^ I found this on Tumblr today and thought it was sweet.

I woke up this morning to a knock on the door from the parcel post deliverer who was holding a large, stamp covered yellow envelope (which is too large for me to even scan!) from the lovely Melinda from GirlZootZilla. I love the quotes on the back of the envelope. It contained a beautiful sunflower card and a letter in a kind of '20 questions' format on twenty pieces of paper. I am very excited about responding to it. Melinda blogged the envelope here I believe. I scanned a few of the questions, but my scanner is having a bad week and they were barely readable. They included things like; Would you want to have hair that you could change to any colour ever day? Cake, cookie, ice cream or bacon & toast? If you were to make a tourist brochure for your life, what would you include, exclude, photograph? What was for breakfast? If you could be a crayon, what colour would you choose to be and why? I thought it was a great idea and definitely worth getting up early for :)


^ from girlzoot's flickr.

Today I made C help me put curtains up in all of the rooms so it's all mysterious and dark and substantially cooler, it's 34 degrees today! We said that if C finishes his uni essay by the end of the day we might go for a walk around the beach. Only 500 words to go! ...I spoke too soon and he got called into work straight after I wrote this! Boo.

Last night my friend Manneh made an impromptu visit and we ate delicious pasta watched Orgazmo, both of which were very enjoyable, and the day before my (recently engaged) friends Andrew and Natalie stopped by for a few hours. I like that we often receive compliments from people about our little house. I think we definitely make the most of the space; it's always full of colours and things to look at and light and nice scents and breezes.

I'm sure this is old mail news to most people, but I just stumbled upon the mail art of Riitta Ikonen; From 2004 to 2006 Riitta Ikonen mailed around 100 postcards to Margaret Huber from Japan, Spain, Finland, Russia, and England. “Hair, fish, a sachet of white powder, a piece of broken record etc. were sent to test the postal system. Only three cards never reached their destination.” Here are some of my favouites;



And how about the mail art of John Fellows? (via Booooooom);





Lots of envelope making inspiration.

+ a gorgeous print by Skippy Designs.

I've been trying out our printer's abilities printing onto envelopes. C has a big box of brown recycled paper envelopes just waiting to be beautified, so I tried printing some different graphics on them. Sadly, only one of the ten envelopes I printed was a real success, but I'll use the others for something else anyway. Here's one I made with a picture I've always liked showing the anatomy of godzilla, and some birds on a wire;





The set of alphabet rubber stamps I bought last week have gotten a massive workout lately and I adore them, even if they did come missing the letter 'a'. I have to use the letter 'q' instead and smudge out the bottom half, frustrating, but worth it!

The above letter is getting mailed off today as part of a swap involved writing a list of '100 Things That Make You Happy'. I wrote and rubber stamped the list on pink index cards and they were all taped together and folded up. Don't feel obligated to read them all, most of them are kind of lame :P It was fun to make though. It's a pretty comprehensive list. These scans aren't awesome, but you get the idea;



Letter Writer's Alliance posted a link to this awesome Storque blog post titled Seller How-To: Pretty as a Package by Danielle Thompson from Kitschy Designs who gives lots of lovely tips and hints on how to pretty up envelopes and packages and also lists some of her sources for supplies. Awesome.

Ps. The mail man just delivered me some wonderful mail; a very sweet letter I can't wait to reply to from Stephanie from Lunsh;



And an envelope full of goodies (from a Mail Art themed swap) from Nicole and Jason from Gocco*boom! Contents; a lovely letter, two handmade envelopes, a little booklet they made showing where they live, two matchbook notepads and a whole heap of handmade stickers;





I ♡ good mail days :)

originals; + + + +

I'm eating pfeffernusse, drinking rooibos, listening to The Vaselines and wishing desperately that I had a cursive typewriter, or any typewriter for that matter. I'm going to dedicate tomorrow entirely to zine making and learning how to make my own pfeffernusse.

Here's another envelope I sent out recently. It was hard to part with. Made from an old record cover, isn't she beatiful?;



I bought some metallic silver envelopes for about $2 at a bargain shop a year or two and I think they're lovely, of course the scans don't do them justice. I got a paper miscellanea lucky dip at the zine fair a few weeks ago and it contained half a dozen beautiful green photographs of things I can't quite make out. I stuck one on here;





And a Postcrossing postcard I received today from Italy that I find particularly dreamy;



I've been using some of the beautiful recycled paper envelopes and writing paper C bought for me from the Oxfam shop in Launceston lately. It's so lovely and soft to write on and pen won't smudge, and it's all in a beautiful bound cover. I'll have to make a scan of it soon.

Feist has been one of my top 3 favourite artists for quite some time. I love her because he music is entirely about her music and nothing else. I love how straight forward, simple and honest she is, yet she has this mystery and beauty to her. I find this totally adorable. I think you must know you've made it when your song features on Sesame Street;