Journal Writing Wednesday: 28 pages

Tags

birthdays, calgary home and design show, christmas, crowne plaza portland, franklin christoph, letters, oregon, portland, vineyard burgundy, vintage trouble, visconti rembrandt, wonder pens, zenscapes by emily

What I’m currently using: the Paperblanks Blue Filigree journal, Winnable Executive Journal, the Believe In Yourself journal and the Seven Seas Writer.

Total pages written since this post (Sept 16): 28

Total pages to date since project inception (Dec 11/13): 1260

Total pages written in 2015: 420

So today I say goodbye to the Cadence pen and say hello to the October pen: my Visconti Rembrandt in red. Yay!! I haven’t used that pen for a long time and I want to try my new Vineyard Burgundy ink in it.

I will choose the pen for November on Oct 28.

Purchases: My packages from Wonder Pens and Franklin-Christoph have arrived so I will be writing posts about those goodies very soon. I have not made any other purchases since Portland.

Some points covered this week (and last) in my journals:

• I have started my Christmas shopping. Each year I try to finish completely by December 1 so I can avoid December crowds. Some years are better than others for achieving this, so I start early. I wanted to buy a bottle of ink as a gift and of course I have to do that well in advance of the snow. So that at least is done.
• I’ve started writing letters again. HUGE apologies to those of you I owe a letter to; please forgive me. I blitzed out 5 letters in 2 days and that has made a small dent in my enormous Reply To pile. And the letters were replies to letters from LAST MARCH! Goodness it’s a wonder anyone continues to write to me. I will try to do better this fall, honest. 🙂
• Birthday time again for me. I am getting less and less enthusiastic about celebrating. Getting older is depressing but when you consider the alternative…
• Went to the Calgary Home and Design Show. My niece Emily’s company, Zencapes by Emily, had her “official” debut with her handcrafted miniature gardens. She’s on Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram, and probably other places her old aunt (me) hasn’t heard of. Check out her magical creations – you will fall in love!
• Our trip to Portland, Oregon was magical. We crammed three days’ worth of stuff into 24 hours. The hotel, the Crowne Plaza Portland, was amazing. The shopping, food and people were awesome. And Vintage Trouble were fantastic. We got to meet them and they are the nicest guys around. The drummer hugged me and the guitar player asked us how they sounded! And then proceeded to fist pump David and wish him a happy birthday. They have an unbelievable connection with their fans that they work hard to maintain. An experience we will NEVER forget. Check out the Vintage Trouble website and buy their stuff. You will not be disappointed.

Card File for Correspondence

Tags

arc notebooks, card file, incowrimo, letter writers alliance, letters

So I’ve been keeping my correspondence log in this ARC notebook, which started out as a Letter Writers Alliance log and turned into an InCoWriMo log, as I got a much better response from that endeavour than the pen pals that were sent to me from LWA. But as the number of letters sent grew larger (I’m in the 60s now since February 1) and my stack of replies seems to stay at a constant dozen, I needed something more organized. I wanted to keep track of the person’s name and address but also a log of our correspondence and some idea of what I’ve already said to the person. Don’t want to be a boring correspondent. So I came up with a card file. I had a 40% off coupon at Michael’s and I used it. Please know that I am not a crafter; I have never attempted decoupage before so this is my first project. Please indulge the rookie mistakes. 🙂

I wanted something more interesting than a recipe box but not as big as a conventional card file (one that might fit a shoe box – I don’t have that many correspondents). I saw this rough wooden box in Michael’s and thought it was perfect. I bought a bottle of Mod Podge and some foam brushes and went to town decoupaging the box. It’s not finished yet; I will do another post when it’s done. I intend to cover the entire thing (or as much of it as I’m capable of) with interesting paper I have collected over the years. In the picture above the paper on the front right is a page from my Bo Bunny Miscellaneous Me collection of notepaper. I cut it into an interesting shape, laid it on the box, and covered it with the gooey Mod Podge. The paper on the front left is gift wrap given to me years ago. You may recognize it from this post in which I use it as a divider in my planner. The sticker is one I picked up at Michael’s a while ago. I’ve been waiting for the right project to use them on and this is definitely it. The finished project will probably have more of those stickers.

I thought it would be interesting to have the paper cover the edges of the box. I used an exacto knife to cut the box open again after the paper was dry.

The image on the top of the box is a napkin, believe it or not. I removed the two layers of absorbent sheet on the napkin and was left with a very thin sheet with the image on it. It was tricky to decoupage as it becomes like wet tissue as soon as the Mod Podge hits it. But I’m very happy with the end result.

The other side of the napkin had a similar but slightly different design so I put that one on the inside of the box lid. You can see where the napkin started to tear on the left. I’m learning!

For the card file I needed dividers. Michael’s didn’t have any so I went to Staples and they only had the brightly colored modern ones; I was hoping for the vintage looking black and tan ones. No luck. So I made the dividers myself using brown tags.

The two-toned brown tags match my colour scheme, such as it is. I used an alphabet stamp set to make the letters.

Each correspondent will have their own set of three types of cards: Name and Address on the first, Log on the second, and Letters on the third and subsequent cards.

The first card is simply their name and address, and perhaps any extra info about them, like their username on FPGeeks or Youtube for example. The second card, the Log, will be a record of when each letter was sent from me and when I received their reply. The third card, the Letters, will be the details of what I said to them in each letter. I don’t want to repeat funny stories about the cats or my husband or something at work. And each set of cards will be fastened together with an interesting paper clip (finally a use for all those funky paper clips I own!). Each paper-clipped set will be filed under the person’s first name, as that is how I will think of them for sure. So when I sit down to write a response, I will have their last letter in front of me to answer, but I will also have all of their information from the card file. I’ve been using this system for about a week now and it’s working great!

As I said I still have work to do on the box. And after it’s all covered in paper I’m told I should do a final Mod Podge coat, to seal it all in. I will do another post when I’m done. Hope you enjoyed this – I’m certainly having fun playing with paper and glue!

The Fading Art

Tags

handwriting, incowrimo, letter writers alliance, letters, new york times, postcrossing

Loved this article by Catherine Field in the New York Times. I share the author’s fears of what this generation’s legacy will be. Handwriting is no longer taught in schools. Young people claim they cannot read cursive. So I share the fears but I’m also optimistic. With websites such as Letter Writing Alliance, InCoWriMo and PostCrossing more and more people are turning to “old-fashioned” methods of communicating. I searched for “penpals” on Google and over 1.5 million results were returned.

A good handwritten letter is a creative act, and not just because it is a visual and tactile pleasure. It is a deliberate act of exposure, a form of vulnerability, because handwriting opens a window on the soul in a way that cyber communication can never do. You savor their arrival and later take care to place them in a box for safe keeping.

Our souls crave human connections, not wifi connections. I have faith in humans so handwriting will be around long after I’m gone. At least I hope so.

Saying Thank You

Tags

letters, new york times, notes, stationery, writing

Loved this article on thank-you notes. I remember looking forward to writing my thank-you notes for my wedding, eight years ago now. Last week I wrote a thank-you note to a local hotel for hosting my work colleagues and myself at a wonderful afternoon tea. And just this past Saturday I wrote a thank-you note to the staff of a local restaurant, who found my cell phone when I forgot it at one of their tables. Saying thank you is important. Writing it is a lasting sentiment that people will remember.

InCoWriMo 2014: Final Update

Tags

handwriting, incowrimo, letters, paper, pens, stationery, writing

InCoWriMo 2014 ended yesterday. I must say I had a terrific time. I sent 30 letters to folks participating in InCoWriMo and 4 letters to friends in the last 28 days. I received 27 from Canada, United States and Australia. Here are some highlights:

This picture does not do her handwriting justice, but the envelope underneath is from Sherry, who practices calligraphy. Such a beautiful rendering of the name of my blog! I envy her skill. And a gorgeous envelope from Carla on top; there was a beautiful card inside too.

Wax seals were popular. Here are three from Adrianna, Lesley and Mark that made it relatively unscathed through the mail sorting machines.

Lovely card from Ashli. Love birds and glitter!

Dean sent me this wonderful card and thoughtfully put his letter inside on separate paper so in theory I could use this card to send back to him or to someone else. But it’s so great I think it’s going straight into my journal. I also love the quote he sent. I sent journal cards with fountain pen quotes to my correspondents.

Just received this breathtaking envelope from Carl on Friday. Love!

And this was a fun idea from Rob: he sent me 3 tabletopics idea cards with his letter. He also sent me some extra sheets of Tomoe River Paper, which I’m now in love with because quite a few of my letters were penned on this paper. It takes fountain pen ink beautifully, is super thin like tissue paper and is not too expensive. Wonderpens in Toronto also carries it.

I’ve had so much fun and everyone has made me feel so welcome. I’m sure most if not all of these folks will continue writing throughout the year, as I intend to do. I have to say a huge thank you to the Fountain Pen Geeks Forum for introducing me to such a great bunch of pen and paper enthusiasts.

Now I have to go write some letters….

InCoWriMo Begins

Tags

handwriting, incowrimo, letters

Well it actually began yesterday but I was busy all day and didn’t get a chance to take a photo of the letters I’ve written so far. So here they are:

Even though folks have shared their addresses with me I felt it best to hide their personal info.

I’m very excited! I sent a message to an InCoWriMo participant because I laugh at all his posts on FPGeeks and he replied that his wife, also a forum member and InCoWriMo participant, had already sent me a letter! How cool is that!

Happy letter writing everyone.

Postcard to Russia

Tags

letters, post cards, postcrossing

So I finally signed up for an account on Postcrossing and I’ve got my first address – in Russia! I picked up some postage paid postcards for InCoWriMo and I thought I would use one for my first Postcrossing experience.

When you are given an address you are also given a tracking number to place on the postcard. When my recipient logs that tracking number in the system I can apply for another address. As it is this is only one of four addresses I am currently eligible to send a postcard to. So now that I’ve registered, my address is made available to other registrants. Which means I could receive a postcard from anywhere in the world! So exciting.

Two of my coworkers are getting into this too and it’s so much fun to have friends doing it at the same time. We all love receiving mail so get over to Postcrossing and register now! 🙂

InCoWriMo

Tags

fountain pen geeks, handwriting, incowrimo, letters

So the folks over at Fountain Pen Geeks launched an initiative last year called InCoWriMo (a nod to NaNoWriMo of course) to celebrate International Correspondence Writing Month. They even launched a separate website.

You simply agree to hand-write a letter, note or postcard every day for the entire month of February. They have a list of participants already who would love to hear from you, ranging from the sponsors of the event to the CEO of Lamy! Anderson Pens, the aforementioned sponsors, even have these nifty InCoWriMo writing kits. Love the bowtie notecards.

I have signed up to do it and I can’t wait! Of course I will have to spend money on postage but I have enough paper and ink to get me through.

Check out this video and join us!

Dear Lena

Tags

documentary, handwriting, letters, pen pals

In my post of January 9/13, Email Just Not As Satisfying, I talked about Melissa and Lena who had been pen pals for 36 years. Well I found a preview of the film, which is scheduled to be released in April this year:

http://vimeo.com/75961926

Cannot wait for the film to be released! I just hope it is released in Canada in wide release. If not I will hunt it down online!

Happy letter writing.

Letters from Santa

Tags

calligraphy, letters, sarah hanna, writing

Wow what a beautiful way to have Santa write your little one a letter. I wonder if he’ll write one to me? I’d frame it, so beautiful.

Image from: http://www.istillwrite.com/2012/12/santa-clause-is-coming-to.html and also http://www.sarahhanna.com/