owls and hot dogs (3)

Those collectors seeking the unusual will not be left wanting in 2013
Finland will celebrate strange contests such as wife-carrying and anthill-sitting on stamps.
Switzerland will be celebrating the cartoon Smurfs, as well as honouring 111 people in a 'Faces of Switzerland' set.
Belgium will be issuing 'Belgian Chocolate' stamps which taste and smell of chocolate.
Iceland will provide a brief guide to building a hot dog, complete with mustard, raw onion and and ketchup, on a single value due in March. A subject sure to whet the appetite of all stamp collectors.

http://www.collectors-club-of-great-britain.co.uk/Features/Post-offices-reveal-2013-stamp-plans/_ft1583


i found the above while i was surfing.  the hot dog stamp is down at the bottom because when i add things, i never know where they are going to appear.  right below is an envelope from smash. i'm leaving this odd combination (owls and hot dogs) together because the colors look nice together. smash's owls are adorable.

chatter post

look at the post below this one for the pretty post for the day.

i am adding a post because i have been having a discussion with a friend who is the process of making 40 envelopes for her daughter's 40th birthday in june. she is half done and has sent me some rough drafts with some of her concerns.

first concern: what colors look good on colored envelopes.? she didn't want to resort to white all the time. i agree, it can be very hard to find colors of ink and marker and gel pen that work on colored paper. many writing fluids are not opaque, so you get mud. so, white is a good choice for a base layer. then add some color on top. i will address this issue in upcoming posts.

second concern: getting everything *just right.* i won't post her comments, but trust me, she is doing the nit-picking that many of us do. on almost every envelope i do, i look at something that i would have done different. spacing is huge. it is so hard to get it right the first time. but, that sort of defeats the purpose of making envelopes for fun. they are - envelopes-. they do not need to be suitable for framing. they are ephemeral. so, just have fun.

and now, so you all know that i never listen to my own advice...
there were people who requested the exemplars that i offered a week ago.
i posted that i would mail them on saturday
but...instead, i just fell into the wretched trap of fussing over the details.
remember when it took me 5 tries to get a design i liked on the Fermi stamp?
well, i'm doing the same thing
so
i will mail them today
even though they are not 100% satisfactory

from nancy

ok....this week was going to be a week that showed how to take the leftover portions of the self adhesive sheets that are left after you use the stamps. this is the top of the earthscape sheet.

then, i had 4 envelope jobs arrive within 3 days, so, i have to have a hodgepodge week.

luckily, there has been a flood of mail from smash, and some other blog readers :-)

another SPECTACULAR decorated envelope from nancy. having to add some penny stamps just gives nancy opportunities for really wonderful details.

sheaff sunday

you'll need to take some pretty intense lettering classes to make envelopes like this.

that little horizon at the top is stealworthy and you could do it with some colored pencil....

has anyone tried running their envelopes through their printer. i've heard you can do that.

thanks again to dick sheaff for sharing his envelopes

chuck bday

exactly two minutes after i performed that atrocity on kathy's envelope that i posted yesterday. i picked up one of the remaining Earthscape stamps and did this. it was very quick and easy. and i must say, i like it a lot. so, if you make something wretched, don't let it ruin your day.

BTW, it would be tempting to do a very complicated decorated envelope to go with that stamp. all gridded out with green and red....i need more free time.

mimi challenge - kathy

eeeeekkkkkk or iiiiccckkkkkk.
i do not care for this one at all. i liked it better before i add the hot pink.
i suppose there will be someone out there who likes it.
if so, please tell me what it is doing right...i can't see it.
sorry kathy, i owe you one.

so, the mimi challenge was - indeed - challenging.
but, the idea to write a name a bunch of times and then add a little something is still a valid suggestion for making a quick decorated envelope.

mimi challenge - amy

after i did mimi, sue, and robin, i remembered my GO-TO technique...turn the paper. i did one turn and wrote the last three amys over the tails on the largest amys.

then, liking the way they turned out, i did the kathys in four directions.

i'm not crazy about the texture i pulled off the stamp to finish off the lettering on amy's. but, wait til you see what happens to the kathy tomorrow. wear sunglasses, squint, and puh-leeze....put a bag over your head (paper, not plastic)

shout out to the people who sent some pretty spectacular mail...i will be sending your exemplars on saturday. i have to obsess a bit over the addressing of the envelopes and stamp selection.

mimi challenge - robin

cranberries. lots of cranberries.
and now that i look at this again, i see that my solution to the R with the three different directions is already on the envelope.

it is the robin that appears underneath the top, left, largest robin.  see how the leg that should be going at an angle is actually shooting out to the right and is perpendicular to the first stem-stroke?
that is my solution. i don't think anyone would mistake it for any other letter.

i might have to decorate this envelope with more cranberries. or not. it is a clunker. maybe the cranberries need to be square, like the stamp.

mimi challenge

decorate an envelope with only two colors when you are in a hurry.

this one should have appeared on monday. it was hiding in the draft folder. the finished "robin" which was supposed to appear today will appear on wednesday.


i can't remember why i started the mimi challenge. it had something to do with her insisting i was some kind of genius because i was able to recall and describe in an email how to make a compass to draw perfect 6-foot (or even larger) circles.

the bottom scan is the first layer. choose three different pens and write the name a few times.

on the top, to finish the design, i just did some outlining and chose a stamp with a dot of color.

a two minute decorated envelope. has anyone noticed that i write *decorated envelope* every day? i am testing google to see if i can get my envelopes to pop up when people search *decorated envelope.* i am usually near the top of the list on websites, but not on images. i think i need to start putting captions on the scans.

mimi challenge - sue

the mimi envelope was supposed to pop up this morning, but, it has disappeared, so we will look at sue's first:


using the formula for the mimi challenge, using three different pens and scribbling the name several times. i did a sue and a robin. then i looked for stamps. i found a sheet of the Earthscape stamps. great abstract designs. that S shaped one really wanted to jump on sue's envelope. all i had to do was scribble a little color to tie them together.

the robin envelope...not looking very promising. that very first R is a complete clunker. i believe world famous calligrapher Peter Thornton has mentioned that R can be a challenging letter. it has three things going on. a straight vertical stroke, a bowl, and a leg at an angle. someday i will feature my solution to the R.

tomorrow, i will show
robin's less than perfect decorated envelope. you might want to wear sunglasses. or squint.

sheaff sunday

how cool is this? i need more hours in the day to do my own versions of these highly stealworthy ideas.

thanks again to dick sheaff for sharing his envelopes.

h.b.n.

this was sent to nancy, who commented ( a while back) on a different cat on a different envelope. i added her address right under the *please deliver to*
then, i chickened out and put another address and stamp on the reverse side...

below is a portrait of a cat that nancy painted so you can all gain some perspective about *quality* and whether or not you should obsess about sending decorated envelopes.

nancy's cat portrait is gorgeous and one would think that anyone (including me) would be intimidated to send a silly sketch like this to such a talented artist. i hear from people who will remain nameless (unless she outs herself in a comment below) that sometimes people start an envelope to send to me for my birthday in april and they agonize over it so long, it arrives in october or november and i think it is a holiday greeting....so....peeps...really....you can just scribble anything silly and it will be just fine. it's an envelope. it's not the sistine chapel.

although, if there were any cats on the sistine chapel, they'd probably look a lot like this, eh? and i mean the one below, not the one on the envelope.

stamp placement

annie asked about the non-conforming positioning of stamps on mail art.
she asked if i take them in for a hand cancel or just drop them in the mail box and hope for the best.
i prefer to drop them in the mail box.
a few postal workers can be very unfriendly when they see non-conforming decorated envelopes.
the friendlier postal workers who understand mail art are not bothered by non-conforming stamp placement.
if you want to send a one-ounce envelope that conforms to the standards of size and thickness,
and you do not want to pay extra
it is my understanding that the address needs to be horizontal on the envelope
in landscape orientation.
and
the essential information is the street address and the zip code
i like to make that information very clear, towards the bottom, of the envelope.
also
i like to keep the bottom 1/2 inch of the envelope clear.
i saw a video of mail traveling through the postal system and when the mail is sorted, it is sent along a little track, which obscures the bottom 1/2 inch.
if the machine can't read the address
then it sends the envelope along the track where it is read by a human being
who types in the address which is converted to that bar code
which imprints on the envelope or on a sticker on the envelope
and that bar code helps the envelope reach its destination.
i actually know someone who had the job of sitting in front of the track and deciphering the addresses that were not machine-legible, usually because of poor penmanship.
she was always happy to see some lovely mail art.
but...the bottom line is that if you pay that first class rate
and have the address clearly written, in landscape orientation
the position of the stamp is not critical.
i don't know if they will ever attempt to enforce the upper-right corner as the only acceptable position.
i understand that canada has tried to impose some strict rules about addressing envelopes.
maybe some of the canadian readers will comment.
if our PO starts to enforce stamp placement, i will comply.
but i hope they don't.
i think they have more important issues at this time.
so, we can be zany with our stamps,
legible with our addresses
and
the only consequence to non-compliant position
will be that it takes the envelope a little longer to arrive at its destination
because it has to take time to travel along the track to the human being.

this is a bonus post today. check the post below this one to see the envelope for today.

a big nib at a rest stop near iowa city. i need to post all the photos and tell the story.

sue's thank you 5

i was pleased with how this one turned out. i only did a little touch up on the black lettering. then added some adorable little roofs.

decorated envelopes don't need to take a lot of time. this one probably took 2 minutes.

and this concludes the thank yous to sue. now i have to do the thank yous to susan. then the thank yous to smash. susan set a goal of addressing 365 envelopes to herself. i'll probably have 365 addressed to her by the end of may. (not that i have actually mailed any of them)

the style of lettering is a combination of the last two days. one big letter and the rest smaller. it is also a variation in that not all the letters are skinny. the E is wide. and the letters are bouncing up and down and tilting back and forth. should i do an exemplar? or do you think you can do the variations on your own?

below is a link to some more examples of lettering... not very traditional stuff.
it was posted by someone on CyberScribes, which is a yahoo group that anyone may join if they are interested in lettering or calligraphy.

http://www.creativepro.com/article/celebration-hand-lettering

sue's thank you 4

this is not my favorite of the series. most of the time, i like to have the stamp with the envelope before i start the lettering. but, i like the way the stamp offered those little diagonal lines that i could add to the letters. the crossbar on the E could have been more inspired. i suppose the p.o. would not appreciate having to seach for the zip. too bad, the p.o. needs to appreciate the insane number of stamps we use on our decorated envelopes.

this style of lettering is the same as yesterday's.
it is just a little shorter. 

sue's thank you 3

once again, after the disaster on the first envelope where i was finishing off quick black lettering, i needed to think of something simple. instead of imitating all that lovely detail in the stamp, i just added a little echo of color to the letter.

anyone with an i in their name would enjoy seeing this stamp dotting the i


i made two exemplars (below) to show the entire alphabet for my upcoming class.
one is font based the other is hand-lettered.
i am deciding how to offer these exemplars along with lessons, since i have had requests for correspondence courses.

so, for free, you can just copy the image and enlarge it and it would be enough for some people. if you would like the have your own exemplars, along with 25 different options for positioning the addresses, you may send me $5 via snailmail and i will send you all 3 exemplars in an envelope, hand addressed, by me, which is worth way more than $5.

my address is:
jean wilson
420 - 44th street
des moines, ia 50312

if you are not in the usa or canada
email me at
jmwilson411@yahoo.com
and we can discuss how to send things

sue's thank you 2

i chose the earthscape stamps to finish up the series of 5 thank yous to sue. there were tons of options with this lettering. somehow, the stamp looked better with the red on the left - which is why it is upside-down -- then i wanted to add some red, but after the disaster on the first one, i chose to take some Post-It tape, color it red, cut some bars and play around with the arrangement. i'm glad i did, because it took about three tries. note that i picked up the red bars as a design element, but i imitated the black bars in the arrangement.
i also added fine lines to the quickly lettered sue.

so, this decorated envelope was a total of maybe 3 minutes.

i clicked the setting on *blogger* that asks people to type in one of those distorted security code. but i can't check to see if it is working because blogger knows that it is me. so, would someone please leave a comment and tell me if they have to type the distorted security code before the comment goes through. thank you very much.

sue's thank you 1

a couple weeks ago i posted 5 plain envelopes with the name sue, to start my thank yous to susan mashman, who inspired me (along with others) to keep going on the blog. this week, i was going to post the 5 envelopes and show how i finished them. of course, on the very first one, i just made a big fat mess and threw it away. i have a strict rule about saving messes (rather than throw it away)...but then, i have a stricter rule about breaking rules. so i did another version of the big S...and i like this one. i will put the address in very tiny, all caps, at the bottom in a dark charcoal gray....or maybe white.

where is the mimi challenge that was supposed to begin today? bumped ahead. organization is not my middle name.


below is a very fun postcard from smash-girl :-)
thank you so much.

between jackie and smash-girl, i have several hundred new envelopes to post. where will i find the time to scan them??? i could post two a day...but that seems extravagant.

sheaff sunday

how cute is this. a while back, i had a post with a dog's tongue hanging out (on the back of an envelope) and way back, i had a cow on the front of an envelope, licking the stamps.

this is from the collection of a generous person, dick sheaff, who collects all kinds of ephemera and has it on a website. he gave me permission to post his treasures on my blog.

http://www.sheaff-ephemera.com/

you can spend a few hours or days, surfing through everything on his website to find all of his envelopes. or you may just leisurely click on my blog every sunday. for a while, i will have sheaff sundays and jackie saturdays. monday thru friday will be mostly mine. although, i have been receiving some really nice snailmail from blog readers. so, i want to share those, too.

jackie left and right

if you have looked back at the early years of this blog, you have seen a ton of mail to jackie and quite a few from her. we were penpals who had never met in person for quite a while. after we met, the snail mail slowed down. but she does read the blog and this was her response to my blog post about ending the blog. (which I did not do- but the mere mention of ending generated some very nice mail)

i really appreciate that she took time to struggle through writing with her left hand and i REALLY hope the tennis elbow subsides. i had a bout with t.e. myself and had to stop writing for a while. (then a few days ago, i rammed the snow shovel into one of those uneven slabs of concrete that you can't see because of the snow...and jammed my elbow so hard i thought i was going to be out of commission for a while, but, it seems to be ok...dang...that snow is dangerous)

i also wanted you to see some examples of her right handed work and will be scanning and posting some. she does fun casual envelopes as well as some very high-end fine art watercolor and gouache envelopes on fancy-schmancy arches paper.

this looks like it was done with a ruling pen. love that dot.
a few days ago i was thinking i needed to add an i to my name...duh...all i need to do is use a lower case j

bonus post

this morning, someone i have known for a long time asked in an email if she could borrow an idea off one of my envelopes. i assured her that she could borrow anything and everything since all of my ideas came from other things i had seen over the years. and i babbled on about how i see things, and then later, ideas pop into my head, but i usually don't remember where i saw the idea the first time. it feels like *my idea* but most likely, it was an idea that i saw.

then, after reading all my emails, i checked pinterest and found a link to this website:

http://phraseologyproject.com/

you can check it out and read about the project by clicking [ABOUT] and if you start scrolling through all the words and phrases, you will come to the one i posted....and this is the caption:

This phrase immediately stuck out to me when I found it. I recently finished the book, The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. A brilliant book about creative work. The final chapters of the book talks about how every person is gifted with a muse. An angelic being that is quietly revealing beauty and creativity to us from a higher realm. Feeding us our ideas. Our only responsibility is to be ready and able to translate the things gifted to us. Over this last year I have been learning that my job as a creative is to be aware of this voice. It is quiet, it will not shout. In the meantime I diligently work so that when the muse speaks I am able to hear and to execute. My ideas are not my own. They are a gift. I am only a steward of them, for a time.

[end of caption]

i disagree that the muse is quiet. my muse is really loud and it gets all my attention and it prevents me from doing all the stuff that *should* be getting done. but, maybe when she says *angelic being* she is not mentioning the *devil being* on the other shoulder. maybe i have a non-envelope muse that is quiet....oh geesh...this is too much babble....i just wanted to mention that all my ideas came from things i have seen and stored in my non-organized cranial filing system....and that other *creative-types* experience the same thing.

so now i have to decide if i am going to click on the link to the book and am i going to read the book and so it goes...and so it goes....which, i believe is a vonnegut quote and i could google that to confirm... and then i would be lost for an hour or more surfing through all the great vonnegut stuff out there....

shout out to marti and alyce ...  thanks for the snail mail
i actually have all of march's posts lined up
so, they will be appearing way down the road...april or may

this is a bonus post that i stuck in on friday morning.
so check below for the originally scheduled friday post...with an envelope...or two....
double bonus day today :-)

jackie fermi & smash

above is a peek at some new stamps that will be issued this year. i could easily find a months worth of ideas off each stamp. anyone who wants these stamps delivered to your house, you can order them online at usps.com  - click on - shop - then in the left col, click on new stamps - go to pg 6 and you can preorder them, and as soon as they are issued, they will mail you a sheet. there is a shipping charge, a little over $1.



below is the first fermi-stamped envelope that i posted.
if you go to the search box in the right-hand column, and search *jackie 18* it will take you to april 7, 2010


tomorrow and sunday will be *something different* and then next week we will start the mimi challenge.

below the jackie envelope, is one from susan mashman. she cut out the wilson from the flip side of security envelopes. it looks really nice with the stamp. also, hanging the WILSON off to the left is a nice arrangement for an envelope. make a note and use that layout if you don't already have it in your tool box

fermi - minimal

this is it. this is just as much fun as the one i did a long time ago.

i kept looking at the stamp
and loved the way his writing was cropped
and thought
oh....he could have written the address
so
i liked the idea
and then,
making some of the letters into numbers was
margaret-esque enough that i could put this challenge to rest.

maybe margaret will tell us if she has a favorite
or if she is disappointed and going to find someone else to make a fun envelope
with her Fermi stamp.

anyone else have a favorite stamp?

of course, all this talk about fermi made me curious. from the stamp, he looks like a pretty fun guy. i highly recommend the wikipedia story of his life. fascinating. and the best part is towards the end where it says this:

"He disliked complicated theories, and while he had great mathematical ability, he would never use it when the job could be done much more simply. He was famous for getting quick and accurate answers to problems which would stump other people. Later on, his method of getting approximate and quick answers through back-of-the-envelope calculations became informally known as the "Fermi method""

fermi - black bars

this one is just a rough design. anyone who has taken a class with me knows that i love repetition. so, i thought of repeating that black bar. again, i could spin several ideas off multiple black bars. but, i'm not feeling like this is the winner....yet....
anyone scared that i am going to obsess on this stamp for the next six weeks?

fermi -top green

yup, i love it.
most of you knew exactly what was coming.

this is just a variation of all those landscape ideas.
i used a ruler and a calligraphy marker for the black stripe. then i used a tombo brush marker for the *blackboard* lines. obviously, i did not use a ruler. 

there are many, many different ways to put the address on an envelope like this...
maybe i'll post a few...
or maybe someone will send some of their own ideas.

i love this one....
but it doesn't quite measure up to my all time favorite that uses this stamp....
must keep trying.....

fermi -tall

ok, this is a hot mess.
i should have put something inside the envelope to give me a smooth surface. those ghost lines through the margaret are from the back side of the envelope.

i liked the idea of filling the top space on the envelope and making it look like the blackboard. and the black bars are an obvious design element to borrow from the stamp.
and i even like the loopy shepherd.
if i did a finished version of this idea, the shepherd would have dots along the lines to mimic the atomic drawing on the stamp.
but, i would have to re-do it to get the stamp to fit on the envelope and i really need the lines on the blackboard to be horizontal...
so can you picture where i am going with this?
see u tomorrow....

guest artist linda - patchwork

looks like a birthday to me. i love any kind of lettering that is filled with designs.

sunday is my new day for guest artists and foreign mail art.

monday through friday will have more from the Fermi series. i am going to try to have a theme each week. my goal is to get people to try these ideas.

if you don't like the weekly theme concept, let me know. i can always go back to hodge-podge-chaos.
or the second law of thermodynamics for you Fermi-heads.

fermi - carefully

this was my first try at a Fermi design for margaret. i was being pretty careful. i used pencil lines. and i am happy with some of it. but i can tell that i would have to spend a LOT of time tweeking all the elements to make it into one that i just love to pieces.

part of the problem is that the one i did for jackie is an all-time favorite. when i already have a favorite idea that goes with a stamp, it can be challenging to come up with another favorite idea. but, you all know i like a good challenge, so, i wasn't going to quit after this one....
monday will be try no. 2.... (tomorrow is sunday, guest artist day)
any guesses how many tries it took until i got to one that i loved-to-pieces?

BTW, i was thinking that if i actually mailed this, i would need a second stamp. ideally, i would find another sheet of the Fermi stamps and use two of them...but, i rather like the LOVE stamp paired with Fermi. a lot of artists love math or physics or whatever he did. we like chalk boards, too.

that is not her real address....so if you live in ames, don't be looking for her house.


ya'know margaret....you could do something fun with the AR g AR
in between the  M and ET

margaret - guest artist

so here is the second person who inspired me to keep the blog going. margaret shepherd. she's been authoring calligraphy books for 40+ years. she has a blog where she posts a new alphabet 6 days a week (and a project on the 7th day).

i'm guessing she is using some of the alphabets from her books. but, she better start working on 300 new alphabets because this year will fly by and she'll be hooked on this *every day* commitment. clearly, any one who hoards Fermi stamps, will be compelled to continue her one-a-day routine.

my first message from margaret was an email asking me if i would be interested in spinning an idea off of one of her favorite stamps. *of course i would* was the response...i was curious as all get-out which stamp it would be. so this is what she sent....the Fermi stamp. it is there on the left of the envelope...i just moved it from the note, to cover up her return address.

i will come back and talk about her gold *shepherd* name. for now, tip your head as far as you can, to the right and read the one on the top -- you will see that *shepherd* says... *margaret* when viewed from the other direction. she had it easy, she has the same number of letters in both names. i had the challenge of fitting *jean* into *wilson* -  but, i am happy with the results...which will be posted another day.

tomorrow will be the beginning of a series of ideas based on this stamp. it did appear on an envelope to jackie...does anyone remember it?

here is a link to margaret's blog....
http://margaretshepherd.blogspot.com/

i like the way she puts a cross bar on her Ms

check below, if you missed it, there was a bonus post yesterday.

bonus post

i was thinking the blog looked a little blah this week...and went surfing to find something colorful. instead, i found this one, which i just love.

super stealworthy.
it was sent to someone in st louis who invited 1000 artists to send mail art and the mail was supposed to end up in a book. i will surf a little more and see if the book ever materialized...

here is the link to the illustrator who made the envelope.

http://misterhope.com/2010/drawgasmic-2010/

he is making a living at his art...so we can't steal any of his ideas....except i am pretty sure that dotted lines and maps are in the public domain. and we can use black and white on kraft paper....actually, he says he is inspired by maurice sendak and i think those little guys on the top are very sendakian

next week, we will have color
although, as i recall...it will only be green...can anyone out there tell what's coming from that clue?

thank you , susan 5

my fifth and final idea for a thank you to susan.
i used a brush marker.






below is
a sample of caps from french calligrapher, Jean Larcher. (i gave him a ride in my car one time) google him and you'll see all kinds of great stuff...

http://www.porchez.com/article/607/jean-larcher-about-lettering-and-calligraphy-in-france

i am going to start putting stuff like this on the blog for people who think i am hot stuff. i am not. i am lukewarm. but, i'm happy where i am.

also, a BIG thank you to
alyce, jack, claire, linda, ally, nancy, susan x 2, jackie, marti, ruth, allison ....and if i have forgotten anyone...leave another comment and i will add you to the list.
i will be posting envelopes for all of you


thank you thank you thank you 



- also...allison....i will post the link to your graphic very soon....sorry for the delay.

thank you susan, 3-4

two more rough ideas for susan. this time, i used the scroll tip of the marker. that's what gives it the double line.
on the top one, i left out the middle crossbar on the E
and the cross bars on the As
those are fun places to add a design element.

on the bottom one, i looked for a repeat letter - s -
and wrote the the two names with a shared S.
i also mashed things together because i like to do that.
and the name mashman is just asking to be mashed.

these two will appear again, once i finish them.
again, if you have names that don't respond to these two  ideas, lemmekno
and i will show you how every name can be subjected to every design principle.

thank you susan - 1-2

so after susan saved the blog from extinction, i started working on thank you notes to her. she kindly gave me her email address and her name is shortened to sue, so i did 5 sue envelopes. now, i am thinking that she goes by susan. so, i will turn these 5 rough ideas into a design lesson and then do 5 more susan envelopes.

design lesson number one.
take the first letter and make it really big and write everything else really small.

design lesson number two.
write the first name really big

these are obviously not finished, but i am trying to get people to respond to the blog. so, if you think you have a name that will not work, put the name in the comments or send me an email and ask me to show you the solution to your problem name.
email me at jmwilson411 (at) yahoo.com

and i will do something fun to finish these two and repost them in march.
something to look forward to.
my new focus in life is stringing people along.....
highly manipulative
but at least i'm upfront about it.
if i were a writer, i'd call it cliffhanging.
but i am not a writer.
i'm a scribe.
big difference.

chapter 2 - susan saves the day

chapter 2 (of the blog)

here it is. the letter that saved this blog from extinction. (or to be a little more dramatic...murder. i was going to pull the plug.) in dec/early jan, as i scheduled all of jan and half of feb, i was exhausted and wrote my farewell post, scheduled to appear on feb 17th. i guess writing 60 posts over a couple weeks is too much. lesson learned.

when i got home and went through my mail, there was only one pretty envelope. and it was this one. i opened it and when i read the note, i thought to myself.....for three years i was wondering if anyone would discover the blog and actually send me an envelope.

yes, Facebookers and emailers...i know some of you have contacted me and you, too, will get your credit for saving the blog...but this was the very first time that someone saw the blog and sent a real envelope. so...i thought to myself...that must be some kind of sign. i think i need to at least post a thank you to Susan and post a few more more envelopes.

and then....there were MORE.
more what?
well you will just have to stay tuned.
i know stella is on the edge of her chair, because we met on facebook and i told her i would post a *stella* envelope... so, hang in there, stella. it's coming
and to the others...yes, there are more coming...
i'm not even go to tell you all how many people reached out in jan-feb
but, it was enough to breathe some life back into the blog.

of course my tombstone is prepared, *return to sender* but we don't have to talk about that now.

at the very least, i would like a few of you to post in the comment section and let susan how much you appreciate that she talked me off the ledge so to speak.

and don't skim over her note and miss the part where she says she is addressing an envelope to herself every day this year. more on that...later....

NOT my last blog post -

NOTE added today: this is not the end of the blog. i had run out of steam, but, something nice happened to keep me going....

a couple people have read the post below and thought it was going to end..no worries. there is a really good post tomorrow.

below is the original post for today. sorry for the confusion.


i chose this envelope by sitoshi kitamura to say goodbye to the blog. as you might have noticed, all of february has been guest artists. i intended to stop the blog today because i had run out of steam. i actually wrote a post that said good bye, and happy trails.

[i hear a couple gasps]

getting ready to go on a 3 week trip was exhausting and i decided i would just quit blogging after i had used up all the great envelopes that carol and jeri had shared with me.

this date was even a good date to stop, since it is the 3rd anniversary of the very beginning of the blog. 3 years and i have not missed a single day. i have deleted a few posts, so some dates look empty....but, there were several days where i posted more than once, so the total number of posts is 1256. i believe that is 160 more than one-a-day. (3 x 365 + one leap day)

seriously, if you are going to check the dates on the posts to see what's missing, i think you need to think of something more constructive to do with your time. or possibly, make a list of those dates -send it to me- and i will go back and fill them in....NOT

so, come back tomorrow, the blog will continue thanks to a timely piece of mail.....

graceful envelope deadline - carol

the deadline for the graceful envelope is coming up (feb 25)

this is what carol said about this envelope:

Graceful Envelope 2010 - the theme was "A Stream of Letters"

When I read the theme, I said to myself: Finally, I can use the 8 cent set that shows the step-by-step progression of mail!

I used a piece of paper that I had painted in blues and greens to convey the "stream" idea and just arranged the stamps in a loose swirl. The Postal Service mantra seemed the perfect text to include as the featured calligraphy…. Neither snow nor rain or heat nor gloom of night…..

below, is another post that popped up today. i accidentally scheduled two posts for today...so read on....