Will Chalkboard for Cheese

Up until now, I have not done any commercial chalkboards. All the ones I have done were for friends and family, and were done as favors or presents.

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine who was in the process of opening up a cheese store/cafe contacted me and wanted to know if I would do a chalkboard for her store. She had painted a huge wall with chalkboard paint, and was going to use it for her menu. I said yes, albeit with some fear and trepidation at the size and scale of the project. But after plenty of sketches, a few false starts, and determination/stubbornness, I finished the project. And here's the result!

I was contracted to do only the headings; my friend is planning to change her menu every couple of weeks, so the rest of the board is writing she will supply.

And here's some close-ups, after the rest of the board was filled out:

Since this was my first commercial project (but still for a good friend), I didn't know what to charge. So my friend paid me in cheese. Literally. And it was DELICIOUS!

SOTMCL: Elvis

Welcome to another installment of "Stamps Only Their Mother Could Love" (SOTMCL, in the title above). Today's victim of the stamp world is actually the King of Rock and Roll: Elvis.

I'm already asleep, just looking at these stamps. Let me be the first to say that I love the overall design of this series of stamps from the USPS -- notice how the stamp sheet looks like a 45 record sleeve, complete with 45 record? But they picked the most boring, washed-out picture of Elvis they could possibly find, I think. It looks like his high-school yearbook picture or something.

The reverse of the stamp sheet is quite a bit better. Maybe this should have gone on the stamp instead?

This is actually the second commemorative stamp featuring Elvis. Here's the first:

That's a picture courtesy of Google -- I don't own this stamp. But it's a bright, lively stamp, and despite the slightly garish colors, it's a much more fitting tribute to its subject, I think.

Reckon the USPS got a little backlash over previous stamps in this series recently? Like Jimi? Or Janis?

I doubt it. I'm not sure the process works that way. But these stamps are ALIVE, they are miniature works of art that are perfectly fitting to their subjects, and I love them.

I'll use the Elvis stamps. Some of you may see him pop up in your mailbox in the not-too-distant future. But I warn you, he'll probably infect your mailbox with his Droopy Dog expression.

Mini Ink Review: Rohrer and Klingner "Verdura"

Mini Ink Review: De Atramentis "Sahara Grey"

Stamps Only Their Mother Could Love

Greetings, long-suffering readers! (Both of you.)

A while back I mentioned off-handedly, in a letter to my good friend Limner, that I should start a series of blog posts on ugly stamps. We had been commiserating together about some of the ugly stamps that the USPS comes out with from time to time. Flannery O'Connor stamp, I'm looking at YOU:

I ask you, does this look like Flannery? It looks like some random woman with a peacock feather fetish. She needs her glasses!! And I don't like that look on her face either. She looks slightly constipated.

But after the little rant I had at the expense of stamps like this, I promptly forgot all about it. Well, do you know, Limner had the audacity to remind me of something I said I was going to do! Can you believe it! :-)

So here goes. The only change is, I'm not going to call this series by its original title: "Ugly Stamps I Have Hated." It sounds very harsh. Instead, it's going to be "Stamps Only Their Mother Could Love." Someone undoubtedly worked very hard on these stamps, and invested a lot of time and talent and energy into their production. I just don't like them, that's all.

Flannery above doesn't count as the first entry because I do not own these stamps. They might be beautiful in person. No, the honor of the first ugly stamps are these (forgive the glare):

It's a set of two different stamps commemorating the end of the Civil War in 1865. One stamp depicts the Battle of Five Forks on April 1, 1865. The other depicts the surrender of the Confederate forces at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865.

You might wonder why these are my first choice of ugly stamps. The art is interesting. The historical interest is high, although I'm not a Civil War buff so it's kind of lost on me.

No, the ugliness comes from two things, I think:

1. First off, these stamps are HUGE. They would dwarf even a business-size envelope. I don't know what it is with the movement towards larger and larger stamps, but I wish they would stop it. I send more reasonably-sized correspondence envelopes and can never use stamps this big. Especially if I happen to get creative with the address and mail art. Which I have been known to do.
2. Secondly, the paintings are SO detailed that one literally can't appreciate them fully on a postage stamp (as gargantuan as these may be). I don't think stamps are the place for any kind of intricate artwork. It needs to be bold, highly visible, and relatively simple.

Also, there's the fact that these large stamps are part of an even larger commemorative sheet, which makes the whole thing just seem wasteful. Although Limner has recently taught me that it's OK to repurpose these parts of stamp sheets for envelope decorations -- I really must remember to try some of that soon.

Oh, and let's not even mention the colors in general. I know they are probably significant (blue and gray and all that) but they just make the whole thing come off as blah and uninteresting to the eye. I know a true stamp collector would probably have a quite different view of this sheet. But I look at it as a stamp user, not a stamp collector. And these are not terribly user-friendly stamps.

Here's one more picture so you can appreciate the true blah-ness of these stamps.

So there you have it! Two stamps that only their mother could love. What do you think? Am I being too harsh? Do you have votes for the next stamp in this series? Let me know in the comments!

Review of the Quo Vadis Textagenda Academic Planner

To start with, let me just say that I have not been a pen-and-paper calendar person for a very long time. I used to be, several years ago -- in fact all the way back to my high school days and even before -- and my calendar of choice was almost always an academic year calendar (since the academic year is the framework of my entire life). I liked paper calendars a lot. I looked forward to the time of year when I could buy the next year's calendar, and always went through all kinds of agonizing decisions about which one I would get. The ones I liked best could be customized and added to, to some extent, so that the calendar also became a kind of notebook (an extension of my brain, really).

Then the smartphone happened.

Well, to be honest, I should say the Palm Pilot happened first. But if you ever had one of those contraptions, you know that they could be downright clunky as far as getting information into and out of them. The smartphone was a vast improvement, of course, and soon I began seriously converting from a paper-based calendar to an electronic calendar. Google Calendar was my planner of choice -- the calendar I loved and hated simultaneously, through the years -- but I have tried nearly all the big names: iCal, Outlook, etc.

And yet, it never felt the same as the paper planners.

Part of it was not having everything in one place. Yes, I know syncing of all types of calendars is possible, but it never works quite the way you expect it to sometimes. Or else electrons get lost along the way. Or there’s a glitch involving weird time zone changes and such (Apple, I’m looking at YOU). And the thing is, although I have an Outlook calendar maintained through my employer, I don’t trust our IT folks enough to let them have control over my calendar. (The more astute of you might suggest at this point that my IT friends are infinitely more trustworthy than the folks at Google, but I’m really not so sure.)

So all these thoughts and others probably subconsciously led me to entering a Facebook contest recently, sponsored by the Quo Vadis notebook and planner folks. And I won! What I won was THIS, the Quo Vadis Textagenda Planner:

The planner without its band

I don’t think it was a coincidence that I won a paper planner. An academic year paper planner, no less. It was as if the Universe was saying, “Hey, Randall, come on and give this another chance.” So I did. And I have been thoroughly enjoying the experience -- so much so, that I don’t think I will be using my electronic calendars again anytime soon.

So why do I like this planner so much?

1. The compact size is definitely a winner for me. If this is going to be going with me everywhere (and let’s face it, I need a calendar that can do that), it needs to be easily carried. At around 5 by 7 inches, this fits nicely in the hand. And it feels good too -- the cover is made out of a very attractive vinyl-ish plastic that’s very flexible and soft to the hand.
2. The paper in a Quo Vadis notebook or planner is simply some of the best (betraying its Exaclair roots, of course!!). Thin and smooth, as always, but it also holds up well to almost any kind of ink you want to throw at it, including fountain pen ink. No bleedthrough, no feathering -- it’s absolutely no muss, no fuss. Check out these pictures of some testing I did, using three pens that write particularly “wet,” in my opinion:

The Pentel Energel 0.7 mm:

front

back

A Bic disposable fountain pen (medium point, basically):

front

back

A black Papermate Flair, medium point:

front

back

As you can see, all of these behaved flawlessly on the Quo Vadis paper, and while this is not any kind of exhaustive test, I would not be afraid to use any pen I wanted to in this book.

There’s another reason why I like this planner: it gives me choices. As you can see from the above picture of the page layout, there’s a small hourly agenda at the top of each page, just enough to put reminders or placeholder words to allow you to see your day’s agenda at a glance. But then the majority of the page is wide open for details about the day’s events, or notes, or anything else you want to write there. A “priority” section and a “notes” section, both highlighted in eye-catching colors, round out the landscape. I’ve been using the planner for a couple of weeks now, and I must say the layout is very effective and user-friendly.

If you are in the market for a new planner, or thinking about a return to paper planners from the world of electrons, give this one a try. You won’t be disappointed!

Disclaimer: I won this planner as a prize in a free giveaway sponsored by the Quo Vadis company. I was not required to write this review as part of the giveaway. All opinions expressed here are solely my own.

An Embarrassing Confession

So call me clueless, but when did the postal rate for postcards go up? I missed it, I think. Or maybe it's a function of the fact that we use Forever stamps for first-class letters, and so I don't notice when that rate goes up. Anyway, I am here to tell you (in case you have been under this rock here with me) that the current rate for a normal-sized postcard (you gotta be careful there too!!) is 35 cents.

And I apologize if I have sent any of you postage-due postcards -- although I have long suspected that my mail lady is my postal guardian angel. Since I do send and receive quite a bit of mail, I think she must go behind me and correct my postage when I do boneheaded things like send a postcard with 34 cents of postage on it. Or maybe you all are too polite to tell me I am an idiot. :-)

Anyway, the point of all this is to sing the praises of the USPS, because they have finally seen the light and issued some really great Forever postcard stamps. Check them out! I love them, and just ordered some. (My local post office might have some of these, but I am way too lazy for that.)

Now I don't have to worry about how much postage to put on a postcard! Cue the singers...

Always with the envelopes, huh?

I had a couple of birthday cards to send yesterday, so of course they cannot be addressed normally -- it's time for some fun with lettering!

Some days I would rather do this than just about anything. But it doesn't pay very well. (ha!)

In case you are curious, these were done with Micron pens. Keeping it simple.

Lettering on painted paper

This is an experiment I did this afternoon. One of my favorite things to do is to paint papers that might otherwise be thrown into the landfill and then do creative things with them, such as lettering on them. This is a bulletin insert from church, necessary because our old hymnal did not have "Rock of Ages" in it. What a travesty, you may say -- although I actually don't like this hymn. It can get slow and mournful and is just not uplifting to me personally. (If this is YOUR favorite hymn, then you'll be happy to know our new hymnal does have it -- so the error was corrected!)

So -- I painted on this paper some while back with some ordinary acrylic paint, and then set it aside for some time.

It caught my eye today, and I wanted to letter something on it. The "music" was done with a black Flair pen, and the rest of it was done with a black Sharpie. I found it interesting that neither one of these pens played particularly nice with the paint. I wonder if there's some kind of chemical reaction? I know Sharpies contain alcohol-based ink. Not sure about Flairs, but I would suspect they have the same. Anyway, this is not great art -- I was just fooling around, after all -- but I thought it turned out kind of interesting, so here it is!

Restocking the stash

Recently I have been sticking my toe.... or maybe pen.... back into the writing by hand waters. I started slow, with some mail to some long-neglected pen friends, who, although I was not writing to them, were ALWAYS ON MY MIND.



OK, well maybe not like that.....

Anyway, another toe-dipping venture is Postcrossing, and if you are not familiar with this website, you need to be. So I have been sending out postcards, and my "local color" cards have been running low. I do not live in a tourist mecca, by any stretch of the imagination, so getting postcards here is difficult. Whenever I make a short jaunt out of town, to the coast or New Orleans, I like to look around for postcards to stock my stash.

Today I went to the Mississippi Gulf Coast for a Saturday outing, and wandered all over -- Bay St. Louis, Pass Christian, Waveland, Gulfport, and Biloxi. Much of the wandering was done on Highway 90, which travels right along the beach for miles and miles. It's not the prettiest beach of course, because 1) it's entirely manmade (although it is supposedly the longest manmade beach in the entire world); and 2) it doesn't access the Gulf of Mexico directly -- the beaches in Gulfport and Biloxi face the Mississippi Sound -- so this means our beaches don't get what they call "ocean dynamics." I think this translates into: we don't get nice waves and the beaches can get kind of trashy with debris. BUT! It's a BEACH. I love to look at the water.

Satellite view of the sound, with the Mississippi barrier islands

A view of the beach/hotels/casinos

Long story long -- when I am on the beach I generally like to hit one of the souvenir shops there. There are not that many down there, but they are pretty sizeable. And there's one -- Sharkheads -- that has lots and lots of postcards. I came home with a few:

OK, this is more than a few -- it's a pile of 72 cards, to be exact.

I think I am stocked up now and ready for some more Postcrossing. If you want one of these, leave a comment and I'll send you one too!

Incoming and Outgoing Mail

I'm having fun with the Month of Letters so far.  Keeping my fingers crossed that I can stay on track with it!

Here's what came in the mail yesterday from a penpal that I actually met through LetterMo, Ria, and have kept in touch with over the past year:

The front of the envelope is covered in washi tape, and it's really a fun idea.  I have a lot of washi tape that I have bought because I liked the designs, but then I never know what to do with it.  This could be a possibility!!

And here's today's outgoing mail: a postcard to a LetterMo contact (a new one this year, just basically a postcard swap), and a reply to the above letter.

As you can see, I got a little creative with the washi tape on the reply letter (creative for me, anyway).  I searched for something suitable to put in the lower left box that I created with the tape, but I couldn't find anything or think of anything.  One of these days I will throw all caution to the winds and just doodle something there!

Month of Letters 2014

Greetings, all!  I know this blog has been dead for months now, but I am itching to change that.  And what better way to (gently) wake up a blog entitled "Writing By Hand" than to celebrate the first day of the Month of Letters 2014?  In case you are not familiar with this, it's a month-long challenge which is actually probably one of the most do-able challenges out there: just send a letter or postcard to someone every day the mail runs in February.  So Sundays are out, as well as February 17, which is the President's Day holiday.  That adds up to only 23 pieces of mail.

In case you don't have anyone to write (and a lot of people don't these days, I suppose), the members of the LetterMo site would be glad to swap addresses with you.  You might not (and probably won't) get many life-long penpals out of the exercise, if that's your goal, but you just might!  However, the good news is that any kind of letter or postcard or greeting card would count -- and surely you have some family members or friends that would enjoy a "just because" letter or card?  Or send a thank you note to your favorite author or musician or even just your kid's teacher.  Really, the possibilities are endless.

So I am in, of course, and here's my first day's mailing:

Leave a comment and some contact information in the comments section if you'd like, and I'll make sure you get some mail too!

Wedding calligraphy

Many of you know that my daughter is getting married soon (because you have heard about it in letters from me).  And soon means Saturday.  This Saturday.  (gulp)  We're ready, though!

However, I have talked a lot about doing calligraphy for her wedding, so I thought it was time to show it all off.

Very early in the process of wedding planning, I decided I would do the calligraphy for her invitation envelopes.  So I got out the pointed pen and the ink and started relearning my copperplate hand.  I had learned it years and years ago, but had not really used it since then.  However, it was much like riding a bicycle -- a few wobbly starts, and then it all came back to me.

Then we went shopping for the invitations themselves, and we fell in love with a particular style that just happened to include a spot for custom calligraphy. So I thought, SURE!  Why not?  Add that to the list!  The advantage was, I only had to produce a master copy of that calligraphy (the couple's names on the invitation) and send it off to be mass-printed on the invitation.  But I probably wrote those names about 50 times to get them as perfect as possible. By the way, the invitation came from Crane's. THE BEST CUSTOM STATIONERY, HANDS DOWN!

An inner envelope and the invitation.

An outer envelope.  These were huge, by the way, requiring extra postage.  Didn't think about that!

We sent out 144 invitations.  They took about four months to do.  (Yes, this was HORRIBLY slow, but I just did it on the side, in spare moments, so I wanted as much time as possible to get them finished on time.  I could have done it faster.)  I started at the first of the year and finished by April, a few weeks before it was time to mail them out.  Once I finished with that little project (ha) I started looking around for something else to do.

Another obsession of mine is chalkboards.  Specifically, the decorative kind, which is just really another form of calligraphy.  Lots of people use these chalkboards as decorative/informative elements of weddings, receptions, parties, etc.  So I thought, let's try this out!  My wife and daughter were certainly supportive of my efforts -- free calligraphy, right?

Drinks menu (small chalkboard) for the bar area at the reception.

Large chalkboard that will be placed on an easel to welcome guests to the reception.

Smaller chalkboard used for the wedding favors area -- my (future) son-in-law makes a mean grilling rub that he put into test tubes (because he's a scientist) to give to the wedding guests.

And then, there's going to be a bridesmaids luncheon the day before the wedding, so why not do a couple of chalkboards there to label the drink dispensers?

So there you have it -- my calligraphy journey to the wedding day!

Winner of the INDIARY Expedition Notebook

Well, it's Saturday, and so it's time to pick the winner of the INDIARY Expedition Handmade Notebook.  And Ye Olde Random Number Generator says...

This means....

Derrick is the winner!

Congratulations, Derrick, and I think we all agree that if you do indeed have "Spawn's Journal" tooled into the cover of this notebook, you are completely obligated to show it to us on your blog.  Can I get an "Amen" on that??!? :-)

Now get ready for another giveaway (the 10,000 page views giveaway), coming soon!  (Right after I address this whole "Week of Pencils" thing that I have been talking about forever.  Or maybe during it, I don't know.  Time to put up or shut up!)

10,000+ Page Views!

I'm not quite sure how it happened, but this morning I logged in to my Blogger account and saw that the page views on this blog have surpassed 10,000.  I knew it was coming, but it just "snuck up" on me!  I am very excited and gratified by this, so to you, readers, I say THANKS!

And yes, I remember that I promised a 10,000 hits giveaway (way back when I hit 5,000).  As soon as my current giveaway (the INDIARY notebook) is finished, I'll have some more goodies to give away in honor of this milestone.  Stay tuned!

Review and Giveaway: INDIARY "Expedition" Handmade Leather Notebook

Two weeks ago I received an email inquiry from INDIARY (www.INDIARY.com), a new (to me) company that makes some of the most beautiful and affordable handmade notebooks out there.  Their representative wanted to know if I was interested in reviewing one of their notebooks.  Ummmm... Yes!  I am always up for a review of anything having to do with paper, pens, pencils, or notebooks.

So today I am reviewing the INDIARY "Expedition" notebook.  (Here's the direct link to the item's page on Amazon.com, which is evidently the distributor for all the notebooks in the INDIARY line.)  The notebook is handcrafted out of buffalo leather, with a string closure, wrap-around flap, and filled with 100 pages of handmade paper.  Yes, you read that right.  This entire notebook, down to the paper itself, is completely handmade.  It is a work of art.  And it is a feast for the senses, from the feel of the leather, to the texture of the paper, to the wonderful leather smell of the entire notebook.

 

The INDIARY logo stamped on the front flap of the notebook.

Did I mention the smell?  This is hardcore leather, folks.

 

Detail showing the edge of the notebook and the signatures of paper inside.

 

Closeup of the signatures -- each signature contains 10 sheets (folded to make 20 sheets in the signature), and the notebook contains 5 signatures for a total of 100 sheets.

 A closeup of the handmade paper inside the notebook.  This paper is soft and silky to the touch, and nearly every page has flower petals embedded in the paper for a really wonderful touch.

 Writing on the first page of the notebook.

 Testing the notebook out with some favorite writing instruments.

 

Closeup of writing samples

 Another closeup of more writing samples

I have to admit that I was a little apprehensive about the handmade paper in this notebook.  Even though handmade paper is usually beautiful, it can be fantastically finicky to use.  It often bleeds like crazy and can be almost too delicate to write on.  As you can see from the above photos, however, even a fountain pen (the Lamy Safari with a medium nib) performed respectably on this paper.

 

Surprisingly little bleedthrough -- I've seen much more expensive papers with more bleedthrough than this!

 The only writing instrument that really did not play nice with the handmade paper was the Blackwing 602 pencil.  I daresay any pencil would work the same.  It probably helps that the Blackwing is typically on the soft side, so the writing (or drawing, if you're so inclined) is feasible.  But don't try to erase!!  You can see what happens in the photo above when I unthinkingly tried erasing.

So now I can hear you thinking (one of my many hidden talents) -- "Gee, this is all really beautiful, Randall, but I can't afford something like this."

Yes, you can.  This notebook is normally $39.90, which is a great deal for this kind of item.

But right now it's $25 (on sale as of this writing).  Can you say BARGAIN!?!?

If you have Amazon Prime, that's all you'll pay (unless you spring for faster shipping).  I don't know about you, but I for one have never seen this kind of handmade notebook for this price.  If you are in the market for a completely handmade notebook, I don't think you can do better than this one.

WANT TO TRY ONE?  OK, LET'S DO A GIVEAWAY!

INDIARY supplied me with two of these notebooks -- one to try out, and one to give away.  So here's your chance.  You can win one of these beautiful notebooks.

RULES OF THE GIVEAWAY:

1. Leave a comment on this post telling me what you would use the notebook for.  In particular, I would love it if you would give me some insight on how to use the handmade paper of this notebook.  It's not your average paper, to be sure, so I know I can't really use it like ordinary paper in an ordinary notebook.  I'm thinking this kind of paper calls for something really artistic.  Please give me some ideas!  (If you don't have any ideas, just tell me how cool my blog is.)  IMPORTANT: To have an eligible entry, your comment MUST provide some way for me to contact you.  You probably know how this works!

2. The giveaway will be open until Saturday, June 15.  I will choose one commenter to be the winner.  The winner will be chosen in the usual way, by random number generator.  And then I will send the notebook out to the winner as soon as I can!

Good luck!

DISCLAIMER: This notebook was supplied for review by Anja and the fine folks at INDIARY.  I was not compensated monetarily for this review.  All opinions here are my own.