We were super excited to hear this morning that Lotta Jansdotter, designer of some of our favorite textiles, our favorite sewing book, and lots of lovely goods to wear and for the home has been commissioned by the post office in Åland (the island in the middle of the Baltic Sea where she was born) to create postcards.

Lotta will be sending only 25 of these postcards in each design from the Åland Post Office with a hand-written greeting by Lotta and will be addressed to the person specified. The cards will be posted and sent from Aland on May 9th, the first day of their stamp release!

The limited edition postcards are available in 3 designs for $30.00 each.

Design*Sponge has a great tutorial today from crafters Derek & Lauren on how to make inside-out security envelopes. Turn those boring whites inside out and take advantage of the beautiful gridding and patterns inside.

See the full instructions HERE.

Smoothfluid on Flickr has a great set of scanned blank postcard backs. We love 'em.

When our friend (and former interviewee, Maria, from port2port press) sent us an email letting us know about this new audio-visual postcard project, we were pretty darn excited. Read on to find out what this project entails, and how you can participate! There is currently an open call for submissions with information regarding what to send, and where to send it below.

From the Great Isle of Imaginaire
Your grandmother's kitchen when you were ten years old. The magical fortress of couch cushions that you made with your best friend. The idea you had of India before you visited. The aquatic world you visit in your dreams…

There are places that we remember and places we imagine that don't really exist in our day-to-day world. They can't be photographed or documented and yet they have tangible physical qualities. They smell like something, they taste like something. And they definitely look and sound like something.

Send us a postcard from that place. A two-dimensional visual representation of the place you remember or the place you imagine—a landscape, a map, an object, a chart--depicted through pencil, paint, print, photo... Then record the sounds of that place, or sounds about that place. Use professional recording equipment or your dad's old dictaphone and give us a soundscape, a song, a dialogue, or a journalistic piece of your memory and imagination. An audio postcard and a visual postcard from a place no one else can visit.

We will collect these visual and audio postcards and post them together on a website, initially. Eventually, we hope to publish some of the entries in a book and/or display them in an exhibit.

Postcards must be 4.25X6 inches on heavy card stock and able to be used as an actual postcard (blank on the back side, or only containing a description of the place, and room for writing and a stamp, like a real postcard). They can be mailed in an envelope to:

From the Great Isle of Imaginare
c/o Emily Hilliard
24 ½ St. Louis St.
Burlington, VT 05401

Audio files must be a wav or mp3, no longer than 3 minutes and can be
e-mailed to isleofimaginare@gmail.com.

We would like to have the first round of entries by April 1st, with hopes of posting a group of entries on the website by June. After that, submissions can be rolling.

You can contact us at isleofimaginare@gmail.com if you have any questions.

To the Great Isle of Imaginare, Bon Voyage!

Support art--David Horvitz, namely, who wants to use the mail to inspire creative projects. Mail him a designated sum of money (via paypal) to complete one of a list of tasks described as part of his project, Things For Sale That I Will Mail You. Horvitz's creative plans? They range from re-sending money, to documenting Iceland, to going to a psychic, to going to Cuba before Castro dies. Maybe you've been hankering to support the arts, but just didn't know where to start. We think this would be quite a good place.

We're late on the ball on this one, but we're still psyched to tell you about the newest postcard project on our horizon, The Postcard Says...brought to you by the lovely folk at five and a half (who you might recognize from these awesome notebooks).

For this project, all you have to do is sign up and send your address. Five and a half sends a postcard your way with a specific task written on the back. You do that task and send them a photo of your accomplished mission. While sign ups for this round have already filled up, stay tuned to the five and a half blog for the results and to sign up for the next round!

Yesterday we mentioned postcrossing--the international postcard exchange--but today we're really excited to tell you about bookcrossing--the international book exchange. Do you have lots of books you'd like to share with the world--and other ones you'd like to read but not buy? With bookcrossing, you can register your library (each book gets its own unique ID number) and you release it into the world. As it makes its way from destination to destination (you can search for books you'd like), each book is "caught," and the recipient makes a journal entry that it was received. You can take advantage of the postal service to follow the journey of your books around the world.

The faster you just on the book bandwagon, the faster you'll get books, so hurry up, and sign up here.

Another great project for you snail mail junkies is Postcrossing, a postcard project that tracks postcards mailed and received from all over the world.

Once you've registered on the site, you'll receive an address that comes with an ID identifying that specific postcard. Find (or make) a postcard of anything you like and send it to your assigned address along the the ID number. Every time you send a postcard, someone else will also receive your address, so you should get a postcrossing correspondence as well. You can write about anything--yourself, country, an anecdote, favorite movie or book.

Sign up, and take a look at the Postcrossing flickr page, where over 29,000 postcards have been sent and received.

Thanks to the Urban Outfitters' blog for featuring us on their site!

It's also where we learned about Future Me--the website and the book--an awesome project where you can write emails to your future self.

We admit the thought is a wee bit morbid, but how many of you have ever imagined your own funeral? What do you wish you could still say -- out of love, out of anger, out of joy, out of regret.

The Dead Letter Office is a holding space for these hypothetical sentiments. Based on the premise that "You are now dead. You just died. You don't know how it happened, you don't know what happens now. The only thing you know for certain is that your life is over," the project offers you a chance to compose a letter to the open world. Be as brief or wordy as you want.

Letters are kept in an online database of Dead Letters from other people (anonymous) written to others. You can read other random Dead Letters or explore the database for the saddest, funniest, most touching, angriest, and most insightful letters.

The project suggests, not to foreshadow, to print your letter out, "fold it up and keep it in your wallet, never telling anyone your Dead Letter exists—until the day you die."

Find out more by visiting The Dead Letter Office, and add your letter to the database.

We've recently developed a great love for the postcard -- the perfect template for a short note, a "thinking of you" moment, a memento from a far off place. Less commitment then a letter (no return address involved), and sans envelope, and only 26 cents to boot, postcards offer a creative template for brief expressions.

We were excited to discover Post Due, a postcard swap project that describes itself as follows:

".post due. is a collective of people that create unique, handmade postcards each month. The idea is to connect with at least one person from around the world through your own expression of art.Every couple months an email is sent to you with the address of someone from the collective that you send your postcard to. The postcards are anything from newspaper clipping collages, quick oil or watercolor paintings, sketches with a pen, photography ... pretty much anything the post office will accept as deliverable mail."

Postcards are scanned and displayed in an online gallery on the site. So far there are 351 postcards and counting, coming from all over the world. Visit the Post Due website for more info on how to sign up and submit your postcards to their collection.

We love thinking about handwritten mail as little pieces of traveling art. Whether the art is in the stamps, your gorgeous hand-writing on the envelope, the little doodles you make along the pages of your margins, or your letter is composed out of a collage of cut-outs: the letter can appear in endless forms exposing endless amounts of creativity.

We were psyched to come across The Envelope Collective, a project about envelope art that we just love. Started by two friends, Garrett Miller and Adam Morse, this project is an ongoing experiment in collaborative art using the mail envelope as its medium. The website serves as an online gallery for pieces received and currently contains an extensive (and search-able) gallery of nearly 1,500 envelopes from all over the United States. You can also submit your own envelope art, participate in mail-art related discussions, or just browse through all these gorgeous envelopes and get inspired to make your own.

To participate, just follow these three easy steps:
1. Turn a letter into a piece of art.
2. Put a stamp (or two) on it.
3. Mail it [click HERE the address to send it to]

The holidays are prime time for letter-writing and card-sending--whether it's to your best friends, or cards to those aunts you only talk to once a year. As huge fans of holiday wrap, holiday cards, holiday crafts, and holiday gifts (we think you get the idea), we're excited to share all of our finds and tips on ways to spruce up your holiday snail mail.

One great way to get started and to add a touch off personalization to your stationery is to make your own envelopes. Martha Stewart has a great tutorial on Envelope Fold Holiday letters--and you can write your letter right on the flip-side of the paper that becomes the envelope. Another idea--great for all times of the year--is to illustrate your envelope side with your favorite doodling pattern.

For those of you who not only love sending and receiving mail, but are also crafty and creative, we highly encourage you to race and sign up for Evlove's "Give What You Want" Holiday Swap. You can either send a gift to fulfill someone else's wishlist, or put together a creative package to send to an eagerly waiting recipient. Emily Cox (Evlove) writes,

"I LOVE getting mail and I LOVE getting presents. Especially when they come in the mail. The Holidays and all the madness that goes with them are almost upon us. I can't think of a better pick me up than a surprise in the mail. So here's the details. Come up with a package of stuff you'd like to get this holiday season, and send it to someone else. Gift giving Karma is bound to come your way, as you receive a present in return.

The details:
1. Email (emilycox at gmail dot com) with SWAP in the subject line. Please email by November 18th
2. Include your
name:
email:
shipping address:
something you want this holiday season: (include link if you've got it)
your url for blog/ flickr/ web page if you've got it.
**indicate if you'd be willing to have an international swap partner
3. Put together a package of stuff you'd be delighted to be receiving.
4. Wrap it up real nice
5. By December 1 ship out a present to your swap buddy I assign. Value of gifts should be below $30. Please include stuff you'd really enjoy receiving.
6. Mailbox Bliss awaits."

Remember, sign up ends November 18th, so sign up soon!

Photo by Nick Ut/Associated Press

For those of us sending out letters through the United States Postal Service, there may be a lot more meaning behind the ritual of posting a letter than we fully realize. When we slide our expertly decorated or consummately stylish envelopes into one of the numerous blue collection boxes conveniently placed throughout America, do we really understand how or why this elaborate system of mailing was developed? And what does it mean to us that we have access to this service? I know that I really never thought twice about it--not until we at the Modern Letter Project decided to look into the history of the U.S.P.S.

In this recurring series, starting today, we hope to explore some of the underlying concepts and philosophies behind the advent of our federal postal system, describe some of the more interesting stories and personalities behind this development, as well highlight some of the illuminating and fun historical facts that comprise this organization's history, and in turn, hopefully be able to begin to contextualize the practice of letter writing within American history.

Some topics that we'll be tackling include: the influence of the postal service on the development of the roads and transportation systems that we use today, the relationship of the U.S.P.S. to Colonial American history, evolution of the prepaid postage system, the Pony Express, the function of mail in democratic discourse, the ways that technology has changed how we send and receive mail, how exactly a letter travels all that way, mailboxes through the ages, the recent effects of rate hikes on independent media, and of course, as many curious and bizarre stories about postmasters as we can find.

If you are too impatient to wait for this discussion (the FedEx overnight crowd), the U.S.P.S. provides a wonderful and expansive summary of their history that has been a great inspiration and starting point for this series. If you see anything in there that you would like to see us look into, please let us know.

In the meantime, where do you think your letters fit into this story?

During wars before the age of email, letter-writing was the only way for soldiers at bay to keep in touch with friends and family at home. Often writing on the move, they'd write their thoughts and deepest concerns and send them out into the ether, hoping they'd reached their loved ones. The Canadian Letters & Images Project is an online archive of the Canadian war experience--including collections from the Korean War, WWI, WWII, pre-1914 collections, and post-Korean war collections. The letters have been collected, categorized by time period and listed alphabetically by surname, and then transcribed for public viewing.

The collection exists both as historical record and memorial to those who have served, offering glimpses into the personal lives of those abroad. By collecting wartime correspondence, photographs, and other personal materials, from the battlefront and the homefront, the letters tell the story of both the ordinary and the extraordinary wartime experience.

See the collections.

When we first incubated the idea of the Modern Letter Project, we set about investigating what letter projects already existed, and how ours could revive letters in a new way. We wanted it to be international, we wanted it to be fun, and we wanted it to be creative. It's important to us to have a dialogue with our letter-writing pals, and the internet allows us to do that--and we want people who are writing letters to experience the give and take of a hand-written exchange.

One of the projects we discovered is Rick Schrager's The Letter Project. The idea is simple--far simpler than the Modern Letter Project: email Rick your name and address, and he will send you a letter. That's it!

Rick writes, "I started this project after listening to an inner and insistent voice encouraging me to encourage you to keep letter writing alive. The project has a hidden plus for me. By crafting these letters my letter-writing skills are less likely to gather moss. Unless you are very specific in your request, I get to create the contents on my own accord. This being the case, your letter may contain things as banal as descriptions of what I encounter on my ride to work, abstruse quotes from ancient texts, or, something as simple (and useful I might add) as my recipe for the world's best cheese-steak sandwich. I might even be inclined to fabricate a tale or two, just to keep things interesting. The letter you receive should be as convivial for you as it is fun for me to write. After you read your letter you can choose to reply, or not, this is entirely up to you. "

Some of our participants have voiced concerns about sending out far more letters than they receive. Perhaps those adding to pad their numbers of letters received can sign up for Rick's great project, and find one more pen pal in this great wide world.

Visit The Letter Project.

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

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.

[image by baconvelocity on flickr]

Among us letter-writers here at the Modern Letter Project, we know there are also many bloggers, notepassers, card-senders, and journal writers. The common link is of course the work of pen (or pencil) on paper, the ability to doodle in the margins, add your own artistic touches, and get personal in a tangible, non-electronic way.

What is a blog, but a public journal, a journal but an extended series of private letters?

[image by KOOLAIDAPOCALYPZZ on flickr]

[image by LBeto on flickr]

We're pretty sure everyone knows about the moleskine--those little leather bound notebooks with the seemingly unbreakable spines, with a pouch on one side and either blank-lined-or graphed lines on the inside. Corie, one-half of the MLP team passed along word of the Moleskine Flickr Pool this morning, a technicolor, talent-filled flickr group filled with a whole gamut of what you can do on those little pages of your moleskine.

We love these sketches!

And, it makes us think our Modern Letter Project letters can be just as pretty (though don't feel pressure!). Do you like to draw? Add some doodles to your margins. Need some creative inspiration? Take a look through this pool, get inspired, and add some of your brilliant letters to the Modern Letter Project Flickr Pool.

We discovered these great prison art letters via swaptorium, one of our favorite sites full of collections and curiosities. The letters, from 1977, were found in a box of junk at a storage auction, and contained the supposed NSFW content of what a sexually frustrated inmate would write to his dearly beloved.

[via swaptorium]

We here at the Modern Letter Project HQ are pretty enthusiastic about the 1000 Journals Project, described as:

an ongoing collaborative experiment attempting to follow 1000 journals throughout their travels. The goal is to provide a method for interaction and shared creativity among friends and strangers.

With similar goals for interaction and shared creativity here at MLP, we were excited to see the recent release of the 1000 Journals Project book, published by Chronicle Books.

Featuring 212 colored pages--a compilation of the best selections from journals that have traveled the world over--the book includes personal stories, from humorous-to-tear jerking, tactile thread-stitched pages, maps, and diagrams.

To read more about the 1000 Journals Project, you can visit their "about" page, look at more pictures of the new book online, buy the book at Amazon, or join the latest version of the project, 1001 Journals.

Reminder!
We're halfway through June, so if you haven't sent your June letter out yet, this is a great weekend to relax outside and get writing. Remember to upload your photos to Modern Letter Project Flickr Pool and to send us your stories!