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Tag: Mailings 2012

urgent action network
sun 22 jan 2012

Permalink: http://www.static8.com/journal/2012/20120122.html
Entry #1 on this page (tagged: mailings, )


Last december I signed up for Amnesty International's Write for Rights. I took on two different cases and wrote a total of five letters: two letters of protest to government officials and three handmade notes of encouragement.

It felt good, trying to conquer evil with some letter writing. I wanted to continue, so I signed up for the Urgent Action Network.

It's a little bit different from the Write for Rights project. They get new cases every day, I don't know how many hundreds there are to choose from... whereas the Writeathon only focused on 15. When you join the Urgent Action Network, you can choose how often they send you email alerts. I signed up for one a week; they usually come at the end of the week and I have been working on them over the weekend.

The other difference is that the Network does not provide you with prepared sample letters that you can print out. The Urgent Action case sheet gives you information on the situation and tells you who to write and what to ask for, but the letter writing is all yours.

My first Urgent Action was actually an email petition that I just had to sign. But the next two actions were for snail mail letters of protest.

It does take a while to read through the case sheet and then figure out what I want to say in my letter. The letter is sent to several different people in the country's government, and a copy is sent to their embassy in Washington DC.

So, in the end I have a handful of letters to send out. And a sense of having done something good in the world.

decorated envelopes





outgoing mail
sun 29 jan 2012

Permalink: http://www.static8.com/journal/2012/20120129.html
Entry #2 on this page (tagged: mailings, )


A postcard I made was featured at Letters and Journals! *grins* It's the top one with the quote.

Jackie also links to a fun mail challenge... A Month of Letters, hosted by Mary Robinette Kowal.

Feb Letter Month

The challenge is to send out at least one peice of mail every day the post runs in February.

ha. It's actually surprisingly easy to write a few postcards every evening. But I have not gotten back into the habit since the chaos of the holidays. So a month long challenge is just what I need!





too grumpy to live
sun 5 feb 2012

Permalink: http://www.static8.com/journal/2012/20120205.html
Entry #3 on this page (tagged: mailings, )


I've been sick with a head cold for a good long while -- 10 days and counting -- and I'm rather angry at germs at this point in time.

It feels like I have been sick forever and I probably have some kind of chronic sinus thing that will give me a brain infection that's going to make me suffer miserably before I die next week. But I do have a couple things to report, so I definitely want to make a blog post before I die.

(Yes, I'm kidding.)


Feb 2012 Letter Month

I have put one or two postcards in the mail every day.

This weekend, I wrote a list of all the mail I need to work on. It's a good size list, and I'm definitely not up to the challenge yet. I'm hoping I will feel better soon? and there will be a mail explosion!

I was very happy to get my stamp order in the mail yesterday... a bunch of 1¢, 2¢, 3¢ and 4¢ stamps to help me with my over abundance of old stamps (the price of stamps in the USA went up on 22 jan).

Bonsai Forever Stamps

I'm also in love with the new Bonsai Stamps (Bonsai Stamp Story). They are just beautiful! And I foresee a new over-abundance... fortunately these are Forever Stamps, so buying a lot is actually a good budget choice. Right?!! ;)





update
fri 24 feb 2012

Permalink: http://www.static8.com/journal/2012/20120224.html
Entry #4 on this page (tagged: mailings, , )


Yay, I'm alive again!

Nevermind that I've been away for so long... Here are the projects that I'm curently working on.

Feb 2012 Letter Month

  Letter Mo! From the outside, it's going great; I have sent out mail every single day and have plans to continue the daily mailings into March and beyond.

Problem is, I am still procrastinating my letter writing. And let me tell you, sending out 60+ bits of mail and still procrastinating certain letter writing projects takes real talent!

Ha. I am hopelessly behind on family letters and with my pen pals. And I haven't caught up with my monthly postcards.

This weekend is Do Or Die! I can't possibly get it all done in one weekend, but I'm going to make a dent.

The nice thing about LetterMo is that I have hit a rhythm by writing a couple postcards or notecards every evening. I make this big stack of postcards on the weekends, and then I slowly go thru them during the week. Very satisfying.

Letter Love 101

  Letter Love 101, by Joanne Sharpe Oh my gosh. I ran into this online class last weekend and just fell in love with the teacher and her style. I want all her colourful calligraphy and lettering styles to be mine!

Plus, the teacher is very gung-ho about Copic markers! Oh my gosh. :)

so, yeah. I think this class is going to be great for me!

  Photography I have not taken one real picture with my camera this year. Zero. And that is just not right! I need to get out there and take some pictures!

Hopefully. Soon.





cont
sat 3 mar 2012

Permalink: http://www.static8.com/journal/2012/20120303.html
Entry #5 on this page (tagged: mailings, )


The Month of Letters is over. I am so glad that I participated. I sent out at least a postcard every day, and after the last weekend of february, I put 13 letters and notecards in the mail on monday morning! yay mail!

I rewarded my enthusiasm with a couple gifts for myself...

stationery and stamp coffee mug

Some stationery which makes me happy and a coffee mug from the US Post. :)

I took a single day off from mailing (March 2nd) but this morning I am back at it! heh: I go through all this self doubt because I mailed a lot of stuff in february, I got out all my "january" postcards and then some... but I am just now designing my "february" postcard, and I will have to mail Even More if I want to get caught up with a "march" postcard.

And so the self doubt. Such a big project! Maybe I should just quit! I will never catch up!

But I love sending out my postcards. Showing people my photography and telling them about the picture I took. And imagining the happy surprise when someone opens their mailbox and finds some real mail.





update
sun 25 mar 2012

Permalink: http://www.static8.com/journal/2012/20120325.html
Entry #6 on this page (tagged: mailings, )


  Rhino the guinea pig Rhino has been with us for two weeks now, and everyone is still trying to adjust! I've discovered that Rhino is Not a morning person. Well, I'm not either, but I still want to spend 10 or 15 minutes with him before I go to the day job. eh: no big deal, we can keep it low key and have breakfast (a carrot) in bed! :)

Rhino the guinea pig

  LetterMo Continued In february I took on the challenge to send mail every day; I had fun with the challenge and got into the very good habit of writing postcards every evening. So far in March, I have missed four mailing days. But, I think I'll be sending out more total mail! Yay mail!

  Lettering Classes I am pretty sure that Joanne Sharpe is evil. She has a second class:
Whimspriations: "ARTFUL ALPHABETS"

And I'm only on lesson 5 of her first class! *laughs* Yet another thing that I will never catch up with.

  Amnesty International Urgent Action Letter Writing This weekend I had two Actions to type up letters for. And, more importantly, one of the actions included an address to send a message of solidarity to! This is the first one that I've gotten which was not entirely "Letters of Protest" so I'm especially interested in it.

Here is the blog post about it:
Nuclear Power Plant Protesters Charged With Sedition
This is in India, and the protesters have been threatened, arrested and assaulted. And their village has been cut off by the police and paramilitaries who are blocking goods and people coming into, and out of, the village.

I'm going to send a hand made card to one of the protesters!





plans
sat 31 mar 2012

Permalink: http://www.static8.com/journal/2012/20120331.html
Entry #7 on this page (tagged: mailings, )


Last postcard of the month

And now I'm ready to focus on something else!

Ha! I am not giving up on my postcards and protest letters... I just want to add something new and different to my life.

Thusly, I am going to do a daily blog post month for April.

Usually when I start a blog posting month, I feel like I have tons to say. Which is why I want to do the month of blogging! But this time, I'm not sure what I have to say.

Guess I'll figure it out as I go along!

Or maybe there will be a lot of Photo-Only posts. :)

Yes, I noticed I mis-spelled piece. I'm a dork. ;)




Postcard Day
sun 15 apr 2012

Permalink: http://www.static8.com/journal/2012/20120415.html
Entry #8 on this page (tagged: mailings, )


I decided to make today a homebody day -- even tho it's warm and not raining and I could put another dent into the garden... But my poor introverted self needs to recover from the shock that was Saturday Market! ha.

Good thing, too. I glanced at some of my postcard projects, and I have quite a few deadlines looming! So I am printing postcards today, which I'll work on and send out through the week.

  Most important is the GoodReads postcard exchange that I host. Today was the sign-up deadline, and I assigned partners for everyone and sent out addresses to all the players. This is a special round, and I'm sending out postcards to all the participants, and all the past members as well!

Yay Mail! 13 postcards. I haven't decided on the photo yet, but it'll be from the same batch as my March Postcard... So I'm not going to reveal the photo here yet.

  Yeah: I am still sending out March Postcards! This is another project, but it does not have a deadline. Altho, at some point embarrassment will provide a deadline, say if I'm still sending out spring postcards in november. heh.

  Send a PC #1, a Swap-Bot exchange for three postcards. I decided to send an old one:

aster

We planted this aster plant in our community garden in 2010, and it bloomed like crazy all autumn! This is one of my favorite photos of it.

  Serial PC Swappers - Week #58... PIGS This was a swap from the first week of april, but one of the postcards I sent, got returned to me because the address got ripped up. ack!

sunshine

I love all of my photos and memories from my 2010 trip to Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary, a vegan sanctuary in Colorado. This is Sunshine, isn't she wonderful?!

  Serial PC Swappers - Week #60... And this is the current weekly swap. A vegan friend of mine runs the Serial PC swaps. I don't sign-up for all of them, but they are always good and fun. I've got all new partners for this one, so I think I'll send out my March postcard.

  Photo Bookmark: April, Blue... Yeah, photo bookmarks are a different format! 2 inches by 7 inches... whoa! It's hard to figure out what will look decent in these dimensions! I've still got next weekend to work on this one, and I'm taking the extra time because I am stretching myself a little and I want my bookmarks to be lovely! ha. something blue:

borage

  and then, too, I have a bunch of returns I need to send. (never enough time, need vacation!)





a non-adventuresome day
sat 21 apr 2012

Permalink: http://www.static8.com/journal/2012/20120421.html
Entry #9 on this page (tagged: mailings, )


Sometimes I just need to hide in the house all day!

I put a couple postcards in the mail this morning. (yeah, still working on the March postcards.) Finished reading the Pern book, Dragon's Kin, and paged through the next one, Dragonsblood.

I spent an inordinate amount of time organizing this weeks incoming mail. I got a lot of mail this week, for whatever reason.

For the monthly exchanges that I'm in, I scan in the PCs and keep the files in a separate directory on my computer: that way I can see at a glance if someone isn't sending. For the Swap-Bot postcards, I need to go to the website and acknowledge everything that I've rcvd. For any other mail, I need to note the mail that needs a reply. That particular list is growing...

  The 52 Letter Project: Thoughts on Letter Writing

Ha, this post about not being able to send reply mail right away resonated with me! Currently, the oldest mail I need to respond to is from 22 March. *shakes head* I go through phases with mail responses... One time I actually got to the point where I responded to a note the very next day!! ha, that was an anomaly; usually I'm about a month behind, I think six or seven weeks has been my worst response time.


This evening I was thinking about watching some videos... I am still on Lesson 5 at the Letter Love 101 calligraphy class. And I've not even started on the March Strathmore Online Workshop (this one is free, check it out!)

But, then again, I've discovered Avatar: The Last Airbender... it's free on Amazon Prime. The story line is pretty good, plus it's got great creatures.





Swap-Bot
sun 27 may 2012

Permalink: http://www.static8.com/journal/2012/20120527.html
Entry #10 on this page (tagged: mailings, , )


Swap-Bot

My one year anniversary at Swap-Bot is coming up on the 29th of May!

I have completed 35 swaps there (and I just printed up postcards for my next swap). My swaps are mostly "flat mail" type swaps, but I've also done 4 "package/craft" swaps. I currently have 78 "Fives", meaning all my partners have received the stuff I sent them... and I have 59 "Hearts", meaning 59 of my partners LOVED the stuff I sent them. :)

Some of the swaps that I am proud of:

  One Sentence Journal - October 2011

A page from my One Sentence Journal

I loved doing this, but it was a lot of work! :) The journal I made was mostly a photo journal, and some pages had sketches, and some pages were just my one sentence of the day.

  100,000!
This was Swap-Bot's 100,000th swap, and participants could choose what they wanted to send their partner. I decided to send weekly postcards for several months. Fun!

  Art Journal Postcard Swap

Art Journal Postcard

My very first exchange on Swap-Bot.


And Currently, I'm in the Thank You Swap-Bot exchange, in which we send a postcard to the owners of Swap-Bot, telling them how amazing Swap-Bot is! I haven't decided which postcard I'm going to send... I might have to send more than one! :)





mail, odds and ends
sun 3 june 2012

Permalink: http://www.static8.com/journal/2012/20120603.html
Entry #11 on this page (tagged: mailings, )


The month of may was my birthday month, and as a present to myself I decided to quit doing all of my daily projects.

One of those daily projects included my postcards. Altho I kept on top of all the exchanges I signed up for and am obligated to, I did not print up and send my usual monthly postcards to everyone on my personal list.

Even so, I managed to send out over 70 bits of mail! ha!


I did not give up my Amnesty International letter writing. I am part of the Urgent Action Network, and I write letters of protest every weekend.

This weekend, the action that was emailed to me was
www.amnestyusa.org/actioncenter/actions/uaa15612.pdf
MAYOR DETAINED, RISKS ILL-TREATMENT, Peru

25 people in Espinar were protesting mining operations and were detained and beaten by police. They were let go, but they are all under investigation under false pretenses. The mayor of Espinar criticized the current agreement between the government and the mining company, and he was also arrested and held without charge.

I had already written my protest letters when I read the newspaper this morning. There was a tiny article on the last page of the front section:

Peruvian mayor jailed over protest
LIMA, Peru (AP) - A judge on Saturday ordered detention for a mayor who allegedly led violent protests against a highlands copper mine. The judge ordered Mayor Oscar Mollohuanca of Espinar held during an investigation.

Messed Up! And, yeah, I am inclined to believe Amnesty International (which provides two pages of information about the situation and talks about the excessive force used by the police against the protestors) ... and not believe a two sentence press release.

It is a good reminder of why I am writing these letters.


And a happier, mail-related article in today's paper:

  Graduates hear from themselves By Bob Welch

A local fourth/fifth-grade teacher has his students (age 9 and 10) write a letter to their future self. The teacher delivers the letters to his students when they graduate high school (around age 17 or 18).

Wow. What kinds of things would you say to yourself, ten years down the line??!





announcement
fri 13 july 2012

Permalink: http://www.static8.com/journal/2012/20120713.html
Entry #12 on this page (tagged: mailings, )


I am making this "official", mostly in my own head. And Friday the 13th seems like a good day to do it.

I am quitting my postcard hobby.

Yes. Quitting. Maybe not forever. And definitely not instantaneously, since I have several swaps and exchanges and hosting duties that are due. But still, quitting.

My mom's visit, and the cleaning and organizing I had to do for her visit, kind of shook things up around here. I have been trying to get back into the flow of my life, for the past two weeks...

I have printed up dozens of postcards. Literally, I think there's over fifty postcards, in various stages. But I've not written any and I certainly haven't stamped any or put any in the mail box.

And I don't really want to.

so why force it? I quit. I'm moving on to something else.

What, I don't know!

puppy nap

Marco Thunder at the day job. That's about how much work there is to do, too.





postcards (part 2)
fri 20 july 2012

Permalink: http://www.static8.com/journal/2012/20120720.html
Entry #13 on this page (tagged: mailings, )


Okay, my announcement on Friday the 13th, that I was "quitting my postcards"... was mostly just frustration at not being able to keep up with one of my self-imposed postcard projects.

I used to design a postcard and send one to everyone in my address book, every month.

This was a great project when I only had 30ish addresses to send to. Then it got to 50 addresses. I started cutting people off my list, because it was too big. But, with my other mailing projects, I couldn't keep up with 50 addresses, anyway, so I started skipping months. But I'm still making amazing postcards that I want to show everyone, and I lose track of what I've sent to whom.

So now the whole project is this big mess that I don't want to deal with anymore. Thusly, "I am quitting my postcards."

Which is not exactly what I meant. I still have many other postcard projects that I need and want to do! I'm just quitting my monthly postcard that goes out to everyone.

To give you an idea of what my postcard life is like... since last friday...
  I've written and sent 21 postcards
  I've spent 70$ at my friendly online post office
  I get a couple of postcards or notecards in the mail every day.

I'm not sure what my new normal is going to be: I do want to continue with my postcards, because they make me happy... but I don't want to get frustrated because I can't send out as many as I wish I could.

Where is my happy medium?!

oak leaves





state of the projects
fri 27 july 2012

Permalink: http://www.static8.com/journal/2012/20120727.html
Entry #14 on this page (tagged: mailings, )


Okay, I've got a handful of postcard projects that are due at the end of the month. My goal is to jam them out the door this weekend. And after that... Unless I am totally excited about something, I'm not going to sign up for any new swaps or postcard exchanges.

And by quitting my 50+ monthly pc send out... the frustration and anxiety and overwhelm I was experiencing at the beginning of the month is melting away! Phew!

I hope to get some other stuff done this weekend too.

Joanne Sharpe Letter Love class

Remember the cool class I was taking from Joanne Sharpe? Yeah, I think I got all the way to lesson 5, out of 29? ha. And then I signed up for her journal keeping class, Color Love, as well. And I got to the third lesson in that class. *rolls eyes*

So yep. I hope to get those organized... I think I want to return to the Color Love class first. Re-watch the first few videos and maybe do some experimenting with my art supplies.

Probably should do some relaxing this weekend as well. I haven't even had time to read my books at all this summer... I'm reading the same books I started a couple months ago, and that is just not acceptable! A book a week is my usual rate of reading!

Much to do... gonna go get started on it...





I love making postcards
sat 29 sept 2012

Permalink: http://www.static8.com/journal/2012/20120929.html
Entry #15 on this page (tagged: mailings, )


In April, I took on a lot of postcard projects and I kind of burnt myself out. I did not want to quit, but I reluctantly forced myself to cut back.

And now, in the last couple of weeks, I've signed up for a couple extra trades on Swap-Bot. And when I take photos, I'm thinking about their postcard potential. And I'm considering some random mail.

Random mail? On top of all my other ongoing projects? Hmm.

Ongoing Postcard Projects include:

  Monthly BH PC This is the group that started the madness. It's a "Five for Five" exchange (you send 5 postcards and rcv 5 postcards)... except I always send to everyone in the group. The group grew quite a bit this year, and I'm currently sending 16 postcards.

  GoodReads Postcard Exchange I'm the host for this group, and send to everyone who signs up every month. We had a population explosion in Sept, and I sent out 18 postcards! Yay!

  Friends and Fam This is the personal project that got out of hand. I really want to send a postcard out to everyone in my address book, every single month! I love showing off my photography to my friends!! Maybe someday I will figure out how to manage this chaos? ;)

  Amnesty International Urgent Action Network Yep, I'm still an active member... I usually take on one action every week.

  and of course, the Swap-Bot... current avg around 10 bits of mail a month. mostly postcards, but I make photo note cards occasionally as well.


All that plus my new desire for random mail!

Yeah... at the beginning of the summer, all this mail did feel crazy. But now? It's just my hobby.

It's a hobby that makes other people smile.

And that makes me happy!





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