There's something about collaborative notebooks and journals that we just love--everyone given the same canvas and emerging with their own expressive artworks that are completely unique. Another one of our favorites is the COLORS Notebook Project, where individual blank copies of COLORS magazine were sent around the world to be filled, illustrated, and edited by you.

People were asked to choose a topic, tell their stories, truths, fears, adventures, ideas, inventions, dreams and experiences in celebration freedom of expression.

The notebooks were exhibited at the Pompidou Center in France in October 2006 and at the Triennale di Milan in 2007.

Find out more about the project here and look forward to the upcoming COLORS Notebook Volume A, the first volume compiling the submissions that have been sent from all over the world.

Purples and bronzes ring in fall colors in Port2Port's new line of letterpressed cards. We love the hand-packaging wrapped in twine and think these would be great for your September letters. Available through etsy; $21.00 for a card set of 5.

[Photo by Nicole Marti on Flickr]

+ If you're a participant in the Modern Letter Project you should have received your September address via email. Please email us at themodernletter(at)gmail(dot)com if you have not received the address.

+ We're looking for a few more people to fill open slots this month, so if you are interested in participating, read more about it here and send us an email with your address, birthdate, and the subject line: "I want to write letters."

Sometimes we find ourselves stumped for ideas, wanting to write, but just not inspired. We're pretty excited about The Majency Oracle, a 169 card printable deck of cards meant to spark the imagination of writers, poets, or any creative individuals.

The deck is designed to be printed on any color printer, on standard 3x5 index cards. It features a variety of color schemes and background images to create a unique experience each time a card is drawn.

Each card contains a single phrase designed to prod the creative mind down a path of its own. It might be a snippet of dialogue that suggests an overheard conversation; it might be a fragment of a description of a visual scene, one that could lend itself to a depiction in paint or prose. It could point to things waiting to be created, as small as a short story or as large as a mythology.

You can download the deck at designer James Bickers' site, as well as more information about the cards.

As a kid, there was always someone--a teacher, my mom, my dad, my best friend--who just had that perfect handwriting. I was infatuated with the way they drew little maps, wrote instructions on the chalkboard, made grocery lists, or signed their name since my own handwriting always looked like chicken scribbles.

I was super excited to discover Maybelle, the force behind May+Belle Calligraphy & Design, a professional calligrapher and does beautiful work that is perfect for designing a custom letterhead, for invitations, place-cards, very special stationery, and lots more. Describing her style as "perfectly imperfect," Maybelle's style rings through and true.

For more info go to Maybelle's website or email her at maybelle(at)may-belle(dot)com.

When we heard of the project Post Secret a few years ago we fell in love with the idea of everyone revealing a bit of themselves anonymously--the idea of sharing yourself with a stranger, your deepest, darkest secrets--and making that one little postcard an emblem of who you were or who you were hiding. It's simultaneously inspiring, heart-wrenching, powerful, surprising, and unbelievable. Watch the new video trailer below and submit your own secrets to post secret:

Post Secret is this:

You are invited to anonymously contribute your secrets to post secret. Each secret can be a hope, regret, funny experience, unseen kindness, fantasy, belief, fear, betrayal, erotic desire, confession, or childhood humiliation. reveal anything - as long as it is true and you have never shared it with anyone before.

Create your 4-by-6-inch postcards out of any mailable material. If you want to share two or more secrets, use multiple postcards. put your complete secret and image on one side of the postcard.

Mail your secrets, or other correspondence, to:

post secret
13345 Copper Ridge Road
Germantown, Maryland
USA 20874-3454

... and while we're on the topic of Post Secret, we can't forget to mention there is a new book out, A Lifetime of Secrets. Available at Amazon ($18.45) & other online book retailers.

Oh, typewriters. How we love their sound, the rhythmic click-clack of a writer burning the midnight oil on an old Smith-Corona. We don't know about you, but we are always keeping our eye out on those vintage typewriters on ebay, hoping to win that bid on that sexy red machine that caught our eye.

One of our favorite new discoveries is The Virtual Typewriter Museum, a compendium of information about the history of this machine by looking at its timeline, typewriter brands, collections, and historical photographs.

The typewriter is one of the great inventions of 19th Century communications technology. Between the 1860s and 1920s engineers, inventors and even carpenters invested all their creativity in the development of the ultimate writing machine. This virtual museum, that is based on private collections of antique typewriters from around the world, is a tribute to their ingenuity.

Take a look inside.

And speaking of typewriters!

We were blown away to discover Paul Smith's Typewriter Art. Smith made his pictures based on the @ # $ % ^ & * ( ) __ signs, a technique he developed because cerebral palsy as a child left him unable to type with two steady hands at once. Instead he used his left hand to steady the right one while holding down the shift key. Pretty incredible.

One of the best ways to add a hand-made and earth-friendly touch to your letters is to make your own paper and recycled envelopes. Instructables--our favorite site for crafting, finding inspiration, and good ideas for everyday how-to's in the realms of food, home, lifestyle, and art--has some first rate tutorials.

Click here for the make your own paper tutorial:

and here to learn to make your own recycled envelopes.

We here at the Modern Letter Project are always wondering--with participants all over the world--where people are writing their letters. At a special desk? In the park? Sitting on their beds? In libraries? We were thrilled to find this collection of writers' rooms and descriptions of what about these places inspire them and make them special for writing. Take a look.

The writing room of Michael Longley:

"As untidy as a raven's, my nest is lined with volumes that reflect obsessions: botany, ornithology, topography; the first world war and the Holocaust; the Classics, mainly Homer and Ovid. I keep dictionaries close to hand ranging from Ulster Scots to Latin and Greek. I'm fond of the rather unwieldy Webster's Dictionary and have become addicted to the Collins Wordfinder: The Ultimate Thesaurus. I can hardly think without it. "

The writing room of Carmen Callil:

"I can only write surrounded by the silent presence of other people. Everything in my study does this for me. The desk was my father's and then my mother's, and when she died my brothers shipped it over from Australia for me. It is a splendid piece of 30s Australiana (at its worst) and, as I love colour and anything decorated, it's been covered with painted squiggles."

The writing room of Colm Toibin:

"I write in longhand in notebooks using disposable fountain pens, covering only the right-hand side of the notebook for the first draft, then rewriting some of the sentences and paragraphs on the left-hand side, and then, after a while, putting the stuff on a word processor which is in the other room...The room is like a cave, and has books I love in it. The main door was closed up and a smaller opening was made under the stairs. (I went away while all this was happening.) The furniture is locked in, and part of me is locked in too, or I hope it is, although I often made a bid to escape. I have left instructions that I would like to be buried here when I die or a bit before, the cave bricked up."

... And we'd love to know: where do you write?

The only thing we like better than writing and receiving letters is reading the ones other people have written. Sometimes intimate, sometimes humorous, and often revealing, letters can express desires, frustrations, goals, and secrets. More Than Words is a terrific collection of letters written to spouses, friends, clients by Frederic Edwin Church, Thomas Eakins, Winslow Homer, Frida Kahlo, Andrew Wyeth, Rockwell Kent, Lyonel Feininger, John Sloan, Alfred Frueh, Man Ray, Eero Saarinen, Alexander Calder, Gio Ponti, and Andy Warhol.

How does a visual artist write a letter? Often as a beautiful work of art.

More Than Words is available online for $24.95.

We're a huge sucker for notecards and nature themes, so how could we resist some of these Jill Bliss designs? Based out of Northern California, Jill Bliss makes lovely just-about-everythings, but we especially love her notecards. Printed with vegetable-based inks on 100% recycled paper (chlorine free and 50% post-consumer waste) with recycled paper envelopes, not only are these about the environment, they are environmentally conscious.

$12 for packs of four cards.

Click HERE for the mushrooms.
Click HERE for the tidepools.

Live in New York and itching to make your own letterpress notecards? Breck Hostetter & Matt Heindl of Sesame Letterpress in Brooklyn, NY will be teaching a Monogrammed Notecards course in DUMBO, Brooklyn in October.

"Always loved letterpress? here's your chance to make your own set of 50 custom monogrammed notecards and envelopes while learning the basics of printing. Bring samples of line-art images or monograms to the lecture if you know what you might like to print; please note: this class will be held at the sesame letterpress studio in DUMBO, Brooklyn (F train, jay street station). Class limited to 6."

One 1-hour lecture; One 4-hour printing workshop (5 hours)
$220 + $40 supply fee (paid to instructor at lecture)

Session A: Tues, Oct 2, 7-8pm and Sat, Oct 13, hrs TBD
Session B: Tues, Oct 23, 7-8pm and Sat, Nov 3, hrs TBD

Visit the Make Workshop website for more information.