of them. Without going into detail, trust me when I say he was quite a character. He's known for being quotable because he was not afraid to voice his opinion and enjoyed lively debates. He knew his views were not popular and reveled in stirring things up.

Entertainers were the celebrities of the day and authors were also celebrities. Twain's personality launched him into the rock star category during post Civil War and into the turn-of-the-century. He received a copious amount of mail and had nothing nice to say about people who bothered him with letters that included comments and questions. He resented the time it took to respond and felt obligated to respond. Some people just asked for an autograph which didn't bother him as much because he could sign his name several times on a sheet of paper and assistants could cut the signatures apart and mail them. The requests for additional comments really got under his skin.

In spite of his flaws, manners associated with correspondence seemed to be intact. I don't give myself very high marks in maintaining correspondence. Apologies to all the people who write but never hear back from me. On top of not responding, I don't keep track when I do respond so my stack of mail might be full of mail that I did respond to. Maybe 2026 is the year I just clear the stacks and start over.

 

Oct from Amy - Mark Twain - pt 1

Here's Amy's headless horseman on her October envelope. Old Jean doesn't even remember the story or who wrote it. Visual learner Jean can remember some of the portraits on the deck of Authors playing cards. The mention of authors reminds me to share a tidbit about a well known author. 

I use audio books to put myself to sleep so I always have one book that I'm barely interested in because I set the timer for 15 minutes and miss at least half of each book because I never backtrack to hear what I missed after I fell asleep. When I saw a biography of Mark Twain that was 45 hours long I jumped on it. Partly, I was very curious about how anyone would come up with 45 hours of book-worthy information about Mark Twain. What kinds of details were lurking?

I do not recommend the book unless you need something to put yourself to sleep. It is a dreadful amount of detail about things that are actually very sad. He was a talented writer but totally inept at managing the business end of being an author and even worse at managing his finances. Dismal. 

It seems like the Clemens family did a lot of letter writing and journaling and most of it, maybe all of it, survived allowing the author of the biography to drone on for 45 hours. When Twain's wife was on her deathbed and the doctors advised no visitors, not even family members, Twain slipped notes under her bedroom door and one is included in the audiobook. It is a very generic mushy note. The thing that struck me was that they lived in the same house, but he did not see her for weeks at a time. It was a big house with plenty of hired help so there were people tending to her. But family stayed away. I wonder what it was like to be the invalid.

It's a very sleep inducing book, although there are a couple tidbits at hour 30 that I'll post tomorrow because they involve mail.

Not that anyone would be interested after this scathing review, but the book is Mark Twain by Ron Chernow. He wrote Hamilton, another massive tome.

Oct from Rachael

Google is messing with me. Apparently it did not like what I wrote yesterday so now it is making things blue and underlined for no reason. I tried to start the post under the envelope - but Google was not having it.

Rachael is drawn to circles. I, too, am drawn to circles. I am also drawn to copying Rachael's designs. This one would take a lot of time. I'm not opposed to spending a lot of time on my envelopes. I think I like the drawing part and lose interest when it comes to coloring things in. All the little details work so well - and the stamp is perfect. 

It's Nov 7th as I write this - noting that it will pop up on the day before Thanksgiving - which means the year has sped by at an alarming rate. I need to figure out my annual Dec 24th story. Since I am writing this from Chicago maybe the grandkids will provide something. My nomadic son has also shown up in Chicago for a bit of a visit. Sometimes he'll provide a good story. 

***

My kids appear to be grown up. No good stories. That's probably a good thing. I have one grandkid story that has been on the back burner if I don't come up with anything better for Dec 24th.

Oct from Jacqueline - Google's blue polka dot

 

We have several newer exchangers. Often times the new people have a style that will stick in my head. Jacqueline is an excellent illustrator. I know she's east of the Mississippi but not in the south. And I'm not sure if she lives in Richmond VA.  She's done characters that I recognize - like Wilbur the pig from Charlotte's Web. I feel like this is a character - but I do not recognize them. I do not know if Jacqueline reads the blog daily - but if you do - maybe you'd enjoy knowing that people have commented to me about how nice your envelopes are.

***

Most of us have probably experienced that thing that happens when something that came up during an in-person conversation starts popping up on one's phone - and we all know that our devices listen to us and offer suggestions. 

This free blog service that I have been using for 15 years has taken *listening* to a new level. They have a thing that has a name - but I do not remember the name. It put a blue polka dot on this page where I am typing. The blue polka dot has a little pencil and then another little emblem that I can't figure out. It might be an X or square tipped onto the diagonal. It suggests *magic* - maybe? 

I do not know what I did to activate it - but something popped up that said something along these lines:

Hi. I'm a new feature. I will pay attention to what you are writing and if I see something that I think your readers might want to know more about - I will just go ahead and make the words blue and underline them and then link to more information. 

Yikes. 

The last thing I need is something that is not an actual person - inserting things into my blog posts. How will you know if a link is something that I intended or something that *Google* want to put up there to distract you. 

Oct from Christy - visual learning

 

Christy sent this from Ohio. I was going to say that her daughter signed up for November - but then I remembered that it was Cindy's daughter who signed up. I confuse people when I don't know them in person and they have names that are visually similar - as in - 5 letters, starts with C and ends with y. Also, I have all the exchangers on a visual map in my head and I group them by what direction one would have to travel from Des Moines to find them. Both of these C---y people live to the east and south of Des Moines. This is not interesting information, I only mention it to illustrate that I am a visual learner. 

As a kid and even in college - if I had to study for a test, I would put all the information on one sheet of paper - and tape pages together if it didn't fit on one page - and then - during the test - I could access the information by thinking about where it was on my map. And then - as I walked out of the room where I took the test - all of the information would dribble out of my ears and fall on the ground. But, I'd get a good grade.

I am not a fan of that system of learning. 

Yesterday was the first post I wrote while in Chicago as I drank the morning coffee - which is much stronger than my normal brew. I wonder how many posts I'll get done.

Oct from Patty - the spouse/stamp thing

 

Before I took off for Chicago, I snapped photos of the October mail that had arrived. This is from Patty and those skulls are siblings of the ones that appeared on the nicho she built. She parted with a Day of the Dead stamp. Maybe they are still available. It's so hard keeping track of stamps. Once again, Patty enclosed a note suggesting that her design was *chaotic* - and to me, it is exuberant. It feels very inspired by all the work we did on the ofrenda. Hopefully, in 2026 I can ponder and post examples of how to do these kinds of designs and be happy with them. I love the back flap on Patty's envelope. The skeleton is a fun postcard. 

***

Ruth - whose work you may see if you do a search for Ruth - sent me a supportive email after I had my little rant about MrW offering to buy *generic stamps* after I was so hesitant to share some of my stamps. Ruth has been using up old stamps - pre-Forevers - where you have to do math to figure out how many to put on the envelope. Her husband decided that he didn't want to bother with math - and boldly bought some new Forevers. Maybe we need to establish a support group for spouses of envelope people. I'd start it under a faux-identity. Then I would be a mole - and see what they say about us - and report it all right here.

I'm surprised that I get away with all this talking smack about my family. If any of them ever find my blog and read what I say, I hope they can tell that none of it is mean spirited. I wouldn't expect any of them to have a glowing report about what it's like to have me in the little 420 tribe. 

Oct to Samantha, Grace, Jessica, Riley, Sharen and Christian

I'm guessing that three days in a row with this series is redundant and possibly annoying. But, sometimes we need to endure hardship. It builds character. My latest book, Dopamine Nation by Anna Lembke, M.D. has me all fired up to put myself through more adversity. There are so many kinds. The book is compelling because she's a psychiatrist and they are notorious for just throwing drugs at problems. Her perspective is one that looks at a much bigger picture. She suggests that drugs are only one tool to consider as you put together a more elaborate system to deal with the annoyances of life and how those annoyances can manifest in actual illness. 

When I open up my faux-doctor's office, the entire focus will be to eliminate the term mental illness. Your mental is integrated with everything else. Your mental organ is connected to everything else - dare I say, it is essential to everything else. OK - some people are brain dead, but the rest of us aren't.

What, you ask, does this have to do with envelopes? Making art can be a very pleasant pastime where you dabble - or learn a formula that works - and you simply enjoy the process. Other times - you are challenging yourself to learn something new - or looking at how the parts fit together - and there is another level to the process. Or maybe you are trying to figure out why something you just made is *off.*

And then there is addiction. I won't get into it - but - the amount of art supplies that some of us hoard is *out there.* And it's not just art supplies. It might be something else - MrWilson has a thing for CDs - and it's not the kind where it's money in the bank - it's little discs that he claims hold music - but I just hear creepy atonal screeching. One son has a thing for musical instruments. Does anyone really need a piano in the living room, a B3 organ and a Leslie in the dining room, a Fender Rhodes and another Leslie in the man cave along with a Clavinova and a double decker electronic keyboard thing that is more portable - and a drum set - and a xylophone and an omnichord and other drum things and that thing that Jon Batiste plays - and then there are the three organs in the garage that were *strays* that people just gave him..... end of digression.

These envelopes are the end of this series.

Oct to Lucy, Kristine, Jacqueline and Susan

I didn't have enough Keith Haring stamps so I went with baby animals - which are OK. 

Comparing Lucy's and Kristine's - one doesn't have enough red and the other has too much. I wonder if Christi has a method for calculating the right weight - and I wonder if she varies the weight. 

I like the variation where I used spider webs instead of red - although - when seen together - Susan's looks like it might have wanted some red - but it would have needed the Haring stamp. I'm not crazy about how Susan's spider looks like an afterthought. I was doing these on an assembly line which makes it a little hit or miss on how they turn out.

 

Oct to Janet, Rachael, Maggie, Nicky and Mary - Versals w/ Ed's skeleton

 

Back on Oct 26th I posted one envelope from this series. I did a total of 16. In the post - I gave Christi Payne credit for inspiring this style - and hoped that she was OK with me appropriating her style. I called her style *loose versal* and Christi kindly left a comment which included this:

And you’re pretty spot on … pen flourished illuminated versals (Lombardic) is what you’re doing there … & what you know I love to do. And I whole-heartedly agree that copying lettering styles is what we do, there is no shame, it’s how we learn. 

Thank you, Christi, for giving all of us permission to copy. The envelope on the 26th was the only one that I flourished with filigree work. I didn't have time to do enough practice on the filigree work so I switched to Ed Emberley. Those skeletons are so much fun to do.

Since there are 16 envelopes in this series, I will post them in groups so you don't get bored with same-old-same-old --- or is it --- same-ol'-same-ol' ?  

These all have a skeleton. The Keith Herring stamps coordinate nicely. 

Sept from Mary - Delivery story - Part 2

One again, Mary has come up with an adorable design - and it's on craft/kraft paper. The cancel is nicely positioned. The lettering on my name is inspired by the Goodnight Moon lettering - on the book. Will I remember to do some stamps on easels? 

Part 2 of delivering the nichos to the museum.

The helper I enlisted for the delivering of the nichos is Steve. He and MrW were little friends in elementary school. By middle school and high school they were veering off into different circles. I met Steve through the calligraphy guild. Steve is a very traditional artist with very impressive traditional skills. Over the years we've worked on some very interesting events and projects requiring a level of skill that stretches my usual *relax and have fun* persona.

The nicho/ofrenda project was entirely volunteer and Steve is not retired - so I didn't want to use a ton of his time - but I knew he was the right person for the delivery job. The part I forgot was that both Steve and MrW can lapse into lengthy conversations. And when MrW found out that he couldn't do any carrying - that he was relegated to door holding - he had to make friends with the actual museum guard who was assigned to the door. 

Poor MrW had been cookie-deprived for a couple months. So, I made cookie dough a day ahead and then baked them at 6 am. Deliveries started at 7:30. I am aware that Steve appreciates a good homemade cookie. I made it very clear that the cookies were for the two of them and they should not mention cookies to the others. They nodded. But - after MrW was banished to door holding and made friends with the guard - on the trip back to our house for another load, MrW asked if he could take some cookies to his new friend, Ron, who.....<insert all kinds of details about Ron - because MrW should have been a private investigator who gets paid to cozy up to people and get information.>

The answer was: NO! You may not give your cookies away. If you don't want to eat them, I will give all of them to Steve.

And don't get me started on how hard it was to corral the two of them to stay on task with the back and forth trips. They were both like little ADHD boys wandering around talking to people. Grrrrrr. 

 

Sept from Mia - Delivery story Part 1

Mia does such pretty artwork - and uses nice paper. It's so sad that the Canadian postal service has gone on strike again. It's a rough time for postal systems. I hope Canada does not go the way of Denmark - but, part of me realizes that a whole system to take paper to everyone for a nominal charge - is a system that is turning into a luxury. Everything *important* is done electronically. <sigh> Let's not think about it.

***

Let's describe what it was like to take 24 little art projects (the nichos) to the museum. Most of them were made of paper and were super fragile. If I had it to do over - I would have figured out much sturdier methods of construction. Maybe next year.

The easiest form of delivery would have been for 24 people to come to my house and then walk to the museum - in a procession. I would lead the way with the 2-ft skull. They would follow in numerical order - and we would have a mariachi band. And since we had to start at 7:30 am - there would be coffee and Mexican pastries when we got to the museum. Maybe next year.

Instead - I had to find someone who could drive back and forth from my house - and someone else with experience at handling fragile items. I also needed someone inside the museum to make sure they remained intact until they were all present and I could direct things. The tricky part was knowing which portion was sturdy enough to allow for picking it up.

I enlisted MrWilson to drive the car and open doors - and one would think that he could just drive the car - and open doors - but one would be wrong. He is hardwired to jump out of the car and try to carry stuff. I had to hold some of the nichos on my lap - and he'd open the door and then try to grab the nicho.

A few nichos were OK to be transported in boxes - and MrW got a little pouty when the helper I enlisted to help with the carrying was allowed to carry things and MrW was told - no - you may not touch anything or carry a box. Please go hold that big heavy front door of the museum - that's what we need. That is your job.

This is long enough. More tomorrow.

 

Sept from one of the Janets

This is from Janet - one of the people who keeps MrW very confused. My art and blog people include Patty, Janet, Jan, and JeanR. MrW has been unable to distinguish between anyone whose name starts with J. He's pretty good on JeanR - since he has met her, in person, dropping me off where she lives - so he can picture her in a location. The others confuse him. I made a point of introducing him to each one with the idea that he'd figure out a way to remember which one was which one. 

As I finished up everything for the ofrenda - I realized that it would be fun for my 12 helpers to meet up at the museum and view the finished project together. I set up a time - and I included a couple other friends who are art-friends - and it seemed a little rude to not invite MrW since he had been very involved in delivering the nichos to the museum. That's another story.

During the years that I taught at the museum, there was a Janet who was so much fun. She joined the calligraphy guild and we still exchange holiday cards. I invited her to the gathering of artists. And then, out of the blue - another artist friend who had moved away - but recently moved back to Des Moines - emailed, asking if we could get together - and of course, her name is Janet. And my husband was well acquainted with her through career stuff.

That's a lot of Janets and Jans. Their visits were spaced out so MrWilson didn't actually cross paths with any of them. 

Janet's envelope has me pondering more versals for my Nov and Dec envelopes. I'll be back in Des Moines on Thursday and not sure if I will get my combined Nov/Dec mailing done. 

Sept from Jessica and Clover - Citlaltépetl

 

Everyone knows I'm a big fan of postal themed mail. I still have my sheets of the 250th anniversary stamps. They're so pretty. Jessica sends postal related items from time to time. I still remember the photo she sent of one of the smallest post offices. It's on the blog - maybe the search feature can find it.

Clover isn't an exchanger - but she sends me USPS articles that she knows will be of interest to me. I hope I remember to send a thank you envelope. I was so productive when I had that big project. I'm hoping I can sustain the momentum and work just as hard at going through the stacks of mail that deserve responses or thank yous.

***

My son was in Mexico City for Day of the Dead and he's posted some beautiful photos. He also climbed the tallest mountain in Mexico and skied part way down. Here is the ofrenda that he saw at the Museum of Chocolate. It's quite a departure from most ofrendas. 

Citlaltépetl, otherwise known as Pico de Orizaba, is an active volcano, the highest mountain in Mexico and third highest in North America, after Denali/Mount McKinley of the United States and Mount Logan of Canada. 

Sept from Jean - Ofrenda in Texas

 

Jean and I live within walking distance of each other - and I'm so annoyed with myself that I didn't schedule one more visit before Jean went south for the winter. It's 2.2 miles to be exact. Obviously I was consumed with my DOD project for all of Sept and Oct -- and then a couple days before the installation of the ofrenda - Jean sent these photos from the airport where she lands for the winter.

Some of you might be weary of all this nicho and ofrenda talk. Personally - I am a bit weary of the colors and busy-ness. However - the experience reminded me of how much I love making things - and how committed I am to putting it out there - that anyone can make anything. Yes, there are different skill levels - but, it's not the content, it's the process. If you like to make stuff, that's what you should do. 

That's exactly what this blog has been about for 15 years. Make stuff. Make envelopes. I'll keep jabbering about the envelopes - but, I'm going to dovetail it with making a few other things. There are the 30 people who exchange envelopes - and then there are the 500+ people who look at the blog every day. Sometimes it's up to 1,000 people per day. I don't know who they are - or what they are looking for. Maybe they are like me - they allow themselves a little time to surf each day - and then find an idea and run with it.

The idea in these photos that I will file away - in case I do more ofrendas - is the candles. If *we* wanted a gazillion candles to be the design element that pulls the next ofrenda together - then we could start collecting recyclable materials to be turned into candles - right now - and by next year - we'll won't have to make one thousand tissue paper flowers. I heard a rumor that someone had found a place to store the 1,000 flowers --- that would be nice.

Sept from Juliana - crop art

 Juliana's is an idea that runs through my head frequently. Fill up the entire space. I really hope I remember to use this idea for my Nov/Dec mailing - it's so good. The only drawback is that I have a lot of short words in my address. Long street names and long town names are not going to have quite the same effect - but I like a good challenge. 

Also - I have hoarded those circle stamps - and I should probably let them go.

***

Here's another example of artwork that is super detailed and time consuming. Crop art. Make a picture out of seeds. It's like the sand mandalas except made out of seeds and they are glued down. 

LINK to video of a crop artist

LINK to sand mandala in case you don't know what they are.

The crop artist in the video describes how she discovered crop art and how it led to the Smithsonian inviting her to design the artwork for the catalogue for their exhibit on the homespun art that is featured at state fairs.

Here is another example from Mary Gunderson - to show a close up. 

LINK to Mary's blog post from 2013

The O and P are fun - the C is ok -- the R doesn't fit in with the others .... how would you fix it?

Sept from Mary (probably)

 There is no return on this one and the cancel is double stamped and hard (impossible) to make out - but, I'm deducing that it is from Mary. I wonder what kind of paper she has that adheres to the dark envelope. It seems nicer than the big stick-on paper that can be used for mailing labels. The name and address is nice and clear. I like how many people are following my suggestion to make the address easy for the USPS scanners to read.

***

This is still the day where I was filling posts while waiting for the paint to dry. 

***

Now it is Monday (11/3) - the ofrenda is up - most of my work spaces have been tidied up. Sign-up emails for the exchange have been coming in. I started my own envelopes for Nov - although I was using the new holiday stamps and *yikes* - my envelopes are a hot mess. Maybe I will have a brilliant idea to add that one-more-thing that fixes everything. This is an example of the USPS providing a stamp that I love - but then I don't have much luck with it. 

Sept from Lucy - the next tree of life

Here is another one from Lucy. This was the month I put Nancy the list - but I did her envelopes for her because she is not an envelopes maker. Speaking of making envelopes - Lucy makes her envelopes out of beautiful paper. Both Nancy and I noted that the envelopes arrived empty and also unsealed. I'm curious if Lucy intends to leave them open - or if she is using an adhesive that isn't working. The rest of the envelope exhibits very strong adhesion.

***

Of all the lessons I learned during my ofrenda project there was one that was exponentially helpful in spite of it being a huge frustration: you can't trust or predict adhesives. Even the stickiest one might let you down on certain materials. By the time I was finished with all the construction - all I cared about was that things do not fall apart during the two weeks that the ofrenda is on display.

Some of the nichos are going to be given to people who want them. Others I will deconstruct in a deconstruction ceremony. I have tasked my sister-in-law Nancy with coming up with a pattern for the tree of life so that we can share the plans.  I'll post the steps somewhere - because I think it was so much fun to make - and doesn't everyone need a tree of life? I'm even thinking of a mini-tree, too. 

 

Sept from Nicky and Lucy - age guessing

This is from Nicky, a new exchanger. The lettering is outlined and filled in. I'm impressed with the attention to detail. There will be an envelope coming up - also in blackletter - from Lucy who is at the same address as Nicky. I'm guessing that it's a mother/daughter. Or maybe sister's?

Here they are together. This is from Lucy. They are both *empty* envelope people. I never know if people read the blog. Amy and I have emailed about my *thing* for estimating people's ages based on their penmanship. Amy calls it a *party trick.* 

It's getting harder for me to guess a person's age based on their penmanship. In the past, people with Palmer style writing were from the greatest generation and the baby boomers wrote in the Zaner-Bloser style. If a person did not have one of those two styles they were automatically a GenX. Now that there have been two generations without cursive - it's getting harder to do my age-guessing trick. Lucy's on the bottom looks more like a GenX and Nicky looks more like a  millennial or GenZ. Maybe they'll let us know how good my guess is. 

 

Sept from Patty - DOD videos

 

Here is another Sponge Bob stamp. Patty enclosed a note saying that she thought the envelope was a mess because she had taken her envelopes on a road trip - and did not have adequate lighting. I don't see any problems at all. In fact - I think it is a stellar design - I like the lettering, the layout, the details. I like everything about it --- so there. I'm even impressed with how it didn't get muddy. It's so easy for things to get muddy on colored envelopes. Light blue is probably the most forgiving. I assure you - those white highlights were an essential part of making this such a successful design.

***

Here is a video from 2008 about the Day of the Dead event in Des Moines. If you skip forward to the 8 minute mark - you can see younger-Jean talking about the ofrenda that referenced the aztec connection to Day of the Dead celebrations. 

Link to video from 2008

The 2008 video was made by Vince and it was the first video he made and edited. He is a retired law enforcement officer and has been making yearly videos since 2008. I agreed to be interviewed this year. I was stunned at how creaky my voice has gotten. I show up at 16:36. 

LINK to 2025 video

I'm working on photos and a narrative that will help us wrap up DOD and it will all be done by the time I run all the October envelopes that arrived. And then we will move on to randomness. 

Sept from Riley - stress free donating

This is from Riley. Note the tall skinny name? It's sad to see the aggressive scribbling on the stamp. The pattern on the front is an imprint from the back of the envelope - which gives me a good idea if I decide to go with the idea of letting the previous incoming envelopes inspire my next outgoing envelopes. There would be endless ways to create designs on envelopes by putting things inside. What's the name for that technique where you transfer an image by coloring over something that is not flat. Trying to remember what that is called is going to drive me completely crazy. I do not have time to research. Hopefully someone will know - and leave a comment or email me. I'm still preoccupied with the ofrenda - it is still Sun 10/26

 ***

As I write this add-on it is the Tuesday before the Thursday installation. There are only a few last minute details. 

I am waiting for the paint to dry on the back and bottom of the skull so I can do the teeth. 

I wonder what I am forgetting.

I wonder what will go wrong.

The best part of these volunteer projects is there is much less stress when there is no payment for services. Not that I would do a sloppy or careless job on donated work. I still redo things that don't please me - but there is no stress about whether the *client* will be satisfied - because there is no client. I guess the museum is the client - and they've been OKing things all along.

 

Sept from Christy - calligraphic skull

 

Christy did one of those variation of name-stacking that I've mentioned as a possibility for my future envelopes. Have I already mentioned my idea to take all the incoming envelopes from one month and use them for the inspiration for the outgoing on the next month? Whatever people send me is what I return. I like that idea a lot...

***

This was a post written a while ago - and it's redundant - but, I'll leave it - and if you are busy - just skip this.

Day of the Dead was an aztec ritual that the Catholic missionaries co-mingled with their all-saints day - as they proceeded with their *mission.* And here we are, in current times - where people who make a living off holidays - have been promoting halloween with gusto - and have tied in DOD. I will not digress into a discussion of commercialization of holidays. You can Google DOD if you are curious.

My point is this - in the world of DOD/halloween - the design aesthetic is now - anything goes - and my calligraphic embellishment probably won't look too out of place. 

While the honoree for next year is not officially announced - it will probably be the most adorable little lady who was on the very first committee - when the DOD event was launched - and worked tirelessly for decades.

*** Update -- when the team of artists who worked on the flowers and nichos arrived at the museum to view the finished ofrenda - they were all impressed with how it turned out - and they all said that they would be delighted to participate again. That was  gratifying. Previously, I had been concerned that some of my friends might be ghosting me after this whole project. 

Sept from Lynne - garage door incident

Lynne sent this from Philadelphia - and she used one of my all-time favorite stamps. It's very fun how the eagle on the postmark looks like it is just about to land on the stamp. Dreamy dark blue ink continues to be a favorite.

The next three or four posts might be dismal - because I just have to get them filled before my trip to Chicago. Maybe I'll load photos and come back and fill in blurbs later. 

***

There have not been very many catastrophes during my project. I had only two very minor encounters with the hot glue gun. And then there was that time Big Bertha fell off the upper tier - and that's a story for another day.

The three tiers of the ofrenda stack up to almost 8 feet tall - so the 2 foot skull goes on top of that. I had to set up something so I could view the skull from below and figure out where to include the doodles. The highest place in the house was the garage - so I made a stack - which was still 15-inches shorter than where it will actually be.

Then the designer texted me that he had paint to deliver - and that he was standing outside my garage door - so I hit the garage door opener - and the garage door ran into the skull. Luckily - there was no damage. But after big Bertha's big fall - I didn't even panic when the door hit the skull.