Autumn has arrived

Hello from sunny but not-as-hot Arizona! Finally, we have the slider and windows open in the evenings and mornings. We even had some much-needed rain. You see many of these sage bushes around the city and when the temperature and humidity hit at just the right point, the purple flowers explode on the bush. I do have one in my yard and it's never bloomed really robust, so I took this photo at the neighbor's yard:I know, not the typical orange/yellow/red fall color you expect to see in October!

My mailing statistics for September were: 44 outgoing postcards, 3 outgoing letters, 29 incoming postcards and 4 incoming letters. I do have a small pile of correspondence to attend to. Here's an outgoing envelope for a Canadian postcrosser. I used a clear plastic bag and a piece of blue cardboard to stabilize the envelope; then taped all the ephemera to the cardboard so it showed through the envelope. I took a chance that she liked blue. She was very happy upon receipt!
Recently I took a couple of short trips to Colorado, first on the Western Slope and then to Denver. Here's a pretty doe we spotted resting in Aurora:Coincidentally, one of my school friends was in Denver at the same time (she lives in Edmonton, Canada). So we met for breakfast. And we we dressed very similar! I've known Gayle for over 30 years, and we call each other "G." Gayle on L, Garci on R.

Postcard with Artistamp

I recently received a traveling postcard from Elle Mental in North Carolina, which originated from Su at Tanglecrafts in England. Once received, you are to put your Artistamp on it and send it on to the next person. I am not revealing who the postcard has been mailed to but surely you will see it posted on her blog!

The term artistamp or artist's stamp refers to a postage stamp-like artform used to depict or commemorate any subject its creator chooses. Artistamps are a form of "Cinderella stamps" in that they are not valid for postage, but they differ from forgeries or bogus stamps in that typically the creator has no intent to fool postal authorities or stamp collectors.

If you are interested in participating in this project, you can read about it here. I was a bit surprised to receive the postcard and although I am having fun creating mail art, I've never done an artistamp before.

August Stats

Quick post this afternoon. I kept track of my incoming/outgoing mail for August 2010:
Outgoing postcards - 34
Outgoing letters - 7
Incoming postcards - 41
Incoming letters - 8
I'm active on postcrossing and I do a lot of direct swaps, so that's why the postcard # is so high.
Can't believe 1/3 of the month of September is already gone...I've been working in Amarillo, TX for three weeks so I lose track of time. In fact, I just got home, so must unpack and settle in. Ciao!

Things That Make Me Happy Right Now

Here are some of the cupcakes I made and took to a poker party. Did you know that Michael's stores have a baking line by Duff of Charm City Cakes (Ace of Cakes on TV)? He has baking pans, cake mix, frosting, fondant, kits, etc. Pretty cool! So I used the white cake mix and decorated with edible silver glitter, blue Pop Rocks candy, mini M&M's candy and small Chiclets gum. I'd have to say the cupcakes were a hit!I am a little obsessed with watching the cake shows (Cake Boss, Ace of Cakes) and the cupcake shows (Cupcake Wars and DC Cupcakes). Do you watch these?Here's a mama dove, roosting on her nest above our garage!A surprise gift from the love of my life! A Dia de los Muertos Catrina figurine in blue with glitter. See the blue roses in her mouth? He gives me the best gifts <3>Incoming package from Gemma in the U.K. She spent her holidays on the Isle of Wight, accessible by ferry. I love these perfect seashells! What a wonderful surprise in yesterday's mail.More incoming mail from overseas with a sideways picture. Gemma's letter (England), pinup girl envelope from Claudia in Italy, Anna-Danute from Russia and fruity envelope from Ann-Catrin in Finland. I just signed up for "Happy Mail," which is an mail/package exchange and I received a lot of cool crafty items from Mandy in Germany (husband is stationed there in the service).Here's the back of the envelope from Italy with more pinups, a London tube map and some of Claudia's original art postcards! These will be mailed out in the near future.Here's what was inside the envelope from Finland. I like how Ann-Catrin writes to me -- she doesn't sit down and write all at one time, but approaches letter writing more in diary form, so each postcard and paper typically has a different date. She sends me such lovely postcards, which are often original photographs she has had made of the area in Northern Finland where she lives. My writing relationship with her is similar to the one with my longtime correspondent in Japan -- all snail mail and no Facebook or email. I received a wonderful first letter from a Postcrosser in Russia! Her English is very good. She sent me three cards with her letter; the beer card is a vintage advertisement. She sent the purple card since it's my favorite color (it's from Ikea!) and another cool vintage-style card. She wrote me back because when I sent her postcard (in an envelope), I included a bunch of used stamps for her stamp collection, which made her very happy.

Now for my outgoing mail for tomorrow: Many postcards for Postcrossers, a letter to Colorado and a New Jersey postcard themed postcard for Miss Natalie from Nutley. The envelope with the colorful cowboy stamps is going to a Postcrosser in Finland; on her profile she asked for copies of autographs for her collection. So I copied a photo of actress Melanie Griffith, a note signed by Bill Clinton and a copy of my letter from Michelle Obama (all with signatures!).

Treasure Hunt

I wanted to share some of my recent thrifting finds. I would bore you if I posted everything I find but I'm always on the lookout for vintage stationery, stamps, books, purses, deer figurines...I collect deer figurines and found this one at an estate sale for $2.Nesto's mom was doing some cupboard cleaning so we took the crystal box with bird on lid, vintage perfume decanter and the Avon cologne bottle with horse (and box).Don't know why is this loading sideways! I found the small milk bottle from Peerless Dairy; the city location is the same name as my mom's maiden name. The vintage white jar with strawberry was a win from one of ZootSuitMama's giveaways!I've been doing some crafting, too. I painted a couple of birdhouses and Nesto tacked on the license plate for the roof. The tote bag is a Dia de Los Muertos skull that is from the Crafty Chica crafts collection. I used fabric paint and glitter to fill it in! I only used black, silver and white glitter colors on this one; I know it's not real colorful, but I like it anyway.Here is another birdhouse; this one with a 1976 Colorado license plate (the year of Colorado's Centennial, 100 years as a state). I used pearly white paint and enhanced the blue with glitter! The Crafty Chica would definitely approve.Here are some postcards I made recently. Starting at the top left, I used pages from a calendar from Japan and added stamps for the purse of each "model." The top right is a map of London and the bottom left is a collage of stamps of HRH, Queen Elizabeth. Mostly British stamps, but a nice one from Hong Kong and several from Canada, too. One of them is en route to a Postcrosser right this minute!

Mail Call

Hello from scorching hot Arizona! We've basically been hermits here in the house this weekend as it's too darn hot to go out anywhere (115F/46C yesterday). So we caught up on some TV programs and I wrote a few letters and postcards. I'm a bit behind on posting about mail...this went out a week or two ago:
I made the Robert Pattinson envelope from an old calendar to send some Eclipse postcards to a postcrosser. Three envelopes I decorated, starting at the top left, included an Italian theme, miscellaneous and a sports theme (Houston Astros baseball sticker and Arizona Diamondbacks baseball game stub).

My latest letter to Bianca in Oz was with a YELLOW theme, mailed in a clear sheet and thus everything was showing through. I plastered it with yellow stamps and included a recipe as seen on the back, written on a vintage yellow card. I like to use red when I send to her since it's her favorite color but I went with yellow this time!Above is what I worked on this weekend; lots of Postcrossing postcards but
also to some friends/penpals in Colorado, Illinois and New Mexico.At the top, the mail art envelope theme was simply by color in browns/tans and I also used a lot of vintage book text (English, French, Spanish) to decorate. The postcards, L to R, are S'Mores cupcakes that I made recently (sitting on a vintage cake stand), a vintage sewing pattern that I scanned and made into a photo postcard (groovy hairstyles!), a vintage children's book from my bookshelf, scanned and made into a photo postcard for a postcrosser, and a postcard of the lovely actress Carole Lombard. She was married to Clark Gable and tragically died at a young age in an airplane accident.This comic just cracks me up!

Charmed, I'm Sure

Inspired by the blog post from 1950's Atomic Ranch House, I am showing you two charm bracelets: I acquired this bracelet at an estate sale so I don't know much about it, nor have I ever seen one like this. It's heavy, chunky and vintage. The far left charm says, "Millie Vangorden," the next charm is like a pot or urn with a screw top that I can't open, the third charm is a cigarette lighter (marked Golden Wheel Lighter) on the bottom and the final charm is of course, a fleur-de-lis.
The second one is my personal silver charm bracelet that I used to wear a lot but not anymore; it definitely has a lot of my life history but my life has changed a lot since I've acquired the charms, so maybe I just need to remove the "out of date" pieces. Anyway, here's more detail:Going left to right, the "Z" charm stands for Catherine Zeta-Jones, one of my favorite actresses, given to me my my dear friend Marcia. The next one is a vintage charm for my high school, then a Celtic cross (some of my family ancestry is Welsh), a vintage charm that says, "Giovanni," USA charm and one with my name. That one is sentimental for me since it was on a bracelet from my childhood, given to me by my father.Next up: A Chianti wine bottle, a charm with the fleur-de-lis (both these were purchased in Firenze, Italy! The back of the fleur-de-lis has the Medici family crest), a diploma for my college graduation, a four-leaf clover, and the Cape Hatteras lighthouse (a favorite holiday destination).The heart charm is from my mommy, a cross, a "Big Sister" charm from my little sister, snorkel fin and tube, a crown, cat sitting on a crystal ball, cowboy boot and two kitties, which depicted the cats that I had but my ex got them in the divorce! Charm bracelets are interesting because they're conversational. People like to look at the charms and why you have them on your wrist!