There are so many beautiful stamps out right now! How about sending some garden planting inspirational mail with these vintage seed packet forever stamps? The Cosmos are my favorite. A super theme-y idea would be to send a friend some seeds and use these stamps for postage. Happy Spring!
I know. We don’t need a month right? Cuz we send mail every month of the year? But I think you will also agree that we could use all the help we can get in keeping paper mail relevant. So rev your engines, people.
Oh, sorry. Was I making an absurd pun? I’ll cut to the chase. These new muscle car stamps are rad.
OMG. These are gorgeous.
The new Earthscapes Forever stamps were designed by USPS Art Director, Howard E. Paine. Well done!
These stamps light up the part of my brain that is interested in scale, perspective, and grids. They also play with the phrase, “the size of a postage stamp.”
Available as a jigsaw puzzle too.
Apparently the USPS did not issue postage stamps to commemorate this year’s Olympic games but we can savor these gems from Grandpa Sidney’s collection.
Happy Olympics!
Have you ever seen the Jacque Tati movie, Jour de Fete? With the bicycle riding mailman? If not, then rent it! It is so funny and brings together two of my favorite things, mail and bicycles.
By now you know that I have been a paper mail enthusiast since way back but did you know that I have also been a city cyclist since I was a teenager with a courier bag? That’s why I have been very excited about all the recent efforts by groups like Transportation Alternatives to make New York City a better place to bike. David Byrne, a long time city cyclist, (who I have never seen wearing a helmet!) wrote this fine piece called This is How We Ride in the New York Times a few weeks back.
And speaking of mail and bicycles, the USPS issued these stamps on June 7th! Buy them and use them for postage on some Viva Bicycles mail. I’m gonna.
To watch more bicycle movies, the Bicycle Film Festival will be here in New York City from June 27th to July 1st. The fest makes stops all over the world so check out their website for dates.
The colors in this painting by William H. Johnson have inspired the design of some of my paper mail production. I like when a stamp takes the lead!
Have you seen the video of Melvin the Postcard Machine?
Its a much smaller version of the first Melvin the Machine, another wonder built by the design studio, HEYHEYHEY.
Both machines are fantastic. Rube Goldberg would be proud.
Spring has sprung and my kids have strep throat. So we’re making cards and taking antibiotics the color of cherry blossoms.
Might I suggest these stamps for your spring mail? You can purchase them at USPS.com.
They remind me of this lovely stamp, sent to me by my Letter Writers Alliance pen pal, Christine.
Postage rates have gone up. The new domestic rate for a one ounce letter is 45 cents and 32 cents for a postcard. I can hear your thoughts. You’re grumbling something about “Didn’t they just raise the rates? Now I have to go buy more stamps at the post office? Why are they making this hard for me?” Right? Does that sound about right?
Well I agree with you in some ways. The incremental increases ARE annoying. For me its not because I don’t want to pay more money. I would gladly pay more to send paper mail. I mean the new rate to send a letter to Mexico is 85 cents! Orbitz.com claims that for me to bring my letter to Mexico City myself would cost a little over $600.00. What annoys me is having to keep track of the rates so I don’t send mail with too little postage on it. And for that annoyance I have two words for you. Or for me. Or for whoever is annoyed. Forever Stamps. They are good for, well, Forever. And no, they’re not really meant for International mail. But they’re super convenient for domestic letters. And here’s a VSM tip that I stand by. Buy your stamps on USPS.com. Its convenient and the selection is excellent. Those new Birds of Prey stamps look good!
And how’s this for a strategy for streamlining the sending of paper mail?
I think Hallmark’s Postage Paid Greetings idea is brilliant, although their presentation is lacking. Stamps are way more beautiful to look at but I am interested to see if this concept could be used by smaller purveyers of cards and stationary.
An excellent commentary on NPR’s Morning Edition by Gwen Thompkins called Signed, Sealed, Delivered: The Joy of Letters. I love her descriptions of observing Parisian customers taking a LONG time to pick out stamps at a French post office and losing her letter filled desk in Hurricane Katrina.