^ To Mr Cheng.

C and I have been up late watching season 2 of Breaking Bad (such a good show) and I've been dividing my time between keeping my eyes on the screen and writing words on a page and wrote three letters;


^ Made from a cut-up Oxfam brown paper bag. These detailed red pen envelopes sure take a long time, but overall I really enjoy making them. I've often been annoyed with myself that I can't seem to produce 'art for art's sake'. I can only draw up things like this when I'm making something for someone else, or if I have to submit something for a class. It feels self absorbed to want to create a piece of art for myself, I don't know how to fix this feeling. This envelope was made for the lovely Reread Design.


^ One of my last Kathie Olivas envelopes.


^ This one's a bit scary, so I hope Melody likes it. It's so full it's about to burst. I had to add extra tape. I really enjoy her letters.

Listening to: Feeling Yourself Disintegrate - The Flaming Lips
Consuming: Peanut butter off a spoon, classy.

Loosely following Paper Source's 'envaccordion' tutorial I decided to put together a multi-compartmented envelope for my reply to Missive Maven (which I am yet to write, but I wanted to show you the envelope). I anticipate that I will fill each compartment with a page from my letter, perhaps a postcard or two, some tea and other small bits and pieces (it has to be thin enough to be able to fold back up).

Quite image heavy I'm sorry!;


^ Gluing the envelopes together - I used three plain red envelopes and two shiny silver ones. An uneven amount is good. Gluing the back of the flap of one envelope to the front of another envelope, repeating.


^ Starting to decorate. Of course only the 'front' and the 'back' will be visible when it goes through the post, but as you unwrap it you can see the rest of the decoration.


^ Rigby started posing so C took a picture.


^ Colouring in.


^ Makin' it pretty.


^ Again, Rigby with her poses.


^ Sticking bits on.


^ Planning & stamping.


^ Rigby, crying out for attention.


^ Finished product (inside).



^ Finished product (outside).


^ Folding it up.


Of course the back flap will have to be secured in a way that is able to be detached easily without damaging the rest of the envelope. I'll probably just tape down the edges of the flap. Lol @ my blobby drawing of Australia.


^ All folded up, the front.

Just quietly, I may have another giveaway planned for sometime next week, stay tuned :)

^ unknown.

^ These are all of the letters I've written over the past two weeks, unposted as yet due to lack of stamp funds. Sorry if you're waiting on a letter, it'll be with you soon!

Incoming;


^ This came from the lovely Cornelius Post Office. I love their stamp!


^ I love the stationery Olivia used, it made me laugh.


^ This darling envelope came from Bree in South Australia. Isn't it beautifully decorated?



^ A lovely first letter from Passion.



^ Last but not least, this unassuming little package from Meg brought me a huge bundle of wonderful paper ephemera, some of which I've already made use of and I only received it this morning. Lots of great stickers, little vintage cards and miscellanea.

Outgoing;


^ To the lovely lady behind Moazyia.


^ I don't think it really shows, but this envelope took about two hours from start to finish! I'm sending it off for a Decorated Envelope swap, probably my last Swapbot swap for a while as my mail funds are already meagre. Here it is before I addressed it;



Last night C and I made our weekly trip to the pub at the end of our street (the Hamilton Station Hotel) to watch the Jets on the big screen, who were entirely disappointing and had a sad 3-0 loss. The Super Bowl was on another screen behind us and I watched on for a few minutes trying to work out how the game worked, but it never happened. American football is still a total mystery to me. Inadvertently we were also present for the pub's Monday night open mic, which one guy was running to a very sparing audience. He played a few of his songs, begging the crowd for any takers, and eventually I just got up and asked him if I could play a song ('New Romantic' by Laura Marling). I am very unaccustomed to playing to people I don't know and that's the only time that I feel nervous about singing. Singing in front of 1000 people I know personally at my high school felt very different to singing in front of five strangers at an open mic. Of course the beauty of open mic nights is that the audience have no expectations of you. When I got home I sent Manneh a message and told him when he moves in we'll have to infiltrate this open mic night more often. The fact that this experience made me so nervous made me decide my only option is to force myself to do it more. When was the last time you sang in public?

Listening to: Experimental Film - They Might Be Giants, Soul Meets Body - Death Cab For Cutie, Alison - Elvis Costello.
Making: Choc-chip mint cookies.

NB. I just had to add that after reading this post C informed me that he has actually never received a letter from me and it made me laugh but also feel a little sad. He's written me several letters and eighteen postcards, one for every day he was in Tasmania away from me. I guess I should probably write him a letter sometime :P

I decided today that I'd like to introduce you to my mailbox. She was a bit of an ugly duckling until recently when I gave her a quick makeover with a messy splattering of red paint. She's attached very precariously to a fence post and is just a little too high for the mail man to be able to put items in without having to get off his bike. She's scruffy, but since I made her over people have sent her more and more lovely mail.


^ My little red mailbox with yours truly.

I guess my street isn't called 'Fern' for nothing, though these are probably the only ferns in the whole street.

Some inspiring mailboxes I found;

+.


+.


+.


+.


+.


+.


+.


+.


+.


+.


+.


+.


+.


+.


+.


+.


+.


+.


+.


+.


+.


+.


+.


+.


+ (This one's actually in NSW, Australia. I know of several odd mailboxes around where I grew up. We used to have one made out of a paint tin, and another made from a huge water bottle)


+.

Okay, okay, I'll stop now. I got a bit carried away with the beauty of mailboxes. After all that I decided to make a new Tumblr just for pictures of things mail related; Fuck Yeah Mail - in line with all of the other 'Fuck Yeah...' Tumblrs eg. Fuck Yeah Morrissey, Fuck Yeah Undercuts, Fuck Yeah Zooey, Fuck Yeah Tattoos, Fuck Yeah Voldemort, etc. Though I might end up changing the name.



On an entirely unrelated note, on my internet travels I came across Boston.com's Scenes From The Recession, which is basically a collection of incredible photos from around the world showing the various effects of the recession. I read somewhere that on paper Greece and Australia have been the only countries not significantly affected by the recession (yet). I certainly haven't seen any scenes like those in Australia. Here's one picture that I thought was interesting;


^ Though as it turns out these unused newspaper racks were removed per city rules, not due to economic pressure.