Mail-art: picturing kindness

With everything going on in the world towards the end of last year, I got to thinking about kindness, and what it meant. Why did some people seem to have it in spades, while others could act with such coldness, such brutality, that surely all compassion, all empathy, must have been clinically removed from their souls? I find cruelty - not angry passion but callous cruelty - truly incomprehensible. 

In all this thinking, I started to wonder what "kindness" meant to people. Because I'm fairly sure that, aside from genuine psychopaths, the people who I believed were speaking or doing things of utmost horror probably believed that they were actually good people, at least some of the time. They are not all villains, retreating to their lairs and laughing "BWAHAHA" every time they commit an atrocity. Somewhere along the line, these human beings have either justified their actions due to their beliefs, or have become immune to the suffering of others, because the mind is frighteningly good at self preservation (and nobody wants to admit to themselves "I am evil.").

I refuse to believe that that people are black to the core. Small-minded, intolerant, cruel, yes. But maybe not evil through and through? I don't know. I hope not. If you think terrible things cannot be done within the pretext of noble intentions, just ask any religious extremist, ever. 

Where is the kindness in all this? How can a man murder in the morning and let the dog sleep on his lap in the evening? Torture someone one day, and buy his mother fudge the next? Show hatred to an entire race of human beings, but love his children? 

Mail-art isn't going to solve any global or existential problems just yet, but this was all at the front of my mind as I was painting these envelopes, so I decided to follow it through. I did a Google image-search on the word "kindness" to see what other people saw in their minds when they heard that word. These envelopes are my interpretations of some of the images at the top of that search. 

What does kindness look like to you? What would you draw, if you got "kindness" in a game of Pictionary? 

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. 

Spiders, bedtime stories, and what's the fuss about Henry Fussy?

We have been reading Charlotte's Web to the children at bedtime. Last night was the final chapter, and the whole book has been every bit as magical and sad and beautiful as I remember from my own childhood.

Scout was enthralled from beginning to end. I wasn't confident of this when we started: books from this era move at a slower pace to those written these days (slower than, for example, Monsters Wear Underpants, a tremendous favourite of Ralph's - thanks Mum), and Scout is only four after all.

But she soaked it all in, even the long passages about the changing of the seasons, the subtle shifts on a farm from one month to another. Even the brutal honesty about life on the land, about how spiders eat, about love and loss. It was precious to see her settle into this slower pace, resting up against my side and dreamily playing with a thread on her pyjamas as she listened, always begging for more when each chapter ended. 

However, here's something I did not even remotely pick up on when I read this book as a child: Henry Fussy. How did I not notice Fern's complete desertion of her best friends, for a boy called Henry Fussy? I'm guessing I must have been so caught up in Wilbur's and Charlotte's stories that I failed to notice that Fern was having a story of her own, a coming-of-age journey that took her away from the barn and onto a Ferris Wheel instead. 

And I get it. Fern wouldn't be the first person to neglect her friends for a crush, and she won't be the last. But...

Fern happens to be the only human on the entire planet with access to the MAGICAL WORLD OF TALKING ANIMALS. 

Nope, not enough. Henry Fussy is over there.

Well how about this: Wilbur, who she claimed to love "more than anything else in the whole world" is going to be KILLED BY FERN'S UNCLE, unless Charlotte's plan to save him works.

Henry Fussy paid for her ticket on the Ferris Wheel, so she didn't have to spend her own money.

We learn Charlotte is dying. She is also about to become a mother, but will not live to see her sweet babies. 

Fern says this has been the best day of her life. 

THE PLAN WORKED! Wilbur is getting a special medal, Fern's Uncle has never been happier, Wilbur's life has been saved. The entire family goes crazy with pride and excitement.

Fern wants money so she can pay for Henry Fussy's ticket on the Ferris Wheel. 

And can I finally please point out, Fern is EIGHT. Girl, we need to talk. 

After we finished reading Charlotte's Web last night, we talked a little bit about friendship and love and death, and it was a little bit sad but a lot beautiful. I kissed the children, turned out the light, and went downstairs to make my dinner alone as Mr B was working late. Then about half an hour before my bedtime, he came home. 

Pale, shaking, and giggling in a high-pitched, slightly hysterical way (you know, like Floki from Vikings, if you happen to watch that show). Turned out just as he was parking the car, a giant huntsman spider the size of his palm had scuttled across the windscreen of the car.

Then it disappeared. Somewhere in the dark. On the car. Waiting. 

Now I happen to think Mr B is all man, but that spider knew better, and it reduced him to the state of a terrified little old lady. Me too, when he told me about it later. Oh man, I was terrified just from the telling.

Just as Mr B was about to venture out of the car into the dark, where the spider waited unseen - literally a nanosecond before Mr B opened the car door - the spider appeared again, millimetres from his face, crawling down the outside of the car window. Slowly. Big, hairy underbelly and powerful legs moving across the glass and across Mr B's petrified face. If he'd opened that door even one second earlier, the spider would have landed on his head. 

He scrambled over to the passenger seat and climbed out that door, ran back around to the driver side and whacked the spider away (don't hate - neither of us could have got back inside that car otherwise), and came inside to giggle hysterically in the lounge room. Then he went back outside again to check whether or not he'd left the headlights on in all the shock. 

When at last he came back inside for good and sat down, we both started laughing, because from time to time we like to dream about moving to the country: a tree-change and a slower pace of life. And then a spider crawls across the windscreen of our car and we remember that we are literally the worst people in the world to ever attempt life in the country. Completely pathetic. Nature wimps. 

But in our defence, "That was no Charlotte," Mr B said. 

New crush: Botanical Threads

The next time you make guacamole, don't throw away the avocado seeds. 

Instead, leave the stones to dry on the window-sill, then heat them in a pan for up to three days, eventually extracting a colour that looks deep red. Soak some beautiful fabric in the red liquid, dipping it twice and leaving it for several days each time, adding soya milk to help the colours stick.

At the end of all this, if you're very lucky, your fabric will have turned a beautiful, rosy shade of pink. 

Alternatively, you could skip steps one through five and just buy some of the truly gorgeous organic dyed tea-towels, scarves and other items lovingly made this way by British lass Alicia, the talented gal behind the simple and ethical online shop Botanical Threads.  

Alicia studied fashion design but now works as a gardener, and this shop combines her two passions. Alongside the avocado seeds, she also uses rosemary, nettles, lavender, pomegranate peels and onion skins to create some truly stunning colours and patterns.

I could do with a set of those tea-towels to use as placemats. I think they'd be amazing at our table! What would you choose? 

Quick reminder

Just a quick note to remind you that my Snail Mail Toolkit newsletter will land in folks' inboxes tonight. I've created the envelope template above, plus another, and will share them as printable downloads along with tips on how to personalise them and turn them into mail-art, writing prompts, and some other fun and useful snail-mail links. If this sounds like something you'd like and you haven't yet signed up to receive my emails, there's still time and you can do it here. 

Summer mail-art

The past month was ridiculously busy, as December usually is for most of us. In the midst of it all, I found just a little bit of time for mail-art, including a stack of envelopes made out of Christmas carol sheet-music, and one book with an address and stamps on the front cover. There will be more coming soon! 

ps. Do you know about my Snail Mail Toolkit e-newsletter? I have been busy creating templates that you can personalise into your own mail-art, which I send out in a monthly email. The next email will go out this Wednesday night, so if this sounds like something you'd like to try, you can sign up to receive the emails here. I'm currently also sending a free copy of my e-book Making Mail to everyone who joins up. 

Thousand Postcard Project: 1-25/1000

Last week a box of a thousand vintage postcards arrived for me in the mail. They are all between 40 and 110 years old, and most of them Americana - old postcards advertising hotels and stores, landmarks and movies. 

I decided they'd spent enough time tucked away gathering dust in boxes and drawers, and that it was time to give them life at last, so I launched the Thousand Postcard Project, with the goal of posting each and every one of them before the year is out. 

I've just popped the first 25 postcards into the post, to finally make their way out into the world. I'm numbering each of them, so that I can keep track of where I'm up to in this project.

Here are some of my favourites from that first batch: 

ΔΔ A good 50 or so years have passed since this photograph was taken. I like to imagine what all these people at the swimming pool are doing now, if they are still alive. I wonder what they remember about that day in the sun. (It's Camp Kanesatake at Spruce Creek, Pennsylvania. Did you happen to be there at some point in the 1960s or 70s? Is that YOU I see?)

ΔΔ Ghost towns of America. I've visited one like this, and it was fascinating! I call this guy "dude with donkey" and he makes me smile. The caption on the back of the postcard is deliciously kitsch: "The Old Prospector // Accompanied by his faithful burros, the grizzled Old Prospector stands in front of the entrance to the Gold Mine tunnel." 

ΔΔ Hand-drawn postcards are always sweet. But look at that car! It dates the card so perfectly. 

ΔΔ The back of this postcard tells us that this is the general store at the Deserted Village of Allaire in New Jersey. "Entering this store is like walking into the past," it says. Holding this postcard is ALSO like walking into the past. 

ΔΔ I love this because it is so fabulously dull. The good people of the Travel Lodge, Mt Vernon, Illinois, chose this photograph as the best way to advertise their hotel. On the back, it boasts all the latest amenities. "Direct Dial Telephones. Electric Heat." Take me there! 

Only 975 to go... 

Would you like to receive one of these postcards in the mail? I'd love to send you one. There's a form on this page for you to give me your mailing address (I'll never share it). 

Holidays at home

Summer holidays at home are for bare feet and late nights. For dining on ice cream instead of vegetables, watching Netflix instead of deadlines, and reading trashy novels instead of weighty text-books.

They are for heatwaves and plummeting rain and, when the rain clears, for a million petals carpeting the footpath like confetti.  

Holidays are for languid afternoons and lazy nonchalance, for baking and making, for staying in pyjamas all day one day and swimming costumes all day the next. For games. New games, old games, games together and games alone, games of action and games of craft, games of imagination and games of giggles. And for at least three complaints of "I'm boooooored," issuing from among mountains of new Christmas toys.

Then, the new year. 

Holidays turn to tidying bedrooms, cleaning out cupboards, making plans, and writing lists. So many lists! To-do lists, shopping lists, lists of recipes to try, lists of creative projects, gratitude lists, mailing lists. And new calendars and fresh new planners, lined notebooks full of promise, and bright new collections of art-paper, ready for rainbows. 

What have you been doing lately? 

New year, new project (1000 postcards)

It wouldn't be January without a million people making plans, would it?

Mr B and I spent the days after Christmas slowly recovering, and hatching schemes. He bought a book called The Barefoot Investor and declared that this would be the year we take back control of our finances. I let the children consume their very last icy-pole and bucket of chips while we were in Bendigo, then returned home and emptied the 'fridge and pantry of all the leftover chocolates, cakes, biscuits and ice-creams that had made their way into our house over December. I declared that this was the year we would take back control of our health. 

And then together, Mr B and I hatched a plan that involves YOU. 

He purchased for me a giant box containing one thousand vintage and antique postcards, all unused. The postcards date from around 1905 through to the 1970s, and have been waiting all these years for someone to stick a stamp on them, scrawl "Wish you were here," and send them into the world. 

Well, that someone is me. I have decided to launch the Thousand Postcard Project for 2017, a year-long project in which I intend to send a thousand vintage postcards to people anywhere in the world. Each one will include a unique message: maybe a short story, a snippet from my life, a recipe, a poem, and so on. 

Every now and again, I'll share photographs of some of the sent postcards on my blog, so you can see what they look like (I'll only show the picture sides of the postcards, never people's addresses). 

Would you like to receive postcard from the Thousand Postcard Project? Fill in the form on this page to give me your postal address, then sit back and watch your letterbox for a little vintage surprise. 

Lost for words

These nifty Correspondence Cards take postcards and "thinking of you" to the next level. When you want to reach out to someone by snail mail but you don't really know what to say, they'll do it for you! With sweet and funny little choose-your-own comment prompts, you simply tick the box that is most relevant.

Such as... 

I'm: distracted / well / a superhero / lost / drinking tea

This place is: beautiful / smelly / prickly / peaceful / interesting 

I've been: mugged / knighted / fishing / studying / adventuring 

Please: write back / dream of me / send money / feed my cat / take care  

And so on. The comments side of the card is illustrated with a lovely photograph originally captured on 35mm analogue film, and the back simply contains lines for the address, and space for a stamp.  

Tell me: would you use these? I think they are fun and pretty, and a postcard like this would put a huge grin on my face if it arrived in my letterbox (unless of course the person had ticked that they were lost and had been mugged), so I'm going to assume others might feel the same. 

I spend a lot of time writing to strangers to bring a moment of happy surprise to their days, which is something I love to do. But sometimes that means I neglect to write to the people in my life who are nearest and dearest. I feel like these cards are best suited to someone who already knows me (and appreciates my sense of humour), so that's where mine will be headed. 

Right now I have a box of 10 of these cards, sent as a gift from Brenner of Boots Paper, and I am itching to use them.

This all happened after I ordered some new notepads from Brenner, because I was running out of resources to write to you all. Her shop Boots Paper appealed to me because the notepads were not only beautifully-illustrated and lovely to hold (good quality recycled paper), she also donated a percentage of profits to conservation charities.

After I placed my order, Brenner found me on Instagram and reached out to say hello (this is her), and to celebrate the snail-mail joy that she and I have both spreading in our own ways. The following week, the most incredible box of stationery goods arrived in my letterbox as a gift from Brenner, and you can see it all here. She left a little note: "For all the stationery love you put out there, I wanted to give some back." 

It was an act of extraordinary generosity and kindness, and I intend to repay it by sending these gorgeous Boots Paper creations far and wide, as I write to each of you all over the world. 

ps. Have you signed up to receive my monthly mail-art template emails yet? They're free, and the first one will arrive in your Inbox about mid-January. Sign up here

I'm ready to send you mail again!

I have a little Christmas present for you, my friends. Actually, I have more than one to give! 

You may remember that I used to send letters to people who subscribed to this blog, to say thank you to them for reading. I had to suspend that in July this year, when I discovered I was more than 60 letters behind in all the mail I owed. It was overwhelming, and I felt terrible for being so slow. 

But here we are a week before Christmas, and I'm all caught up. If you subscribe to this blog and you haven't already requested this mail from me, I invite you to share your address now. The sign-up form is here and I look forward to making mail for you.

UPDATE 7 Feb 2017: Aah I'm so sorry. I've been making mail as fast as I can but you guys are KEEN (I do love that!) and, as fast as I've been going, there are now 123 people on the waiting list. So I've had to disable the form again while I catch up. Again. Watch this space. 

I mentioned I have some other presents to give. While things have been quiet on this blog of late, I haven't forgotten you, and I've been working away behind the scenes to develop some resources that I hope you might enjoy. 

The first is a free monthly newsletter that will launch mid-January. Short on words but big on inspiration, it will contain an original artwork every month, that you can print out and customise into your own mail-art.  

The second is my new e-book, Making Mail. This is a 10-part guide to writing letters that will become keepsakes, by writing entertaining missives that look beautiful, survive their journeys, and make the recipients feel special. This book is free when you subscribe to my newsletter. 

I really hope you enjoy all of these gifts, and I want to thank you for sticking with me as I've developed all these resources in the background. I'm looking forward to bringing you more inspiring, uplifting, funny and creative content in the New Year, and wish you every happiness for this festive season. 

Love, Naomi