Mysterious mail

You might remember that a little while ago I wrote about a cute little snail-mail themed film that was being crowd funded about a woman who suddenly started receiving hundreds of letters addressed to a total stranger (Mr Eduardo Munez).

I'm thrilled to share that the film has been funded and will go ahead, and now the production team have invited you and me to be part of it!

Will you write a letter to Eduardo for the team to use as props in the film? Make it as creative and fun-looking as you like, and imagine Eduardo to be any kind of person you like! Here's how they explain the challenge:

We are looking for mail artists and snail mail lovers to get involved in our project by sending us letters which we can feature in our film. We are looking for letters, particularly drawn envelopes, mail art and plain envelopes - not postcards.

We will have to change the real addresses on the front to the 'fake' address of the character in the film so please leave the address section fairly clear of decoration.

In our film the letters to Mr Eduardo Munez do not get opened - so inside you can write whatever you like. You can use your imagination - who do you think Eduardo Munez is? What kind of mail would he receive?

Once shooting on the film is completed we will video the team opening all the letters we have received! We'll provide everyone who contributes with a password protected video link to watch them all being opened. All letter writers will also receive special thanks in the credits too... Please, be sure to write your sender details on the back of the envelope as the letters will not be opened until after the film is completed! With each letter's writer's permission - we will also publish them on our film Facebook page and our website.

The address to send your mysterious mail to is:

Mr Eduardo Munez 272 Waterloo Street Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 4DJ UNITED KINGDOM

I'm definitely up for this. Are you? There's more info here if you'd like it, and here is a blog displaying all the letters that have come in so far.

Image credit: photo by Gabriele Forcina, licensed for unlimited use under Creative Commons 

UPDATE: The deadline has been extended so you have until 21 March to write to Eduardo

Final call to be in my book

Last call, folks, if you want to be in my book! (I hope you do. Please do!)

I've almost finished the first draft, and the research has been so much fun. For anyone who doesn't know, my book is about all the quirky, creative and kind things people are doing (and YOU can do) with snail mail these days.

I've interviewed mail heroes like Rin from Papered Thoughts, founder of Mail Me Art Darren Di Lieto, and artist and zine-maker (and person behind the one-and-only Parcel Ghost) Marissa Falco. I introduce you to an honest-to-goodness fairy post office hidden in a forest; a postcard-related art project that has gone global; places to find pen-pals and join creative mail-swaps; a professional letter-writer; a hidden, stamp-related game on a city's streets; museum exhibits that write letters to visitors; a Rube Goldberg postcard machine; and a modern take on the secret language of stamps. There are more than 100 stories and heroes and resources and ideas in the book, and every single one of them includes inspiration, guidance or links so that YOU can get involved, too.

The book is going to be visually stunning, as I've partnered with a bit of a "secret weapon" photographer and we are in the process of planning everything out. If reading all the stories and ideas in this book doesn't inspire you to pick up a pen and write a letter to Nanna, the photography will.

I want to pepper the book with thoughts and quotes from anyone and everyone who loves snail mail, and that's where you come in!

If you would be so good as to answer the following questions and send them to me, I'll try to put you in the book! (You can be anonymous if you want to, or you can share your name and your blog or ONE social media profile if you'd like to be found by the people reading my book). Just email your answers to one or both of these questions to me at nabulger (at) gmail (dot) com, using the subject heading modern_mail so you don't get lost in the spam folder:

* In this age of digital technology, what's so special about snail mail?

* Who should you write a letter to today, and why?

I'm looking forward to hearing from you!

Yours truly, Naomi xo

Happy Mail Day

∧∧ To welcome us into the new week, I thought I'd share some beautiful mail that I've been receiving lately. Like this "Happy Mail Day" mail-art postcard.

∧∧ And this amazing mail from Yam in Spain, a real life postmistress. Believe it or not, this is the first mail I've ever received from an actual postal worker and that made Yam a bit of a celebrity for me!

Also, she designed her mail-art to work with the stamp, which was an art design by artist Eduardo Chillida, who she also quoted on the back.

∧∧ Then there were these adorable, handmade ceramic magnets from my accidental pen pal (i.e. we became pen pals by accident) Selise from style blog Lovers, Saints & Sailors. Selise is a writer and people who don't pay her to write SHOULD pay her to write because she writes the best letters. Hands down. The BEST.

∧∧ Another friend I recently made online is Micu, who sent this seriously amazing bounty of beautiful mail ephemera all the way from Budapest. Those stamps!

∧∧ THOSE stamps! Micu runs a sweet blog called Mail a Smile, galvanising strangers to send mail-art to people who are sick or sad or stressed or for any other reason, need a smile. That's pretty special, don't you think?

ps. Right now as I type this I am watching a TV show about Tiny Houses. It is so fascinating. Would you ever consider this?

Snail-mail + friends

Some experiences are just better shared. Take snail mail, for example, which is traditionally more of a solitary activity. Last night I hosted in my home the very first of what will hopefully be many meetings of the Snail Mail Social Club. We pooled our crafty, stationery-esque resources, and sat around the dining table and snacked and sipped wine and told stories and laughed and wrote letters and painted pictures and made envelopes and crafted.

Before we knew it the night had drawn out wayyy longer than we'd intended, and when I crawled into bed that night it was in the smug knowledge that a big stack of stamped Christmas cards* was sitting on the table waiting to go into the post the next morning, and with that warm, happy feeling that comes from having enjoyed uncomplicated friendship.

* OK maybe the stack of cards woulda-coulda been bigger, but it's a SOCIAL club as well as a snail-mail club...

The wrong mail

Earlier this year, UK writer Ruth Tapp suffered from a collapsed lung, requiring major chest surgery. While she was recovering at home she began to receive mail for a mysterious stranger, Mr Eduardo Munez. During the weeks that followed, Ruth received letters addressed to Mr Eduardo Munez almost every day. The letters were all different shapes and sizes and did not seem to be coming from the same sender. This sparked Ruth’s imagination: who was Mr Eduardo Munez? Why did he get so much mail? She stopped feeling sorry for herself and got to work.

She put pen to paper and wrote "Eduardo Munez," a short film inspired by the wrong mail.

I really want to learn about Eduardo Munez and why he receives so much mail, and who is sending them, and why his mail suddenly started going to the wrong person. Do you, too? Ruth has put together a team of producers and directors, who are funding the film via Indiegogo, and there are six days to go on the campaign, if you're keen to make it happen. You can find out more here.

Thanks to the lovely Micu from Mail a Smile for letting me know about this project!

Image is of mail sent to me. Definitely NOT the wrong mail! 

A week of creative snail-mail: 10 mail-art parcels

Each of these brown-paper packages was no bigger than a greeting card, but I made the mistake of filling them with a few too many things, making them a few too many millimetres too fat. Four millimetres, in fact, less than half a centimetre, but that was all the difference it took to kick each of these packages into the $18+ category for the international ones (which was most of them). I had already covered them in stamps, but when I discovered the true cost at the post office, I had to admit defeat. Not only would 10 parcels at $18+ each put rather a strain on the budget, there simply wasn't the room for any more stamps (the backs of these parcels, which you don't see here, are mostly covered in more stamps)! I had to come home, slit open one edge of the parcels, and slide out one of the gifts I'd hoped to enclose. The moral to this story is, oi vey, Australia Post. Please don't complain about the decline in people using the post when you want to charge almost $20 for a greeting-card-sized (and weighted) letter, just because it's a few millimetres thicker than usual. Or, as one of my snail-mail friends suggested, how about a "frequent user" discount? Just a thought…

ps. have you heard about my new letter-writing and mail-art e-course? 

Over four weeks, I will guide you through multiple methods of making beautiful mail-art and creative, handmade stationery; teach you the art of writing and storytelling; help you forge personal connections in your letters and find pen-pals if you want them; and share time-management tips so even the busiest people can enjoy sending and receiving letters. Register your place or find out more information right here. 

A week of creative snail-mail: typewriter

Ok I'm actually really proud of this idea. In this Snail Mail My Email request, the writer only asked for "mail art," without specifying anything in particular. In her letter she made a cute little Christmas wish-list, which included among other things a blue typewriter and another cat (or three or five).

So I painted up a blue typewriter, and cut a small slot in the top, about where the paper would go on a real typewriter. Then I wrote the letter on segments of paint-chip cards, and inserted them into the typewriter so that they would slide upwards to be read (like paper in a real typewriter). I'm really pleased with the results, and think you could use this in loads of ways. Like, typewriting the message itself and turning the idea into party invitations?

For the mail-art part of the letter, I decided to go with "crazy-but-adorable cat-lady," for a bit of fun.

A week of creative snail-mail: London bus

On Day 3 of my Snail Mail My Email challenge, the letter I was asked to write and send was particularly touching. I don't know who Keir and his Dad are. Maybe Keir is away at university (I know Americans call university "school") but, to my mind, the letter read as though Keir was younger. I pictured a father separated from his boy, unwillingly. Maybe a broken relationship, maybe he was deployed somewhere… I don't know. But it was touching and lovely and a bit sad because of the evident separation.

There was no specific doodle request and I don't know why, but London Calling by the Clash was in my mind (GREAT song), so I figured I'd make Keir a London bus postcard. And then I thought, why not turn the stamps into bus-windows?

A week of creative snail-mail: chocolate cake

The next email I received for Snail Mail My Email (I wrote about it here and the official website is here) included a letter and a doodle request that made me laugh out loud: "Doodle of Bruce from Matilda eating chocolate cake." So that's what I drew on the envelope and, for good measure, I made a chocolate-cake letter to go inside. I divided the letter into five "pieces" and then painted up a chocolate cake with pieces attached by tiny dots of glue (easy to lift off). Each piece removed revealed a bit more of the letter.

A week of creative snail-mail: snowflakes

I've just finished a week of Snail Mail My Email, during which I pledged to write "creative mail" on behalf of strangers, using copy sent to me via email.

This was the first letter I wrote. The note itself was very short, and the "doodle request" was for a snowflake. I decided to fold up paper doilies and cut little patterns in them to make snowflakes. Then I wrote the message on one of the snowflakes, sprinkled them with a bit of glitter for extra pre-Christmas oomph, and threaded them with string to create a fun garland. I hope the mystery Amanda likes the letter from her friend!