A Daily Letter - The Attempt Shall Be Made

As a number of you know (or fairly guessed), I am big into letter writing.  And not so big into New Year's Resolutions.  But this year I am going to try to be more committed to correspondence.  To the point where I am actually "doing a thing" -- the Month of Letters challenge this coming February!

Badge and info for the 
Month of Letters Challenge is here.

Normally I shy away from formal events such as these.  In part because I am an introvert and letter writing is a private activity.  But also because, like most folks, I have only a limited amount of time and many things I want to do!  This particular event, though, has me intrigued because the person who is leading it is someone whose creative bent resonates with mine.

I didn't know that when I first heard about the Month of Letters challenge on Twitter the other day.  Then I did a little info-scrounging and came upon the author of the event - and this sentence on her About page had me at the instant.

Mary Robinette Kowal is a novelist and professional puppeteer.

From the album on Ms. Kowal's site.

I have never heard of Ms. Kowal nor her books.  The rest of her About page, however, will have me at the library soon to investigate. Her About page bio tells of an eclectic maker/writer/imagineer. 

"Hugo-award winning author, Mary Robinette Kowal is a novelist and professional puppeteer. Her debut novel Shades of Milk and Honey (Tor 2010) was nominated for the 2010 Nebula Award for Best Novel. In 2008 she won the Campbell Award for Best New Writer, while three of her short fiction works have been nominated for the Hugo Award: “Evil Robot Monkey” in 2009 and “For Want of a Nail” in 2011, which won the Hugo for short story that year. Her stories have appeared in Strange Horizons, Asimov’s, and several Year’s Best anthologies, as well as in her collection Scenting the Dark and Other Stories from Subterranean Press.

Kowal is also an award-winning puppeteer. With over twenty years of experience, she has performed for LazyTown (CBS), the Center for Puppetry Arts, Jim Henson Pictures and founded Other Hand Productions. Her designs have garnered two UNIMA-USA Citations of Excellence, the highest award an American puppeteer can achieve.

When she isn’t writing or puppeteering, Kowal brings her speech and theater background to her work as a voice actor. As the voice behind several audio books and short stories, she has recorded fiction for authors such as Kage Baker, Cory Doctorow and John Scalzi.

Mary lives in Chicago with her husband Rob and over a dozen manual typewriters. Sometimes she even writes on them."

And she owns typewriters!  How can I not be inspired?  Though I will have to modify the 'rules' to suit my style of letters - which tend to be lengthy and often introspective.  For me it will be this: writing/typing at least two pages of a letter per day will be considered has a letter for the day.  I know I am likely to write more and more often per day, but I am not about to have myself fretting over an artificial goal.  The point is to WRITE & CONNECT consistently.  

Whom I shall write to will really be the challenge.  I have a small coterie of pen friends, but not enough to match a letter-per-day output.  I'll take these next few weeks before the event begins to create a list of people I might write to just for fun. 

And I will restock my supply of postage stamps as the price of 1st class/postcards/international letter postage is going up again starting on 27 January of this new year.

• Letters (1oz.) — 1-cent increase to 46 cents
• Letters additional ounces — unchanged at 20 cents
• Letters to all international destinations (1oz.) — $1.10
• Postcards — 1-cent increase to 33 cents

Complete info on the increases can be found at this USPS page.

One last thing, an International Forever Stamp is being issued for the first time this year.  And it seems to be ROUND!  This is very cool.  

 

The USPS description for it is this:

 

"In 2013, the U.S. Postal Service introduces Global Forever®, a new international rate stamp. The Global Forever® stamp offers a single price for any First-Class Mail International 1-ounce letter to any country in the world. For the January 27, 2013, price change, the Global Forever® stamp may also be used to mail a 2-ounce letter to Canada.

This stamp features a rendering of Earth composed of images created from satellite data and redesigned with 3D computer technology. The view of our planet shows the Atlantic Ocean flanked by the Americas, Africa, and part of northern Europe. In the stamp art, the globe is isolated on a white background. The shape of the stamp is round. The text, which surrounds the image of Earth, includes the words “Global Forever.”

Artist Leonello Calvetti used a variety of maps, primarily from NASA, to create his design. With 3D computer technology he was able to modify depth, vary color, and create subtle light and shadow details on terrain surfaces to achieve a high level of photorealism while also attaining something new. “I always have been fascinated by space and what astronauts could see from out there,” Calvetti says. “As an artist, an illustrator, I wanted to make my own representation of the Earth.”

Art director William J. Gicker selected this depiction of Earth by Calvetti. Greg Breeding designed the stamp.

The Global Forever® stamps are being issued in self-adhesive sheets of 20 at the $1.10 rate, or $22.00 per sheet.  Made in the USA."

 

COOL BOOK: Poster Stamps Lithography

The 1864 Shakespeare Penny Memorial poster stamp.

Image source/credit

Whilst scrounging through some storage boxes the other day I came upon a book I'd forgotten I had.  Rather perfect timing, I'd say, given my latest preoccupation with letters and postage, real and fictional.

The book is H. Thomas Steele's Lick 'Em, Stick 'Em: The Lost Art of Poster Stamps (NY: Abbeville, Press, 1989. ISNN: 0896598993).

The Wikipedia collective describes poster stamps thusly:

"The poster stamp was an advertising label, a little larger than most postage stamps, that originated in the mid-19th century and quickly became a collecting craze, growing in popularity up until World War One and then declining by World War Two until they are now almost forgotten except by collectors of cinderella stamps.

The first poster stamps were inspired by the invention of the postage stamp. A perforated label was produced in England in 1864 to celebrate the 300th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth and in Italy a label was produced in 1860 to celebrate Garibaldi's expedition to Sicily during the campaign to unify Italy. Commercial interests soon realised the publicity potential of the stamps and they were quickly adopted for the promotion of every type of product and cause. Poster stamps were also widely used by both sides during World War One as political propagnda."

I scanned a few of the images to give you the flavor of this wonderful book.  It's out of print now but I saw a number of copies for sale online.

Stamp Cabinet for Fictional Post Office

One aspect of the Summer Wizarding Event is a Post Office.  We are still working out how it fits into the narrative of the day, but the idea of our new students receiving mail and being able to send some has got us pretty jazzed.

I am big into letter writing myself (what a surprise!), and have a very neat cabinet given to me by my Beloved Spousal unit that is designed for storing one's stationery, stamps, labels, and such.  Recently on a run to Goodwill I came across a similar-looking cabinet.

 

I've modified it by painting the logo of our Postal Service on its doors and antiquing its entire inner and outer surfaces it with "Ancient Gold" "Rub-n-Buff Metallic Finish."  The postage stamps in the image below are real (old) U.S. stamps in 3-cent denomination.  Professor Science donated them.  Besides being used as postage for the fictional mail the kids will be receiving, there are enough stamps for each kid to receive their own small stamp set as part of an informational brochure they'll be getting (and I will be authoring) on How To Create A Fictional Correspondence.

The postal scale is something I found on eBay.  It's a bisque-colored plastic.  I haven't decided yet if I am going to paint it or leave it as is (I actually use it, so I'd want to be careful about using something that might damage the surface.)

Post Office Makings

I won this old post office letter scale on eBay.  I need one for my letter writing, but I will also be lending it to the Summer Wizarding Event folks to use in their Post Office. 

As I begin to gather such things together, the postal props making for the event is becoming so much more real and exciting.  Up to now -- except for the making of the monthly newsletter -- it's been mostly planning in sketchbooks or collecting image files of ideas.  Recently though, Professor Science generously offered a bunch (majorly large bunch!) of old postage stamps.

And yesterday I was at one of my favorite stores, American Science and Surplus.  Oh my, if you haven't been to their store or gotten their catalog, DO!  They are the wildest bunch of characters and sell the coolest stuff.  My find yesterday was just what I'd hoping I'd find.  I wanted to include a letter opener in each wizarding student's packet of mail.  The kind I had in mind was one of those sliding ones with the blade safely enclosed.  I'd priced them out wholesale online and found it would cost about $1.35 per opener; a little pricey for our limited budget.

Image source

What I really wanted, though, was one that looked more like the classic mini-dagger.  But handing out knives to children isn't the act of a responsible adult! :-)  So I was totally psyched to have come across these 10 cent apiece plastic versions (below).

The packaging envelope above it (and pointed to in #3 below) I made using a template from Ruthann Logsdon Zaroff's creative and generous site, Mirkwood Designs Templates.  I used her Artist Card Envelope, which I stretched out to fit the size and shape of the letter opener. 

(1) below shows the unassembled envelopes and (2) the letter openers.

I recently heard from the Headmaster Actor to whom I'd sent a sample packet. He pronounced it "truly excellent"! Next up, the Stamp Cabinet for the Post Master/Mistress.

Fictional Mail: Making Faux Postage Stamps

Example of Artistamps/Faux Postage by mixed media artist, Lisa Vollrath

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The making of the Summer Wizarding Event is starting to pick up steam.  My designated area is the contents of the Post Office.  This means I am having insanely-fun fun making all kinds of fake mail!  Or as our Headmaster refers to it, wizard junque mail!

Two samples of mail art by John Fellows.

Images source

The more "really real"* it looks, the better.  My father-in-law, Professor Science, asked me if I wanted some old postage stamps he had.  (He'd taken them to be appraised and was told they weren't of much value.)  They are of value to us, I told him gratefully.  So our postage will mix truly real with the really real.

Once I get a decent array of stamps made, I will post some images here. But you don't need my examples to get started!

Making faux postage (also called artiststamps in the related universes of rubber stamping and mail art) is pretty straightforward and a lot of fun.  There are several ways to go about it.

BUY PRE-MADE RUBBER STAMPS OF POSTAGE.  

Stores like Michael's and JoAnn's sell rubber stamps, but they are often aimed at folks doing scrapbooking or weddings.  I happened upon a trio of faux post cancellation mark stamps at Michael's the other day, but the pickings were mighty slim.

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There are lots of rubber stamps companies to be found, most of them selling online now. One needs to do a lot of browsing to find companies selling postage related stamps, but they are out there.  Here are a few I found by Googling. (Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with any of them.)

• 100 Proof Press
• Carolyn's Stamp Store
• Mad Hatter Jack's Fine Stamps 
• Also, searching eBay using the phrase rubber stamps postage will bring up some fun stuff,
• and, believe it or not, searching Amazon with the phrase rubber art stamps postage brought up a bunch of stamps!

MAKE YOUR OWN FAUX STAMPS

Making postage is not just fun, it's tremendous creative play. You can do it by hand, or using rubber stamps, or via computer.  The perforation marks can be drawn in, or made using a dressmaker's tracing wheel, or running the sheets through a sewing machine sans thread. Craft scissors with "postage stamp edges" are also used (I found one for a mere 99 cents at Michael's the other day.).  Or you can go top level with pre-perforated, dry gum paper designed especially for artistamps, special rubber stamp templates, plastic stamping templates - the whole show! 

Tracing Wheels (available at places like JoAnn Fabrics)

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 One brand of postage-edge craft scissors (Fiskars)

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Cathe Holden, at the endlessly creative and generous site, Just Something I Made, had a 2009 post on how to convert a standard sewing machine needle so that you can "sew" more realistic stamp perforations.  Here's that link.

There are so many folks out there who have posted on the making of artistamps/faux postage, that rather than try to not-plagiarize their work ;-) I will show you some examples of what I found and give you their links. 

Lisa Vollrath, a mixed media artist and designer, is a veritable queen of faux postage and a gazillion other powerfully and playful creative stuff.  Her artistamps are exquisitely precise and "really real."  She also makes "art money."  Her own website is here.

But if you go to her extensive article here, you can get a full rundown on the how-to and where-for of making faux postage.  This page includes a video on how to make faux postage rubber stamps.

Beate Johns wrote up a short, illustrated piece on making faux stamps  She includes two templates in PDF format to get you started.

Tangledom Stamp

Image source

TangleCrafts is a blog devoted to mail art and faux postage.  In addition to this article on making stamps, there is a list of mail art and postage-making links.

Bill and Kathy Porter, of the site called The Olathe Poste, provide a lot of stamp making supplies, including pre-perforated, dry gum paper for stamps.  The folks at the above-mentioned 100 Proof Press also have pre-fab paper for stamps, in smaller amounts.

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* The phrase really real was gifted to us by one of our soon-to-be new wizarding students after he got his copy of the first issue of the event newspaper, The Monthly Seer. See this earlier post for that report.