Lovely Letters

I have a confession to make. Sometimes I like purchasing things online, just so I get to look forward to a package in the mail. That's a little tragic, isn't it? Well, lately I haven't been such a postal lame-o.

Task #1, received. Cool Aloha stamps!

For the past few weeks I have been participating in a letter exchange organised by Kitty and Buck. The premise is simple: after signing up to the challenge you were matched with a partner and then every fortnight for eight weeks a letter-writing task would be set. Write four letters. Get four letters. Sounded pretty neat to me, so I signed up. I dutifully sent off my first three letters but hadn't received anything. And then this week they all turned up! Mail. What a simple and lovely pleasure.

Task #1, sent. Awesome letter-pressed aerogram by the Hungry Workshop.

Task # 1: Introduce yourself. Include a photo.
Well, my letter-writing partner is ladykayy and she sent me an awesome introductory letter.
It arrived on a rainy day though... so the letter got quite wet and a little warped.

Ladykayy sent me lots of photos of her home and neighbourhood, but also of Malta, a place clearly close to her heart. The photos she sent me turned really psychedelic after getting wet - don't they look wonderful? Like little mixed-media masterpieces!

I am not sure what I am going to do with these little piccies, but I feel like I should make some creative use of them, because they are so beautiful with their unintentional water-colour effect!

Task #2: Ask your partner 10 questions. Task #3: Send your partner a list of your 10 favourite things.

Task #2 and Task #3 both arrived together on Monday. Fun!

I love the Churchill stamp adorning Letter #2. I am surprised the postal staff didn't go postal when they saw a foreign stamp stuck on the envelope. The postal staff at my post office once went crazy when I was just trying to reuse a Swedish envelope.. they'd have a conniption if they saw a random foreign stamp on the envelope too!

The contents of ladykayy's letters were, true to the nature of challenge, quite lovely. One of the letters was written on sheet music! I liked that. The first letter had a packet of stamps in it! There was a postcard and stationary and stickers! (oh my!)

So thank-you Ladykayy for sending me some very lovely letters, and thank-you to Shell at Kitty and Buck for organising the exchange. It has been very fun. And I still have Task #4 to look forward to (so I don't have to resort to ebay just yet, to get my postal fix!).

Missives from a 14 year old

Post from Thailand: Totally beautiful combination of  map envelope and crab stamp

In writing this blog over the past few weeks, I have come to realise that I have always loved post - more so than I was particularly conscious of. In search of blogging inspiration this week, I ventured deep into the hazardous realm of my parents' backyard shed. I was looking for the aerogram that I remember once receiving from Grandma. I didn't find it - but I did find three shoe-boxes full of letters that I had packed away before going overseas in 1999 and have never thought of since. This tells us that as well as being a stamp collector and full time nerd, I am also a tragic hoarder.

Within the boxes of letters from my high school girlfriends (which I dared not read), there was a folder full of old pen pal letters. When I was fourteen I joined "International Penfriends" and as it turns out I have a whole bunch of letters from Japan, Thailand, Switzerland, Denmark and Indonesia dating from c.1995. I am pretty glad that I am a hoarder, because the letters are all quite beautiful.

Cool postmark on this Swiss envelope. And the stamp on the left is pretty gorgeous.

What is not beautiful, but quite funny, is that in my folder full of my old pen pal letters, I have kept drafts of some of my letters to my prospective pen pals. "Hi my name is Helen and I go to Mirboo North Secondary College" etc. Fairly tellingly, in my draft introductory letter I also wrote:

"My hobbies include netball and badminton. I like art, but I am not fantastic at it. And I collect lots of things. You name it, I collect it, basically. Stamps, soaps, business cards and GLO caps"

GLO Caps? What the hell are they? Well, actually I know what they are. Because along side the letters in the shoeboxes I found in the shed, there were also, you guessed it, GLO Caps. Sheesh. What a dork. I was onto something with the stamps though.

So my letters were pretty cheesy. What I think is particularly funny is the note to myself recording what I had included in  'Letter No. 2' to Damien Walsh, which I noted was written on apricot paper and sent on the 31.11.95. I told Damien:

•  all about an embarrassing moment at badminton (I wonder what that was?)
• that I have to share a bedroom with my little sister 
• and that I had an excursion for my geography class to the beach at Inverloch.

Pretty exciting stuff from the life of a 14 year old. Meanwhile, some fourteen-year-olds are drinking, partying and generally running amok. I was drafting pen pal letters.

Apparently I wasn't always so prompt with my replies...

So, in delving into my parents shed (a dangerous thing to do at the best of times) I did not find the aerogram that I was looking for, but I did find a whole collection of  'post'. And I also found that I told a lie in my first blog post, as I have actually received more than one aerogram in my life. I received one from a pen pal when I was fourteen. And here it is, 16 years later:

Featuring a hot air balloon! Love it.

I heart post

I heart post is going to be my blog about my stamp collection. But my intentions are for it to be a blog about stamps. Not a blog about stamp collecting. Although the two concepts are of course related. This blog is going to be about so much more than just stamps.


I am not really interested in collecting in the sense of having a complete catalogue of every Australian stamp issued since the introduction of the metric system up until the present (for instance). Blah. Totally boring. Who can be that particular that they must have EVERY stamp? And who wants to bother with the ugly ones? And there are some completely hideous stamps out there. Stamps of footballers (bleaugh!) are my least favourite. Followed closely by stamps of cutesy cartoon characters and boring red roses (puke). I, for one, am not interested in ugly stamps.

Beautiful stamps!

So my own stamp collection is all about beautiful stamps. Beautiful images. Beautiful design. And interesting history. The history is the clincher - I love that stamps are so often commemorative. And therefore this blog is not just going to be about stamps: it will be about design, art and history. All these big fascinating things are rolled up into the small, humble postage stamp! Who knew?

Probably everyone had a stamp collection when they were five. I did. But I am guessing not everyone had a stamp collection when they were 23. I did. (And, yep, I was also the Secretary of the Dead Languages Society at University. Who knows why I didn't have a boyfriend for all those years?)

I even like stamps featuring Lizzy!

Anyhow, I still maintain that stamps are absolutely awesome. And I am hoping, dear reader, that after a few entries* you will also be convinced of their said awesomeness.

But why "I heart post" and not "I heart stamps"? Three reasons:

1. This is NOT A BLOG ABOUT UGLY STAMP CRAFTING.
2. I heart all sorts of stamp related paraphernalia. I heart postcards. I heart letters. I even heart aerograms, although I think I may have only received one in my entire life (it was from my Grandma Nellie).
3. My gorgeous 8 year old cousin Madeleine loves post (Madeleine, by-the-by, is still at an age where it is socially acceptable to have a stamp collection; let's face it, she, and recently retired semi-professional Grandpa's are probably the primary demographic for Australia Post's philatelic department - let's try and buck that stereotype). After visiting Madeleine recently, upon saying goodbye, she asked "Cousin Helen, could you please send me some post please. I love post".

Well Maddy, I love post too.

*please come back for more of my ramblings.