The Excellence of Real Mail.

Versus the Lackluster of Email, Real Mail Contains in Its Folds... your friend's handwriting, little extras such as photographs and artsy bits of sketching or stamping.  Real - snail - mail requires postage, which provides another chance to personalize correspondence... stamps add pizzazz... panache... an artful touch.

Here's another excitedly received letter from E - this one came with three small vintage black and white photographs... lovely bits of the past.  Among other things, E tells me of her affection for books with deckled, rough edges, her Uncle named Square, and her fragrant lavender and jasmine. 

We're true mail snails... choosing real over email anyday.

Real Snail Mail for Toile La La at Art Fashion Creation.

If you love the thought of real mail, you'll surely be inspired by Jennie Hinchcliff and Carolee Gilligan Wheeler's book Good Mail Day: A Primer for Making Eye-Popping Postal Art.  And, here's a link to Jennie's blog Everyday Should Be a Red Letter Day with a recent Tokyo correspondence post.

Pen, Envelopes, Stamps... Real Mail!

Toile La La correspondence - Real Mail.

Inspired by Good Mail Day: A Primer for Making Eye-Popping Postal Art (Jennie Hinchcliff / Carolee Gilligan Wheeler) - I've renewed correspondence with E, a college friend.  Off and on for many years we've exchanged letters - agreeing that email lacks the wonder and excitement of real mail.  Real mail is capable of offering the same captivating qualities of a good book or an intriguing painting.  

Receiving a real letter lets you know someone cares enough to make an effort to entertain, amuse, or delight you.

When I'm ready to write a letter, I like to assemble supplies:  odd or colorful postage, magazine pages, photographs, rubber stamps and ink, stickers - light a nicely-scented candle or sit near an open window with a fresh breeze and then allow my thoughts to flow.

In the photos above, you'll see my husband's harmonicas near the letter-writing supplies.  The Van Gogh card and the Eiffel tower card were sent by E.  (Her Van Gogh card with sky-bound birds prompted me to attach bird stickers to E's next letter.  The birds also made good mustaches for some sticker people from Bullett magazine.)  

After she sent me photographs of flowers she grows in her garden - along with a picture of a chicken, I carefully cut out the chicken and decorated its wing with a bouquet of her flowers - then glued it to E's envelope.  

I like her method of using creatively-illustrated pages from her London Review of Books as stationery.  Books are an affinity E and I share.  A keen paper versus digital observation recently from E:

"With the  popularity of the eReader I've been wondering about what it means to own a book.  I'm such a book lover... the feel and smell and look.... oh ... just to possess the book.  But an E book... what do you own.. my conclusion is that all you own is an idea.  The idea of the book.  The book just exists out there in the netherverse. Intangible. "

E introduced to me the word "netherverse" - which came to her out of the ether, heavens, thin air... stratosphere, collective creative consciousness.

I have enjoyed decorating her letters with stickers found in Bullett magazine's Spring 2012 issue and some Assume Vivid Astro Focus stickers from the coloring book Between the Lines.

The important and historic look of wax seals is something I appreciate, but the cost of the metal stamps can be quite high - so it was nice to discover my own do-it-yourself version of a wax seal stamp.  A crayon melted for just a minute or so over the flame of a small scented candle provides the seal wax.  The do-it-yourself seal stamp is a metal button with a high-relief design.  I slid a toothpick into the shank of the small button, then gently pressed it into the wax after the wax became slightly warm and opaque.  It is a good idea to practice making a nice, round, penny or dime-size dollop of wax before applying it to a stamped envelope and to practice just gently pressing the stamp against the warm wax.  (The postman explained wax seals require a bit of extra postage.)

For E's next letter, I'm thinking about making a 5-senses snail mail:  one to appeal to the visual, auditory, gustatory, olfactory, and tactile faculties.  In the last photo above, you'll notice an exploration of this idea with the Constant Comment tea envelope - which contains not tea inside, but a letter... which ideally absorbed the pleasant spiced orange scent.

Well, Hello Again... Some Correspondence for You.

Toile La La letter, p.l.

Toile La La letter, p.2.

My letter for you has two pages and a tear-sheet from Martha Stewart's Living, February 2013... and a photograph of my Redbud tree (Cercis Canadensis), which attracts so many honeybees and bumblebees that it seems to emanate a resounding, buzzing, humming, magnificent  "Om"... and a photo of Simon Doonan's Eccentric Glamour - bookmarked with Number One Good Luck Employee Cat's walking leash... and a photo of Black Beauty's keys.  The whole letter arrives for you in an envelope collaged with a photo-bit - which is Hadley-ish in style.  I would, of course, choose a bizarre assortment of stamps and seals to see your letter through the mail - perhaps a Lunar New Year stamp with Chinese firecrackers - along with a Calendula stamp... then fixed with a red wax seal stamped with a griffin.  And for quirkier correspondence ideas, I'm enjoying reading Good Mail Day... but all of this you can read about in the letter above.  Happy reading!

Brenner, her hen, and her Echium Wildpretii in Martha's February 2013 Living.

my buzzing bee Redbud tree (with two bumblebees in this photo...)

Simon Doonan's aerobicizing and QE2 in-a-rickshaw tales have me hooting with laughter.

Black Beauty's calm (almost centenarian) keyboard - sans exclamation point.

A collage-bit for the envelope, sans stamps and seals and addresses.

Lions, Books, Peace: My Cup of Tea.

This crowned tea package lion delicately sipping from his own cup brings to mind the multitude of lions guarding Piazza San Marco of Venice... topping columns, adorning doorways - with a permanent, carved gaze forever observing passersby.

My favorites there are the lions with their paws on books including the inscribed words "Pax tibi" - in Latin, meaning "Peace be with you."

Piazza San Marco: Looking South, Caspar van Wittel - 1690s. Biblioteca Nazionale, Rome. Wikimedia.

If you drink tea - and you like to travel - and you like to correspond the old-fashioned "snail mail" way... here's a link with a letter-writing idea for you to try the next time you're having tea in an exotic locale.

In addition to the Royal Cup Pekoe tea pictured above, and the spicy orange Constant Comment mentioned in the link, powdered matcha green tea is another favorite.  For several years I've given the matcha a new spin... which you can read about here.