giveaway winners!

i am very pleased to announce the two winners of the giveaway i hosted.

ihanna is the winner of UpperCase Magazine!
nina wins the tag stationery set!

thank you everyone for entering the giveaway.

i will be emailing both winners to get their contact information.

giveaway time!

i had a fun time helping out at the Uppercase booth - both Glen & Janine were incredibly helpful, friendly and creative, of course! i had a good time getting to know them a bit, and hanging out with my friend Margaret and Kathleen, who is a graphic designer.



I was lucky enough to snag a copy of issue #8 and issue #10 which is the newest issue, hot off the press.

Lucky for you i have an extra copy of #10 to give away! be sure to preview issue #10 here for a sneak peek of the magazine. there's articles about the magic of polaroids, fingerprints, bottle caps, vintage ledgers and a feature about Sabrina Ward Harrison!


the second item i have to give away is one stationery set of 6 giant manila tags, with envelopes. they are great for short letters and i've embellished them postage stamps and hand stamped designs.




How to enter:

leave a comment & your email address so i can contact you

You have until July 25th to leave a comment.
one comment, per person please.
open to everyone, worldwide.

I will pick 2 winners randomly via number generator, one will win a copy of Uppercase magazine #10 and the other will win a handmade manila tag stationery set by me.

i'll announce the winners here on the blog and will also contact them directly via email.


just a note: i am moderating comments and will approve them when they come in. don't worry if you accidentally double comment, i will just approve the one. the only reason why i approve comments via email is because i used to get a bunch of spam.

Renegade Craft Fair pt 2

Like I've said previously, i wish i had a chance to take more photos of the different booths, because there were so many great sellers. i tried to seek out new vendors i hadn't seen previously at past renegades, but of course old favorites are just that - gems i always come back to again and again.



one of the new vendors i hadn't seen before is Viva Greetings, i loved how eyecatching the tables were, lined with sheets of letterpress posters/wrapping paper. i am a sucker for wood type and bold colors! & the wrapping paper could have lots of different uses, too.



i stopped by to see Lea of Leafcutter Designs, best known for the World's Smallest Post Service which recently had a kit published by Chronicle Books so anyone can create tiny letters. My favorite thing at her booth was these embroidery letter kits, which could be perfect for an extra special letter to your penpal.




i've been noticing silvi of the poetry store at various local events. she creates spontaneous poems on demand, typing them on her royal typewriter. you can pick any topic and request that she write a poem about it. at $5 i think it is quite a bargain.






and last but not least, are kathy and donovan of 16 sparrows/letter writers alliance. it is always a treat to see them at the fair & their table was full to bursting with some many wonderful paper goods from library card notebooks, letter writers alliance stationery, sarcastic notecards for special occasions and much, much more.

Renegade Craft Fair SF highlights pt 1

every year, i always look forward to attending Renegade Craft Fair, which is held right by the bay at Fort Mason's Festival Pavilion. Since i was helping out at the Uppercase booth, i didn't get a chance to see everything and forgot to bring my camera on sunday. but the vendors i did get to visit were amazing.



Heather of heathered wallets is a local crafter creating fun wallets using found materials such as maps, vintage ads and muni fast passes. one of my favorite things about walking through the fair is seeing everyone's creative displays, i like the yellow crate display holding up all the passport cases. Heather is always on the hunt for muni fast passes (muni no longer makes them, since we use clipper cards) because she makes these awesome card holders.



Renegade is great because it always seems like i bump into people i haven't seen in awhile. Mai of msquared designs was exhibiting for the very first time at the fair. she showed up at the Uppercase table and i was wracking my brain, trying to think why she looked so familiar. it turns out we took a letterpress class at CCSF, probably around 2 years ago. it was great seeing her again and she told me after she took the letterpress class, she was inspired to buy her own chandler and price press! her booth was beautifully presented with vintage suitcases, sturdy wooden journals and letterpress notecards.


i love this set of vintage clip art notecards, there's a date stamper, scrapbook and a calendar



i stopped by the typelites booth when i noticed their vintage/rustic display. even better is their wonderfully scented candles in glass jars, from scents such as barlett pear, red apple and vanilla sugar i pretty much had to smell everything.

tomorrow i'll post a few more sellers i noticed at renegade! & there will be a giveaway coming soon, so keep an eye for that, too.

in which i receive a typewriter!

this past weekend was the annual Renegade Craft Fair and I was helping out at the Uppercase booth (more on this later, except i urge you all to check out their website & learn more about their beautiful quarterly magazine, also named Uppercase, which is for the creative and the curious).

it's later in the early evening/late afternoon when my friend Carolee (co-author of the amazing Good Mail Day book comes in with a blue typewriter case. At first, i'm not sure why she's carrying a typewriter case and for some reason i think she's bringing it to donovan and kathy of the letter writers alliance...but nope, the typewriter is for me! hooray! i was thrilled. I find it rather appropriate that Janine of Uppercase was there when i received my first typewriter - she told me she has royal typewriters in red, blue and pink. apparently the yellow royal typewriter is a rare and elusive bird since she is still looking for one.


edit: check out Janine's blog post which features 16 Sparrows/Letter Writers Alliance and me grinning madly with my new typewriter here

i was so happy when i popped open the sturdy case to see a typewritten letter by carolee, the letter starts by saying "dear annie, the fact of the matter is that a girl like you should have a typewriter. this is just the truth and it is a problem i can solve..."





i've typed several letters on it since then and each time i like the clatter of the keys, the tactile nature of carefully inserting the paper, the ding it makes when i hit the end of a line and even the mistakes which i cover up with x's. the typewriter is a beautiful object, i have put it on my lap when typing on it - reminding me of how it is the original laptop.

shop update

i've been busy making new paper goods for the shop. there's airmail envelope notebooks, paris pocket notebooks, and the manila tag stationery sets, so please stop by my shop and check out the new stuff!

DIY Paper Wheels Backdrop via Ruffled

image by Ruffled

today i found a tutorial on how to create a DIY Paper Wheels Backdrop from the blog Ruffled. Not only is it easy and fun to create, you can use different types of paper, such as wrapping paper, maps, kraft paper, and tailor it to suit your style. It'd be fun to make them big and small as well. Be sure to check out the tutorial here, via Ruffled.

The idea is very similar in vein to my recent post on two inspiring shop windows.


coffee table mail art marathon

sometimes i wind up watching tv all day while making mail art all day. i use all (mostly) dry supplies - gluestick, ink pads, stamps, and papers. if i do mixed media collage it gets way too messy so i mostly keep to it upstairs in my attic room. i've been having a mini marathon of My So-Called Life, since it only lasted one season, i was way too little to know about the show when it first aired but now i have the dvds and it's definitely one of my all time favorite shows.



i decided on a whim to create stationery sets out of giant manila tags by embellishing them with postage stamps and rubber stamps. then i bundled them into baker's twine. i think all papers always look better bundled up into cheerful red & white baker's twine. i need to take more photos but i hope to have them up in the shop soon.