Random moosages as I see fit.

It’s a real letter!

This letter is going to Arizona via swap-bot, particularly for this swap.  This one was particularly exciting because I recently found a new and interesting way to fold letters so that the letter itself becomes the envelope.  Kind of.  I’ve seen and used envelope-less letters before, but they’ve always involved some cutting or gluing or whatnot.  Here’s an example:

See those flaps? You have to glue those down. (Picture links you to Amazon.)

But with this one, you don’t actually have to glue anything down.  The stamp ends up keeping the letter folded.  Now then, I actually did end up putting a little glue on mine just to be safe.  I used somewhat thicker paper I had in my stash of patterned paper I probably wouldn’t use.  It didn’t fold as nicely as the first letter I folded from normal printer weight paper.  I don’t want to irritate the USPS because my letter fell apart in their machine.  Well, it wouldn’t really fall apart.  It might open up and then jam the machine.  That would be bad.

But, if you used thinner paper, you could probably get away with just a stamp holding the entire thing together.  Also, next time if I use this type of paper, I’ll probably score the fold lines first.  That would probably help.

Anyway, it’s really interesting.  You can find out about it here.  He even has templates you can print out so you can practice folding.  I like it.

I guess there’s a stamp watch today.  You can see from above that I used another Pixar stamp.  It’s holding the letter in its proper shape.

Dublin Castle

Grafton Street

A few handmade postcards!

These postcards are going to various places across the country via swap-bot, particularly for this swap.  This one was another one of those themed swaps.  In this case, we’re swapping postcards featuring buildings.

I decided to make these postcards using some photos I took when I visited Dublin, Ireland a few winters back.  The first one is of Dublin Castle.  It is the most colorful castle I’ve ever seen.  But only parts of it.  Some parts are not “restored” and look much like you imagine a castle should look.  And then you have these splashes of color.  It’s really interesting.  The other postcard is of Grafton Street, which is the place where everyone does their shopping.  I thought it was one of those tourist trap shopping areas at first, but I was told that everyone really does do their shopping there.  Since I was there over the holidays, it was decorated with lights and the like.  Some of the kids I was visiting had made it a tradition to see the lights late at night, when the street is more or less deserted.  They kindly took me along with them.

No stamp watch.

Did you know we’re approximately halfway through the challenge?