Incoming: from Pedro the Penmaster

Pedro is a Mexican Penmaster in Copperplate and Spencarian style. Learning to write like that is something I would really like to learn, but probably far out of my reach. Since you need practice practice and practice. He wrote me this beautiful letter in this amazing handwriting. The detail on the envelope is gorgeous, even some gold dots on the letters. And sealed with a waxseal on the back (swoon!). The flourishing is really cool (the swirls and swings of the pen).  He also makes his own oblique penholders out of aluminium, how cool is that! I have to get my practice on now! In a serious kind of way!

Inspiration: Mail storage

When moving in my studio, I was looking for an easy way to store my incoming mail. While visiting IKEA, I came across this lid holder in the kitchen section. Perfect!

Incoming: from Alice

When Alice asked me if I would be interested in doing a vintage swap, I didn't have to think long! I love vintage! She collects vintage sewing supplies, vintage jewellery, sunglasses, postcards, ephemera, etc etc. She sells them at a fleamarket occasionally. That would be really hard for me, to part with all that beauty. She sent me this lovely package from Belgium. It was all smelling so lovely like fresh soap, it's a pity that you can't capture a scent on a photo. I love it when I can make little vignettes out of things, and this parcel she sent me was perfect for some arranging. So here is an impression.

Outgoing: to Janien in Belgium

I came across these recordsleeves while thrifting and reckoned they would make a great envelope! Sturdy paper and perfect mailsize. I especially loved the vintage typo on this one. In the recordsleeve envelope I had put some paperlove for Janien. She shares the same love for embroidery on paper and vintage sewing supplies. So I put some hand embroidered cards in, a vintage cardboard bobbin en bra fasteners in a vintage envelope (I love it when there is tissue paper inside the envelope), vintage stamps (also a few from Belgium!) and some vintage advertising (perfect for some crafting). My favourite would be the one on the last picture, the typo and the blackness. A perfect ad!

Outgoing: Bingocards

While sorting out the studio, I came across some old magazines I once received from my grandma. In our local village shop I found a bunch of Bingo cards that would be great for little paper projects or something. On Instagram Kati commented on this picture that Bingo cards were hard to come by in Finland, so I decided to send her a bunch, al purchased at our local village shop. The shop were you have to pay in cash and the woman who owns it has to use an oldfashioned calculator to get the right price. It's the same woman who wears her high waisted jeans always with a t-shirt tucked in, she is not the fashion diva from our village, but believe it or nog, you can find almost anything in that tiny shop that's packed to the ceiling! From cups and saucers to paint and elastic bands, toys and picture frames and anything you might think of, you can get it over there! I must try to get some snapshots from that shop one day! I had also carved a bird stamp which I used to decorate the mail with. I went a bit over the top with the envelope, it's not really my style, but I had fun anyway.

Outgoing: Reading woman

A while back I have found this stack of magazines from the thirties. In one of them was a pagesize picture of a painting of a reading woman. I know that Margit collects pictures and stamps of reading women and asked if she would like to have the magazine. And she did! I had to find a big envelope tot fit the magazine in since it is almost A3 size. The envelope was looking so plain though, that I made a drawing on it. On the back I stamped my nursing stamp in matching green. I find it hard to send just a plain envelope! How do you decorate your envelopes?

Outgoing: Holy Mary part 2

After commenting on my Instagram account where I posted a picture on the Holy Mary mail, I've made another mail for Mirjam using the same theme. I had this chocolate box lying around that I once saved from the old paper bin because it was a perfect mailbox size. I pimped it with blue paper and washi tape. Included some goodies like prayer-cards and a rosary, made some stickers from my Holy Mary stamp and made a funky kitschy key-chain. I've made my own stationary with embossing powder. When I received my Versamark ink I just had to try that out! So cool that you can make a touchy feely kind of thing out of any stamp! It's a special kinda ink that you stamp with, when you sprinkle the embossing powder on top of it and shake it of again, it sticks to the ink. After that you heat the powder with a heating craft tool and it sort of melts and creates a texture. Think that's really cool!

Outgoing: Holy Mary part 1

It's not that I am deeply religious, but I was raised as a catholic. As a child I did my Holy Communion (as every child in our village) and was part of the church choir (although I was always the one at the back with my out of tune voice). I have good memories from that time, but now I am older I'm not a practising catholic anymore. I do still have a thing for catholic memorabilia though. I love rosaries and Holy Mary pictures and we always light a candle in front of the Holy Mary altar when visiting a church. The kids always light a candle for our deceased cats by the way. I got chatting to Tessa about this somewhere on the world wide web and I found some memorabilia from when we visited Kevelaer, a small pilgrimage town in Germany. It's one of the towns my late grandma used to visited and always returned with some kitschy catholic stuff (which I loved by the way!). I got really inspired and carved a Holy Mary stamp and found a matching postagestamp. So I stamped away and made stickers and a card and off it went to Tessa!

Outgoing: Coming home

A while ago I found this gorgeous old book in a thriftstore. The inside was nothing really special, but the cover I really loved! The pages were slowly beautifully turning yellowish. There was also a chapter about moving plans, and how appropriate would that be for someone who is moving house! I decided on a bit of embroidery on paper and ended up with this tree growing out of a house. It turned out really wel! Maybe in the end I should have used a different colour but somehow I quite liked it like this, a subtle pink on the pages.
I've carved a stamp out of a rubber eraser (that was done before I did the stampcarving class by the way). I've made stationary with it and stamped away on the envelope and wrapping paper and included the stamp as a little gift. I also included a vintage moving address card! It's from the fifties or sixties I think, I'm not really sure to be exact.

Inspiration: Thrifting treasures

I just love a bit of thrifting, especially nice stuff I can use for mail, decoration for my studio or just because I think it's lovely. On Kingsday (I still have to get used to it being called that instead of Queensday) I found this vintage tin full of vintage letters. I was seeing these letters popping up everywhere on blogs and Instagram, but they were all really newish. Never had I seen a vintage one, until I stumbled across it on the Kingsday market. Yay!

How about these thrifted posh handkerchiefs that were once bought in Austria as a posh souvenir, but never been used though. I do have a thing for vintage handkerchiefs, especially when they are embroidered and in a box. God knows why, but I really love this stuff.

Normally I go to thriftshops for some treasure hunting, but this time I went to a flea market they call a free market. Well, it wasn't free, I had to pay some Euro's to get in, and once there I was really disappointed. Even thriftshops have better stuff, and of better quality and prices were ridiculous. I did buy this vintage toy car though, just because it is colourful, but the woman charged me a ridiculous price for it. 5 Euro, which I managed to negotiate to 4,50 with great difficulty. A small book, just because I liked the cover and the typo and some postagemark stamps! A great addition to my collection!

Inspiration: Vintage sewingthings

I have an accidental small collection of sewing things! I just love my thrifted buttoncard, the other stuff I found in my own sewing box, and the small card with fasteners was sent to me by Janien from Leuke Post. Isn't this vintage sewing stuff just lovely! My accidental collection is a little seventies with all that orange. Some of them I bought (and used ofcourse) in the UK while I was living there (in the nineties).

Incoming: vintage from Belgium

I just realised that I'm behind on posting stuff, this mail from Yves arrived in the beginning of April, and it's June now. Well, some catching up to do!
Yves is my Instagram friend and collects vintage stationary. After he posted the postcard in his feed, we wondered why in the olden days people put stamps on the front of the postcard instead of the back. And I still don't know really. Kinda curious. He remembered us discussing this (digital discussion) and sent it to me! I love it! I also like the vintage birth announcement of Pierre, which is vintage letterpress (where you can feel the print inside the paper with your fingers).