I spent several hours today making envelopes out of an old book C had lying around called 'The Dracula Collection'; which was full all matter of ghouls and vamps and gross creatures. It was a bit dusty and made me caught and splutter, but sure made for some interesting envelopes. At first I thought some of the images were too gross or 'scary' to send to people, but once I cut up and folded all of the pages into envelopes I changed my mind, and now I think I like each in its own way. The labels were from a template I hand-drew, scanned and printed copies of. I'm thinking about selling a bunch of handmade envelopes whenever I can get an Etsy up. Lemme know what 'chu think - do they scare you? :D;


^ The book before it was chopped up!


^ Some of the pages before I reefed them out.


^Just about all of the envelopes, all together.


^ Some already addressed and waiting for letters.

^ Riding A Rainbow

A ridiculously image heavy post!

Sent:








^ A Swap-botter asked me to send her some Tim Minchin music/videos, so I happily made up this package for her.





^ My Benevolent Postcard Society mail out for February.



Received:




^ The lovely giveaway package I received from Megan today. That weekly planner is going to come in really handy and the postcards are so sweet and I really like the quote she included on the back of the package.



^ A lovely little letter from Greta in Lithuania. The little cards she included are mini 2009 calendars featuring artworks by Lithuanian artists.



^ Another very sweet letter from Amy.




^ A fantastic little package from Sylvia full of wonderful paper ephemera. The drawing/collage she did on the front of the envelope is awesome and I love the stamps she used.

Yup, spoiled with mail today.

It's exactly one month until I go back to university. Eeep! The night before last C and I walked up to the pub at the top of our street to watch the soccer on the big screen. We waited for a while and watched on as two ladies set up the karaoke gear. Eventually C texted his friend and asked when the game was supposed start and he said it had been cancelled due to Cylone Olga in far north Queensland, so we downed our drinks and got out of their quick before the karaoke started. I'm sure I've mentioned before that the area I live in has an abundance of opshops/thrift stores (probably 5 or 6 in a 500m radius) and we walked past one in particular on the way home and spotted a very nice looking bicycle dumped out the front. C wheeled it home, spent yesterday fixing it up with his brother and a friend and now he has a very awesome bicycle. So, going up there wasn't pointless. Last night after we watched the men's Australian Open final C and I went for a late night bike ride to the supermarket to buy ice cream. Several times I thought my long skirt was going to get caught in my brakes and reefed off, haha. I should probably be wiser in my bike riding fashion choices. When we got home we finished watching the last episode of Six Feet Under, and I must say it really is one of the best final episodes to a tv show ever. I feel so sad about not seeing those characters any more, I got so attached to them. C is moving our bedroom furniture around, which excites me. We're ever so slowly making Tasmania moving plans and if all works out we'll end up down there by the cold Tasmanian Winter. I am really excited about it, though detaching myself from the little world we've built ourselves here will be hard. And might I just say - I AM NOT GOING TO MISS THIS HEAT ONE BIT! No more 30°C/86°F mornings! In the meantime my best friend Manneh is moving some stuff into our spare room this week and potentially moving in soon, which is exciting. C and I have been considering what changes we might have to make t0 our lifestyle to be sharing house with someone again, but I think it's going to be pretty fun.

Listening to: We Won't Run - Sarah Blasko
Consuming: Banana Chai Smoothie
Coveting: A scarf like so;

^ From the amazing portfolio of Jaime Martinez (via Design For Mankind)

Y'know, I've never really asked my self what makes a great letter, but I must say if there's one person who knows the recipe, it's Missive Maven. Her letters make me laugh, make me think and inspire me to write more letters. This little package was no exception;






^ Including a fantastic mix cd, two aweome little foutain pens and a bunch of ink, a fantastic letter and all in gorgeous stationery! I love the 'Don't Eat Mail' warning all over everything.

Some great postcards lately also;

^ Salvador Dali and his beautiful moustache, from Hane in Brazil.


^ Very cute kittens, a reply from a Postcrosser.


^ Great dancing frogs from Ilona.


^ I love movie poster postcards, this one's from Rashel in Massachusetts.

Today I was just about to walk over to my friend Doug's house to do some painting and C came to the front door with me to say goodbye (and tell me not to get hit by lightening) and all of the sudden a huge strike of lightening hit a power pole across the road from our house. It was bizarre - flames and sparks and a huge bang that felt like it reset my heart! It was so loud! After that I waited a moment and then started down one of the streets near our house in heavy rain, only to hear the loudest thunder ever and all of the car alarms in the street went off. So I ran as fast I could home and then waited until the storm was well and truly gone. Really frightening! Go mother nature. Eventually I got to Doug's and we spent the day trying to make a collaborative painting (which sucked) and watching bad day-time pay tv.

I scrounged enough money to buy some hair dye last week and now I have a slightly altered hair colour, a kind of purple red. C took a picture of it for me;


I just had to repost this after seeing it on Paper Tastebuds - Shaun Usher, the same guy who brought us Letters of Note has another site called Letterheady, which features letterhead scans from famous people, companies and organisations - the likes of Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Nat King Cole, Houdini, Laurel & Hardy, Pepsi, Adolf Hitler, Isaac Asimov, Church of Scientology California, Frank Zappa, Johnny Cash and many others. I think it would be really fun to print a couple of these out and use them for your own writing paper;

Letters, letters, letters! Four letters in three hours, my brain is sore.



^ Made from pages of a children's book.









^Another children's book page.

Aren't these tights the awesomest? From Les Queues De Sardines.


I've love to get this little cutie for my niece before she stops being so little, from All-Mighty by Gemma Correll;


Rafael Nadal retired from the Australian Open last night due to injury which made me very sad :( I was really hoping for a Nadal-Federer final, they're amazing to watch together. Oh wells, 'til next year;

^ img credit.