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Just some outgoing mail scans today;





Above are the two postcards I just addressed and decorated for Missive Maven's cat postcard swap. C suggested that include his favourite cat related quote on the cards:
"Cats are like greatness: some are born into cat loving families, some achieve cats and some have cats thrust upon them"
- William H. A. Carr



For some reason I've really taken to sticking receipts on the backs of envelopes. I don't really buy very interesting items, but I find them to be fascinating often-discarded scraps of a time and place.



The lovely Bright Side Project are running an awesome 16 Sparrows stationery giveaway that I am very excited about. To enter you had to answer the question: What's the best package or letter you ever received? I thought for a moment about it and then I remembered, I think the best package I ever received came when I was about ten, when somebody left a long, dirty old football sock full of beautiful old Derwent pencils in my mail box with a note that said “For Bianca”. It was totally bizarre, but wonderful. I still have the pencils and I still don't know who put them in my mail box.

Tonight I learned where my surname might have came from (via a Facebook group of people with my surname - it only has thirty people, ha);
During the Spanish Armada, many sailors were shipwrecked in the British Isles and for perhaps many reasons, the Spanish "Iago" becomes "Jago" there. Evidence of this may be seen in the fact that Santiago, Chile, was once also known as Saint Jago. The Spanish Governor of Chile at the time was Ambrose O'Higgins, an Irishman. Perhaps he had known "Iago" as "Jago"? 'Jagoe' is often a Spanish variant of 'James'. The reason for the "e" is not clear.
And just quietly, I am very grateful to have a lovely boyfriend who will ride his bike 5km to the shops at midnight just to buy me girly items :)

Signed, Sealed, Delivered
It's 40˚C/104˚F today. I'm meltinggggg. Just a quick post to show you the mail themed CD I included in the journal. Can you think of any other mail themed songs?;



Tracklisting:
1. Return to Sender - Elvis Presley
2. A Letter to Elise - The Cure
3. I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself A Letter - Fats Waller
4. A Postcard to Nina - Jens Lekman
5. Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I'm Yours - Stevie Wonder
6. Lost In The Post - The Wombats
7. Please Mr. Postman - The Marvelettes
8. Elevator Love Letter - Stars
9. To Sir With Love - Lulu
10. (Letter from Home) - DJ Shadow
11. Please Read The Letter - Jimmy Page & Robert Plant
12. Tear Stained Letter - Johnny Cash
13. Stealing People's Mail - Dead Kennedys
14. All My Loving - The Beatles
15. Death Letter Blues - Leadbelly
16. The Letter - PJ Harvey
17. Death Letter (Son House) - The White Stripes
18. Love Letter - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
19. Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis - Tom Waits
20. Letter to My Son - Bloc Party
21. Send Me Some Loving - Little Richard
22. Why Don't You Write Me - Simon & Garfunkel
23. PS. I Love You - Nellie McKay


You can download the mix here.

ALSO, one of my favourite little Newcaslte haunts, Bird In the Hand Distro, is running a letter writing club on the first Friday of each month at 6pm. Pretty sweet, huh? Here's the run down on what will occur:
We welcome you in through our bright red front door and you find a comfy place to sit down for a little while. You gather some supplies: a pen, some paper, a typewriter, a cup of tea, a biscuit. You write a friend or a relative or your crush a letter using that somewhat anachronistic art of letterwriting. You probably have fond memories of using this skill a little when you were younger and maybe you haven’t used it in awhile. Writing some a personalised letter is one of the most heartwarming, communicative experiences & we’d like to get you back into the routine of letterwriting (it’s way funner if you’re part of a club!). Please come to this first meeting of the Letter Writing Club…
The first Letter Writing Club meet will be on the 4th of December, though sadly I will be in cold comfortable Tasmania at that time. If you happen to be in Newcastle (I know a lot of you are far far away from here), you should pop in;



I hope it's a lot cooler wherever you are today!

Flavour


I spent several hours last night putting together my pages for the mail themed Travelling Journal. When I went to buy the journal I wandered around in Borders for about an hour going backward and forward between three different journals I came across. I found a travel diary that had a cover with stamps and postmarks all over it, which I thought was perfect and appropriate, but the pages were lined and it was really thick and heavy. I also tossed up between buying a two-pack of bright green Moleskines but decided $25 was too much and so I ended up buying this gorgeous little understated, craft paper paged book by Paperchase for $10. I'm sending it out tomorrow to the Phillippines to its next recipient. I'm sad to have it leave my hands, but I'm sure each person along the way will add something amazing to it. Here are some of my pages. My scanner hates life, so I apologise for the quality. If you'd like to see larger, more detailed versions go to my mail art Flickr :);


^The front and back covers.


^ The inner cover and the first page, the envelope (which is actually silver doesn't look smudged like that in real life) contains the 'rules' of the journal.


^ My first two mail collage pages.


^ My second two mail collage pages, the first contains a list of some facts about mail, if you can't read my tiny little writing go here for the larger image.

C is making me a mail-themed mix cd to pop in the back sleeve of the journal. I'll post the tracklisting here later to show you. There are so many songs written about mail and letters and things, it was hard to make a shortlist.

Of course, if you're interested there are two still spaces to join up, so you're very welcome to join, and If those spaces fill up you're welcome to email me and I'll open another space for you.

I couldn't help myself but post this here. MmmVelopes; Bacon flavoured envelopes... who would've thought... I'm a vegetarian, though they do have a kosher verification (via Incredible Things);


There are still two days left to sign up to Missive Maven's cat postcard swap. I've been saving some cat postcards especially for the occasion.

I think this stamp is pretty sweet and the note cards are dreamy. Both from Hygge & West Holiday;


I've smothered my desk entirely with bits and pieces for the journal and I should probably spend the rest of my night cleaning it all up! :(

Also, I think you should definitely go to Sylvia's blog and tell her how lovely her new glasses look!

Contrary

^ Contrary Mary.

To anyone from the UK I imagine you might be familiar with Harriet Russell. I've only just come across her, and as I can gather she basically sent a whole lot of envelopes and postcards through the Royal Mail with the addresses of these missives written in ways that the postal workers would have to decipher, of course not all of them reached their destinations. She also released a book full of these postcards. Here are some of my favourites;




Today C and I are going out to the mall for a browse. I'm going to Borders to see if I can find an appropriate journal for the travelling journal, C is probably going to come home with a handful of things from JB Hi-Fi.

I also wanted to point out how to sign up to the travelling journal mentioned yesterday, as I've had a few emails of people asking me how -
- Go to the journal page (link)
- You'll need to become a member if you haven't already
- On the right hand side of my journal page there is a link that says 'Get In Line'
- Then you just need to email me your postal address to teacup_teacup[at]hotmail.com and you're in! Yay!

I am quite in love with the wares of the Etsy store Chupchik. Look at these;



And I'd really like to get my hands on the Wonderful World of Fashion colouring book by Nina Chakrabarti;



Also in my want want wanting I am very smitten by these satchels by Cambridge Satchel, I think the purple is the one for me. I'm pretty sure the UK price equates to about an AU $115, so I can only dream about it for the moment;