DIY road-trip mail-art

I’m just back from a lovely journey with my little boy, an impromptu road-trip that we took together which was a really delightful mother-and-son bonding experience. I’ll write about that in this blog shortly.

But in the meantime, in honour of that trip, I’ve created a mail-art envelope template celebrating the whole idea of “road-trip.” Maybe you could make it and use it to write to someone, wishing them bon voyage before a holiday? Or happy graduation (moving on to the next thing in life)? Or maybe to ask, “Would you like to join me on a road trip?”

How to make this mail-art

The simplest way to make it is to print out the template, cut out around the edges, fold in the sides and glue them to the back, as indicated on the template. Then colour in the image, writing your pen-pal’s address in the body of the kombi.

Put a stamp in the top right-hand corner, and your letter will be ready to post.

Flexible design

However, I’ve also factored in some flexibility, to help you make this illustration truly yours.

First of all, there’s no driver in the kombi. That’s because depending on where you live in the world, you’ll want your driver to be on one side or the other of the kombi. If you sit on the left to drive, the driver of your kombi will likely be smaller and less clear than mine. You could just use some vague shading to suggest the presence of person.

Secondly, I’ve left the background deliberately blank. Of course, you could colour and send your kombi on its own, as-is. But if you’re feeling creative, you could also add in a background. I’ve made my kombi road-trip through a pine-forest. Where would you like to drive? You could add in ocean views, a city-scape, winding country lanes… anything you like.

I hope you enjoy making this mail-art, and don’t forget to let me know how you get on!

Click the template below to download your own copy, and get started.

A body of work

I called this project #100DaysInDinan. One hundred days can feel as fleeting as a week if you happen to be on sabbatical in a medieval French village with your two children. One hundred days pass in the blink of an eye as you watch those children grow (why are their pants too short again? weren’t they in nappies just yesterday?). Although I’m sure you’ll agree one hundred days can stretch out like a lifetime during lockdown. 

When I set myself the challenge of illustrating and posting a miniature postcard every day for a hundred days, I hoped to celebrate the memories of our hundred days in France and make them last a little longer. I also wanted to see if I could establish some kind of creative habit that would last me beyond the project. 

In the former, I was very successful. Each miniature illustration took me back to a place, a moment, or a conversation: tiny touchstones that helped to keep me connected with those halcyon days. But in the latter, I have to say I was an abject failure. I still wholeheartedly subscribe to the premise of “doing something creative for 20 minutes a day,” which is where I was going when I set myself this challenge. But the reality is that it took me a lot more than 20 minutes - sometimes several hours - to plan out, draw, paint, annotate and sign each postcard, then trace, cut out and paste together a mini envelope, then look up the next person’s address on my list of a hundred addresses and carefully write their address onto a tiny piece of paper and glue it to the envelope, then look up the postage cost online for the destination country and find the right stamps, then affix a wax seal to the back… 

Frequently I struggle to find 20 minutes in my day so multiple hours was just too big an ask. That, and of course I’d have to pack away all my paints and papers every time anyone wanted to eat at the dining table (unreasonable family!), only to bring them all out and set up again the next time I wanted to paint. The reality then of my “one painting a day” project was that I’d knock out seven or eight in a weekend by doing nothing else, and then not get to the rest for another month or two. And so time passed. 

I sent the last of the postcards to their new homes during Melbourne’s second lockdown, more than a year after I’d started my “100 days” project. The postal services being what they are at the moment, some of them are even taking 100 days or more to complete their journeys across the world. But I kind of like that. It’s fitting, in its own way, that a project that meant so much to me and was such an unexpectedly enormous labour of love would then take its own sweet time to complete the journey. After all, the postcards I was using were 100 years old or more: they had waited a century to be posted, there was no need to rush to the finish line. 

And yet as I slipped the final 12 postcards into the red letterbox outside the post office, I did so with a distinct feeling of underwhelm. All that time. All that work! All those precious memories. All those oceans for my postcards to cross. And I was left with… nothing. Just the empty cardboard packets in which the postcards had been stored, locked away for a hundred years or more in somebody’s drawer. 

It occurred to me too late that I had actually created for myself a “body of work.” But by posting them all away one by one, I hadn’t let the pleasant weight of creating that work actually settle.

I had been mindfully in the moment, painting each postcard one at a time, reliving the memory it evoked. But moments in life, while individually precious, are also cumulative, each of them drawing on those that came before and forming the scaffold for those that are yet come. (If you look at it this way, a life is a body of work. Or many bodies of work, to be more accurate.) 

My miniature paintings were each part of a larger work, tiles in a mosaic, and while I wasn’t necessarily thinking about them in this way as I painted, the idea must have been there somewhere in my subconscious because instinctively I numbered each of them, solidifying their individual places within the one-hundred. They were never meant to exist on their own, and I learned that truth too late. If I had my time again I’d hold the postcards back, painting them all and then viewing them together to see what kinds of stories they told, before posting them back out into the world. 

So now, for you but if I’m honest mostly for myself, I am going to retrospectively survey my body of work. 

By pulling all 100 illustrated postcards together in this gigantic blog post, using iPhone photographs I snapped before posting (sometimes quite hastily), I have tried to piece together what this body of work might have been. Doing it this way has felt a little bit like an archaeological dig through my memories, once again painstakingly focusing on each individual item, not seeing the big picture until it is finally done, then standing up at last, stretching my back, and surveying the landscape uncovered. 

Here it is, my body of work. A hundred days in the living, a year and a half in the making, and for these postcards, a century in the waiting. I wonder what stories it has to tell, when all the pieces are connected together like this? What does it say to me? Where does it take you?

If I learn the answer I’ll let you know. 

A bookish mail swap

UPDATE 22 February 2020: this swap is now closed. If you want to be sure you’ll hear about future swaps and similar activities, scroll to the bottom of this post to subscribe to my blog.

In addition to this, I have just reopened my popular letter-writing and mail-art e-course, The Most Beautiful Letter You’ve Ever Written, to new students, including a private community where I host frequent swaps and other mail-related projects. More information is available via the link above, and I’d love to see you there!

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During the past few weeks I’ve been finalising updates and additions to my online letter-writing course, The Most Beautiful Letter You’ve Ever Written. I’ve created a whole new module, in addition to what’s already there, dedicated to “play,” the idea of games and activities that people like to do through the post.

One of the most simple but often wonderfully rewarding of these games is to participate in a mail swap. The idea of a mail swap is pretty straightforward: you are assigned a “swap partner,” and you each sends a letter or small parcel to the other. Often, these swaps are themed. Maybe you’re encouraged to send each other tea, for example, or stickers, or pressed flowers.

A swap is a lovely way of sharing something beautiful with someone else by post, and receiving something lovely back… often from other parts of the country or even the world, bringing you tiny insights into your swap partner’s life and where they live.

(I also like swaps because they don’t come with the obligation of an ongoing pen-pal relationship. It’s true that sometimes swap partners choose to continue writing to one another, but that’s not the official aim of the game. You’re only signing up for a straightforward swap so if you love the idea of snail mail but are too short on time to have a pen pal, this is a lovely compromise.)

Let’s swap some lovely mail!

All this talking about the joys of mail swap inspired me to host one of my own, just for fun.

For this swap, I’ve decided to channel the snail-mail version of getting lost in a second-hand bookshop: one that is stacked with towering, floor-to-ceiling shelves that are crammed with stories just waiting to be discovered. The thrill of an unexpected literary find at a garage sale or weekend market. The joy of trawling the bouquinistes that line the Seine in Paris for literary treasure. An entire afternoon lost in an un-put-downable adventure.

The smell of old books.

If you’d like to swap a beloved old book with a stranger, by mail, read on to learn how to participate. There is no fee to join in, no limits to the number of people involved, and you won’t have to subscribe to anything. Just be sure you read and agree to the terms and conditions, so we can keep this a fun and rewarding experience for everyone.

What we are swapping

• A second-hand book! This might be one from your shelves, or one you find at a second-hand bookstore, garage sale, thrift market, or at a free book-swap library

• Choose a book that you have already read and enjoyed, or if you really can’t find one, choose something that you would love to read for yourself (if you weren’t posting it on)

• In the lovely tradition of book-giving, write a dedication inside the book. Something along the lines of “To [swap partner’s name] from [your name], I hope you enjoy this story of [something you like about the book].” Then add in the date, your city and your country

• This is a very simple swap, and there is no expectation that you add in anything extra. Personally I think a little note to your swap partner could be nice, but that’s up to you! Likewise if you like to decorate your mail feel free to go ahead, but it’s not a requirement

How it works

• Register for the swap using the form at the bottom of this page. You’ll be asked to agree to some conditions around respecting people’s privacy, particularly in relation to never sharing postal addresses, and ensuring your correspondence is respectful. All participants must be 18 or over (otherwise it’s too tricky for people to choose appropriate books)

• You’ll also be asked to share your name and postal address, which I will give to your swap partner but nobody else. If you have concerns about privacy, consider using a friend’s PO Box, a work address, or some other public address where you can pick up your mail

• I’ll send you the name and address of your swap partner. As this is an international swap, that person may live on the other side of the world or two streets over - it’s all part of the lovely lottery of writing to strangers. (You may want to factor the international nature of this swap in to your choice of books as well - a heavy hardcover book will be a lot more expensive to post than a thin paperback)

• Once you receive your swap partner’s name and address, simply write your inscription inside the book you’ve chosen, and post it off to them within the timeframes outlined below

Key swap dates

• Registrations: registrations to join in the bookish mail swap open today (Tuesday 18 February, 2020) and will close on Saturday 22 February, 2020

• Swap partners received: I’ll send you your swap partner’s name and address on Monday 24 February, 2020

• Postage deadline: please post your parcel on or before Monday 2 March, 2020*

The reason for these tight timeframes is because, while we all start out with the best intentions in the world, life gets busy, and far away deadlines become all too easy to put off, and then forget. If you forget to post your parcel, your swap partner gets nothing (likewise if they forget to post their parcel, you get nothing). Keeping things snappy makes it more likely that everyone will remember to take part and everyone will benefit from the swap.

An added incentive

* As an added incentive to help you remember to post out your bookish mail on time, if you email me a photograph of your parcel, stamped and ready to be posted at the mail-box, on or before Monday 2 March your time, I’ll send you a little hand-written postcard from my stack of vintage postcards.

I’ll also share your photo on my Instagram Stories to share the love (blurring out your swap partner’s address first), and link back to you if you have an Instagram address or blog.

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Christmas, penned and posted with love

December! This year our advent calendar is actually a book. You open the widows on the front cover, and a little picture corresponds to the relevant ‘day’ inside, where we find instructions for a new Christmassy activity each day. So far, we’ve written letters to Santa, made raspberry hot chocolate, sung Deck the Halls, and folded paper snowflakes. (I suspect the children would still have preferred one of those calendars with tiny chocolates inside each window, but the book-calendar has me feeling altogether festive).

On Saturday we wandered into the city together as a family, and Christmas still seemed suitably far enough away that shopping felt fun, rather than stressful. (We were shopping for Ralph’s sixth birthday, which is coming up later this week, and I’ll spare you the “Where did the time go?” rant except to raise my hands towards you plaintively and plead, just once, “Where did that time go?”).

As Christmas approaches, my thinking has turned (probably not surprisingly) to letter-writing. Last week I was working on a story about snail-mail for a magazine. The editor had asked me to write about why I choose to write and decorate letters, and how I use this practise as a way to keep in touch with loved ones while also carving out time to practise mindfulness and indulge in creativity.

I wanted to share some personal anecdotes in the article, so I reached out to the community on Instagram and asked people to share stories about letters that had meant something special to them. The stories came flooding in, overflowing with emotion, and gratitude, and joy. I read through tale after tale of the ways in which simple words, penned and posted with love, became treasured and cherished keepsakes.

Truly, these stories warmed my heart. And I wondered, not for the first time, why we spend so much time combing the shops for gifts that are all-too-often at best unneeded and at worst also unwanted, when we could better spend that time writing a thoughtful, heartfelt letter. A letter that - unlike soap-on-a-rope or novelty socks - will most likely be kept for a lifetime. And sometimes longer.

In my letter-writing e-course, I share a photograph of a postcard in my possession that was written by my great-uncle Bert to his sister, my great-grandmother, from a training camp in Egypt during the First World War. You can see the ink thinning, and then the point at which he must have dipped his pen back into the ink-bottle to continue, and it gets darker again. The signature, "Brother Bert" and a kiss, is squeezed onto the bottom, and there are ink blotches where rain might have fallen on the card. 

Blue lines cover some of his words: redactions from censors, presumably to stop Uncle Bert from accidentally revealing secrets. I never knew my great-uncle, but his postcard keeps him alive. I feel connected to him through his handwriting on this postcard, an up-and-down cursive that is eerily similar to my mother's. 

I like to think of all the handwritten postcards like this one, and the letters, Christmas cards, invitations and love-notes, penned by hand throughout the ages.

What if we were to replace some of our gifts with heartfelt thoughts? Telling our loved ones that we truly do love them.. telling them why we love them… and sharing little stories about them that hold special meaning to us. We could decorate our envelopes before we post them, drawing pictures or colouring patterns to give them some extra festive flair. Or we could press leaves and flowers in between the folds as tiny treasures, tie each letter up in a giant, oversized ribbon, and set them under the tree to be handed to our loved-ones in person on Christmas morning.

I didn’t end up using the stories that everyone had shared, for my magazine article. But they are just too good to slip into obscurity and so I thought I’d publish them here, instead. I wonder if, after reading them, you will be feeling as inspired as I am to pick up a pen!

“The year before my grandmother turned 90, I started writing her a weekly letter as a secret birthday present to her. My then 7-year-old daughter would decorate the envelope with drawings from her imagination of my grandmother traveling to a new exotic place or having a unique new job. My grandmother was absolutely delighted seeing herself as a coal miner, a rollercoaster designer, or exploring the pyramids in Egypt. About halfway through the year my grandmother caught on and started to send us a weekly letter in return. She will turn 94 this March and something that I originally intended as a gift for her has truly become a gift for all of us.” @gracefulheart

“I have all the letters my dad has written me. He wrote one about the day I was born, telling the events of that day and how I came into the world. He wrote me letters of encouragement as I struggled through university. He wrote funny ‘news articles’ about events happening back home when I was working a summer job at a camp. We haven’t always had the easiest of relationships, but his letters are one of my most cherished possessions since they offer a glimpse of how much he really loves me.” @lauradipoeti

”Last year I was given a super precious gift of a couple of years’ worth of letters I had written to a friend...so many memories I had forgotten.” @allyt_hobart


”I'd have to attrubute my love of mail to my nanna. We lived in a different state to her growing up and she was very deaf. I remember my parents encouraging me to write her letters. As a kid they were not very interesting...results of netball games. A summary of birthday presents. Years later when I was going through her things after she passed away I found every letter her grandchildren ever wrote to her. Some read so many times the paper was worn. To her a letter was the voice of her grandkids she couldn't hear. For get eulogy i wrote her a letter as a way of saying goodbye her way.” @onething_atatime


“My husband used to write me love letters when he was working away in the middle of the desert and in them would be desert flowers. I will keep them forever.” @rachgilmore79


“I have a tin full of the letters my father sent to his family during the WWII. It includes his 21st birthday cards that were sent to him in the Middle East when he was serving, as well as the black edged telegram his mother received to tell her that he was MIA presumed a German POW. It also includes his invitation to his own wedding, because in those days it was ‘the done thing’. I also have a collection of letters between my father and myself. We were living in PNG at the time and I was sent home to live with family to do Grade 6 here in Australia before I headed to high school.” @illawarra_cottage_and_garden
 

”My mother-in-law and I wrote letters back and forth. When she died unexpectedly I was able to give my husband the letters she had written.” @tallmadgepamela


”A friend of mine kept getting visits from a beautiful neighbourhood cat that really brightened her day and entertained her kids so she wrote a little note to tell the owners how much they were loving the cats visits and attached it to the collar of the cat for the owner to find.” @secretlifeofemmy


“Looking through some old papers at my mom’s house a couple of years ago, I found an old letter to me from my grandfather. He had written it just before my wedding and it was full of well wishes for a happy life. My mother had saved it and I had tears in my eyes reading it. He passed in 2001 and the letter was written in 1995.” 

@maria_at_the_lake



“I traveled to Australia before my senior year of Highschool and my father & I wrote letters while I was away. He passed away suddenly in October of my Senior year. I went back to Australia after graduation and there, waiting for me at my old Aus post address, was one last letter from my dear ol dad.” @tisha.cullen76

“I have a friend. We met at the summer camp by the sea in the Poland 35 years ago. For me it was first time by the sea (I am from Czech republic) Three amazing weeks full of new adventures and new friends! That time the letters were only way how to stay in touch. And we keep writing. It is beautiful friendship.” @

jolana_sekyrka


”At a house clearance in the 80's my Auntie bought an unopened trunk. Inside was a love story between a woman and her lover during World War 1. From the beginning of their courtship all the way through to the telegram she received telling her he had been killed on the frontline. There were photos and ration books and notes of wedding plans. It was an entire love story.” @samburgessuk


“I corresponded with an older lady I met on a cruise when I was 25, she was single and lived in Canada. We write regularly until she passed away, when our children were young and a letter arrived from Rita we would sit in our good room and read it. I loved that she was a part of their childhood. She lived a very interesting life and I have one of her paintings in my daughter’s old bedroom.” @chrissystant


“I went to college out of state so during the school year I received letter from my friends at home and during the summers I received letters from all of my college friends. We all sent them on papers from our workplaces, mainly to be funny, but now they are so telling: greasy menu papers from a fish camp, daily schedules from a childrens camp and order forms from a shop. Those letters are so silly and carefree, I would love to go back to those days.” @lrc100


“A few years back while clearing out my grandparents' house we found a letter from my grandma to my grandad written just after she'd had my dad, describing dad as a rather fat baby. I've always had penpals but writing to my grandma was extra special - I'll always remember how she wrote 'to-day' and 'to-morrow' in the old fashioned way.” @tomatopincushion


“Being a former military member,and wife, letters were our only life line as we moved all the time. I've managed to keep a few letters from those years. We wrote pages at times. Everything stopped when we got letters from loved ones and friends.” @pilgrimslady


“I once accidentally left a 50 page etter in the seat pocket of a Singapore Airlines airplane. The letter was to a friend in Italy, and I'd spent the whole plane journey writing it only to leave it behind in my weariness. A very kind cabin crew member must have found it and also found the address scrawled somewhere, because a few months later it turned up in Italy, much to mine and my friend's delight!” @postwhisperer


“My cousin's Grandma used to send the most incredible letters to us out here in the Middle East. Although well into her 90s and her body incapacitated, her mind was vital and lively. She was deaf but watched TV with subtitles and girls from the local school would come and visit her. She would tell me about her travels when younger and TV programmes that she enjoyed - usually about other parts of the world. She died peacefully a couple of years ago and I miss those letters.” @mycustardpie


“I found a suitcase full of letters my mum and dad wrote to each other when they were younger. It sounds silly but it's only then you realise what it was like to not have mobile phones and computers, and be in constant contact with one another. It was so lovely reading all the love and emotion on the pages in their handwriting, words that took so much more time and thought to express than the instant communication of today.” @seth.style


“My wife and I lived 5000 miles apart for the first four years of our relationship, and I sent her a different post card every single Saturday. Spent hours searching shops and ebay listings for cards I thought she’d like. She kept them all in a shoebox and brought them with her when she finally moved to the UK.” @frog.johnson

“I fell in love with my husband at first sight when I was his student. Because he was 20 years older than me, my mother just wasn’t having it. He went on sabbatical to England, and we wrote during the latter part of 1975 and all of 1976. In 1995 I finally married him. Sadly, he passed away a couple of years ago. But I still have those letters that he wrote me back in the 70s.” @therealpattietierney

“I’ve been writing to my pen friend for 48 years. All handwritten letters. She’s not family but the closest thing to it.” @glenys_learningtoweave

“When I was a kid, I found an old box of correspondence between my great-grand uncle and his family (with also mentions of my grandfather who was a young child at the time) around WW1... the letters are all written in lovely handwriting and they’ve written literally everywhere they’ve found space because they didn’t want to stop writing... lots of love letters, simple letters to know how people were doing... it’s really cool to read to have an insight of what their lives were like.” @iamcapucinne

“Before my husband and I got married we wrote letters. In total I received 72 letters. Many very long letters, like 18 pages, written on both sides. We are married 27 years now. And I’m still wondering where he got all the inspiration and courage to write so much....he’s an introvert and dyslectic.” @magicworld_illustrations

Both my parents came from very large families (18 siblings total) so I have no shortage of aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. But my family were the only ones to move far away. Letters were the way we kept in touch. I would not have the close relationship I have with my cousins now if not for the many, many letters we exchanged when we were young. And yes they are in shoeboxes still. @mariannenoepoli

“My mum died a few years ago, and occasionally finding a letter or card from her, tucked inside something, is as if she's still around.” @little_white_cloud

So now what do you think about writing a letter for Christmas? Is there someone in your life who would treasure your words, even more than a scented candle? What will you tell them?

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ps. Here are some letter-writing resources I’ve made

My new Mail Art Colouring Book (vol 2) has more than 60 original mail-art envelope templates, note-paper and party invitations to colour in and post

Join me and a friendly community of letter-lovers in my five-week letter-writing and mail-art e-course: The Most Beautiful Letter You’ve Ever Written

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A new project: the Travelling Card Club

On Saturday morning I made a visit to the post office box and in it I found a lovely, newsy letter, folded inside the handmade card I’ve photographed at the top of this blog post. The writer, Carole, had been reading my blog and decided to respond in the old-fashioned way, by paper and pen, to share snippets of her life.

At the end of the letter, she added a little post script that gave me an idea. This is what she wrote:

“ps. Re-gift the card. Most of my greetings I sign on a signature tag. If everyone did that, I wonder how far they’d go. It would be fun if after a few years it cycled back to me.”

And then I thought, let’s try it! We’ll send this card around the world, regifting it from one person to the next, and maybe, just maybe, it might even return to Carole! Here’s what I suggest:

1. If you want in on this, share your postal address with me, using the confidential form below

2. I will post the card to the first person on the list, that person can send it on to the next person in the list, and so on

3. When it’s your turn to receive the card, write your first name, city and country inside it. As each of us does this it will fill up, kind of like stamps in a passport. Then contact me for the next address on the list so you can post it on

4. When either the card is full or we’ve run out of names on the list, the last person can post it back to me and I’ll then send it home to Carole

What do you think? Do you want to join the Travelling Card Club? Pop your address into the form below to be part of this. (If you can’t see the form, click the title of this blog post to view it in your browser).

UPDATE: With more than 120 people on this list, I’ve decided to close it for the time being.*

But I’ve decided to have several Travelling Cards going at the same time! If you’re crafty and would like to see a card of yours travel the world via the Travelling Card Club, simply pop a handmade card into the post for me (remember to leave it blank on the inside) and I’ll send it on its way to the people on this list. My address is PO Box 469, Carlton North, Vic 3054, Australia.

*If I receive enough Travelling Cards, I’ll reopen the list so others can join in.

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Ten days of illustrations

I’m just past 10 days into the #100DaysinDinan project, and so far I am loving it! As I had hoped, taking out the time to draw these pictures each day is taking me back to our time in the village, and how it has influenced me and my family in big ways and small.

To jog my memory and find things to paint, I’ve been scrolling through photos in my camera, and that has been an extra-welcome trip down memory lane. The children love to see what I’ve been painting each day, often chiming in with “Remember when…?” as they hold the little cards in their hands.

I’m making the envelopes for each card by tracing one of the original envelopes the cards came in, onto used calendars and magazine pages. A stamp or two, and the address: there’s not much room for anything else, so into the post they go.

Here are the first 10 that I’ve painted and posted, with a bit of the back-story behind them.

hotel de beaumanoir

The beautiful, 15th-century archway to the former hotel de Beaumanoir: 1 rue Haute-Voie, Dinan. This was just around the corner from our apartment and after dropping off our bags on Day 1, we took a wander through town. This intricate stone archway took my breath away, and I couldn’t believe I was going to live in such a place

new yellow shorts

We arrived in France from the coldest month of winter in Australia, with very few summer clothes in the suitcase as the children had already grown out of theirs from six months earlier. While riding the carousel in the hot sun the day after our arrival, four-year-old Ralph found his jeans just - too - hot. I popped into the Monoprix and bought him these sweet yellow shorts, which he loved so much that he wore them nearly every day until the end of summer

maison bazille

There are several chocolatiers in Dinan, and we sampled them all! Our favourite was Maison Bazille on 10 Rue de l'Apport. Partly for the silky homemade chocolate (made on the premises) with all kinds of flavoured ganache, and partly for the macarons, but mostly because Anne, the proprietress, was just so lovely. She would welcome us with beaming smiles, and when we returned after three weeks in the UK, she gave the children cuddles and kisses. We would slow down every time we walked past, in order to catch her eye and wave

half-timbered houses

Dinan is famous in France for the half-timbered houses that line its streets. They are crooked and wonky, because when they were built (mostly the 14th and 15th Centuries) there was a tax on floor-space at the ground floor, so people built small at the base and increasingly spread out as they built up. (This particular house is now a restaurant, La Mere Pourcel on 3 Place des Merciers. I really wanted to eat there but it looked too fancy for a mum and two kids, so I’ll have to go next time!)

moules-frites marinieres

Ralph was gung-ho with the moules-frites from the very beginning, but Scout only discovered them during a visit to Mont Saint-Michel. It was a steaming hot day, and we sheltered from the sun in a restaurant for lunch. I’d ordered myself a bowl of moules-frites while the children had pizza, but Scout ended up stealing more than three-quarters of my mussels. We told the proprietress they were the best we’d ever tasted, and she smiled and shrugged, “c’est la saison” (it’s the season)

rampart towers

There are lovely little towers in the castle walls all the way around Dinan. This one is over one of the steep streets that lead between the hilltop part of the town, and the ancient river port. The children and I would walk along the ramparts on the way home from school, and stop to take in the view from the top of this tower

the padlock letterbox

The steep, cobblestoned rue du petit fort leads all the way down to the river at Dinan, and the whole way down the little street is lined with ancient and fascinating homes, shops and cafes. This door is almost at the bottom, and boasts the biggest padlock you have ever seen, which now does duty as a private letterbox

sea-birds

Dinan doesn’t feel like a seaside town. There is a river, to be sure, but it no longer dominates the landscape or trade, ever since the town moved up the hill and behind the castle walls for safety, many hundreds of years ago. But this is the west coast of Brittany, and the sea is still close enough that sea-birds call and circle in the morning, and wander through the streets hoping for scraps from tourists at lunch

boats on the canal

The river Rance, by the time it gets to Dinan, is little more than a canal. The first week we arrived, we took a ride on a river-boat up the canal to the neighbouring town of Lehon, the children fascinated when we had to stop at a lock and wait for the water to rise. There was a path beside the canal where horses used to walk and pull the boats. Once, a family’s horse sadly died, so the captain’s wife had to ‘harness up’ and pull the boat herself. There are photos. In the summer, weekender boats like this one I’ve painted would chug past and we’d wave at them

birkenstock kilometres

The day before we left on our adventure, we took the children to the Birkenstock store in Melbourne and picked up a pair of sandals each. It was winter here in Australia, and they had long grown-out of their sandals from the previous summer. When we arrived in France, those sandals became synonymous with the new sense of adventure and resilience my children developed. From complaining about a two-block walk in Australia, they cheerfully walked 10+ kilometres every day in those sandals

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Tiny missives: 100 days in Dinan

It has been way too long since I hosted a postal project, but all that’s about to change.

Do you fancy receiving a tiny painting on a tiny vintage card, in the mail? I’m making 100 a day, starting this week, and would love to send one to you, my friend. Here’s the story…

Last month while we were in Paris, my family and I took a walk beside the river to browse les bouquinistes. You’ll have seen them I’m sure: the little green-box riverside markets that flank both banks of the Seine. They sell secondhand books and paper ephemera, and have been doing something similar, I believe, since as far back as the 16th Century.

We had left our village of Dinan the day before and I was looking for vintage postcards from the region, but then I saw these: tiny packets of photographs that tourists used to buy and carry home with them, from the days when cameras were rare and printing photographs was costly. Most of the packets were, I’m guessing, printed almost a hundred years ago, or at least some time between the first and second World Wars.

And as I turned them over in my hands, sniffed that old cardboard (is there anything better than “old book” smell?), I knew I wanted to give them life.

I’ve spoken in the past about how I believe postcards and other tourism souvenirs were made to travel and to be shared. The journey is the entire point of their creation. And yet so often, a postcard can sit unsent and unseen in a shoebox for years, or even decades. In 2017 my husband bought me a box of 1000 unused vintage postcards (most of them fabulously ugly), and I posted them to strangers and friends alike, all over the world, for the whole year. We called this the Thousand Postcard Project. A little while before that, we found some books of antique postcards and I sent those out too, then made miniature envelopes out of the tissue paper that separated them, and posted haikus into the world.

So as our little family all stood together in Paris, with the winter wind in our faces and the children moaning “Come on this is boring” because we were supposed to be en route to the Christmas markets, those tiny cards were calling to me and I couldn’t resist. I asked the bouquiniste, “How much for nine packets?”

Later, I wrapped the miniature postcards in a scarf and carefully stored them inside the heavy 18th-Century writing box I’d picked up at the flea markets in Dinan (which was in turn nestled inside my suitcase, wrapped in rain-coats and stuffed all around with socks to protect it from bumps and bashes, and which I carried around for an entire month while we travelled), and promptly forgot all about them. This made for a lovely surprise when we finally returned to Australia, and I began the arduous process of unpacking after five months away.

Since then I have been pondering what to do with them next, and today I have decided! I will use them as tiny touchstones that will link me back to the time I spent in our French village: to the small and precious moments we shared, and the little lessons (and big lessons) we learned.

The challenge: 100 days in Dinan

I have exactly 100 of these vintage or antique cards, each of them depicting a place or a moment from somewhere in France. So every day for 100 days I will take out a card and draw or paint something simple on it that illustrates our time in Dinan. (If you want to follow along on Instagram, I’ll hashtag #100daysinDinan whenever I share a picture).

It could be as grand as a castle or as simple as the tomatoes we picked up at the markets but, as I paint, I will be remembering the sunny day we visited that castle, or the way those tomatoes tasted, sliced onto baguette and sprinkled with salt.

Cumulatively, I hope the painting of these 100 cards will help take me back to Dinan in my heart, and help to keep alive some of the slow and precious lessons I learned during our time there.

The community: 100 tiny missives in the post

But that still isn’t setting the little cards free, is it. So the second part of this challenge is where you come in. Every day after painting a card, I will slip it into a handmade envelope and post it anywhere in the world.

Would you like one?

If you would, simply fill out the form below to share your address with me. This is all about community and for me these sorts of projects are sweeter for the sharing, so you don’t need to pay anything, join anything, sign anything or respond in any way. Just accept my thanks for being part of this little 100-day project.

The form will stay open until I have 100 addresses but, right now, I’m off to start painting!

UPDATE: I now have all 100 addresses so I’ve removed the form for this project. If you missed out, I’m sorry!

If you’d like to hear about my future projects first, you can subscribe to this blog using the box below, or subscribe to my monthly newsletter using this link. I also share what I’m doing on Instagram, and you can find me at @naomibulger.

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Ode to writing letters, and cauliflower soup

I’m not going to deny it’s cold out there. The children race ahead of me to the playground, seemly oblivious to the biting wind, and the fact that there are scratches of frost amid the remnants of last night’s rain on the monkey-bars and the spinning tourniquet.

Their games start almost immediately and, to the soundtrack of their laughter, I find a section of bench that is seeing sun (or that might possibly see sun one day). I bring a little towel with me so that I can dry a space to sit down, and then pull out a note-pad and a pen, and ease my gloves off, one finger at a time.

And now, while the children swing and slide and leap and spin, I write letters. I write to strangers, I write to friends. I write to family, I write to my children’s teachers, I write to Instagrammers and podcasters I admire. I write about the produce I found at the market, about walks we take in the woods, about books I’m reading, cakes I’m baking, dreams I’m dreaming, and about the way time runs at a different pace in France.

I write until my fingers turn red from the cold, and then blue, and then wrinkle until they look twice my age. The children race past me, shrieking with laughter during some great game or another. I blow on my fingers, I shake them out, and then I write some more.

Later when we are home, I pull out the pencils and paints. Trace around my trusty wooden envelope-template, and make up designs that I think people will enjoy, inspired by the world around me right now. A café in Paris where we drank hot chocolate and ate croissants. Sunflowers that I’d picked up at the market in London two days earlier. A castle in Bretagne. The picnic we enjoyed in summer at the ruins. Rosehips from the basket-full I picked from the hedgerows, the swan we admired in St James’ Park, my mother’s vegetable garden.

When I’m done, I fold each painting into an envelope that will carry these tiny moments and stories from our lives along highways and past mountains, across bridges and over oceans. From autumn to winter, or spring, or rainy-season, or dry. To vast cities and country villages, rural outposts and marshy islands.

All for the low, low price of two euros.

Sitting in the cold playground and writing these letters, these long, rambling spillings-out of my days, feels like I’m returning to my roots. It’s not that I ever stopped writing letters, but the luxury of time to write in this way isn’t something I’ve given myself in many years. (Note that I say “given myself” rather than “been given,” because too many times I’ve claimed not to have time when, in reality it was simply that I chose to spend my time in other ways).

I’ve heard it said, and in fact I talk about it in my letter-writing course, that writing something down by hand (rather than typing) aids the memory. It’s something called “reflective functioning.” We feel the event or experience all over again as we write it down, and then reflect on it and make sense of it as we read it back. Perhaps by writing down the seemingly mundane but often precious moments of my days, I am helping to commit them to memory and heart, my letters becoming an act of mindfulness and gratitude, appreciation for the littlest of things that bring joy.

But I sometimes wonder if, in not only writing these things down but also sharing them with someone else, I am doing more than committing them to memory. Maybe I am giving them lives of their own.

What if, upon reading of the intricate romanesco broccoli I picked up at the market on Thursday, my correspondent is inspired to make her famous roasted cauliflower soup, and invites friends over to share it? The conversation and laughter last well into the night, and it is a simple experience of friendship and hygge. That wasn’t my letter, but maybe a letter could spark such a thing?

This is the power of words shared. They don’t stop on the page and, from the moment we drop our letters into that post-box, they no longer belong to us. To me this is a beautiful thing, and the fact that I can never know if or what my letter might spark in someone else does not make the imagining any less joyful.

Do you have a pen? It’s time for #lettersforloneliness!

The International Letter Writing Week for 2018 starts on Monday! Are you ready? (Scroll for the details beneath the next picture, if you just want to cut to the chase).

Earlier this year, the Universal Postal Union set a mail-challenge for children of the world, in their 47th annual competition for young people to coincide with the International Letter Writing Week. This was the challenge: “Imagine you are a letter travelling through time. What message do you wish to convey to your readers?”

Tell me I’m not the only one who wishes I was a judge in that competition, just so I could read all the entries! What a glorious question to pose, and oh! just think about what children could do with it, with that whole lack-of-inhibition thing, and their brilliant imaginations.

This all started in 1957, when the 14th Congress of the Universal Postal Union met in Ottawa, Canada, and decided to name the week that coincided with 9 October (the UN-sanctioned World Post Day) “International Letter-Writing Week.” Since then, for the past 60 years, more than 80 countries around the world have used this week as an opportunity to formalise their celebrations of the wonderful way in which letters can connect us and change our world.

I can’t stop thinking about this year’s theme, of letters and time travel. Where would you send your letter, if you could? And what would you tell the recipient? Would you save a million lives by warning our forebears of a catastrophic event? Send antibiotics to the Middle Ages? Would you right wrongs done to your family or loved-ones in the past? Say a final, proper goodbye to someone you didn’t get to say goodbye to? Write a letter to your childhood self, bolstering them during a particularly difficult time?

Or would you send your words into the future? Describe a day-in-the-life so they will truly know, rather than speculate through shards of pottery they dig up from what was once your kitchen. Would you ask them questions? (Do human beings finally stop using plastics? Have they found life on other planets yet? Has anyone finally invented hover-boards, like those in Back to the Future II?) Or would you write a letter and send it to your child, or grandchild, when they are old, telling them you love them and are proud of them?

A little while ago, I wrote this blog post about writing a letter a day during International Letter Writing Week, in a bid to reconnect with one another, and combat what is sadly being called “the loneliness epidemic.” I was overwhelmed by the response, both here on this blog as well as in private messages I received via email and on Instagram.

Maybe our own letters will travel through time, just as old letters when picked up and re-read can transport us, temporarily, into another time and place.

Do you want to take part? Write a letter a day next week, any way you like, publicly or privately. And if you’d like some support from me, I’ve put down some details below.

Letters for loneliness

• The challenge: let’s all write one letter a day throughout International Letter Writing Week (8 - 14 October, 2018)

• The goal: write your letters to help abate or prevent loneliness or isolation that people might be feeling. Hint: is there someone in your life that would deeply appreciate you reaching out? Write to them once, or seven times. If you don’t know who to write to, refer to this blog post for lots of ideas and links

• The community: I don’t want you to be lonely, either! Use the hashtag #lettersforloneliness if you want to talk about this campaign on social media, so we can all cheer you on. If you want me to see what you are doing, you can tag me when you share on Instagram (I’m @naomibulger)

• What to write: anything you like! Just write a cheering, loving word and send it to someone who you think could use a smile from you (one they can put in their pocket and carry around with them, forever)

• Where to get help: if you struggle when it comes to knowing what to write or how to write it, for this week only, I have made public the lesson on storytelling and anecdotes, from my letter-writing e-course, The Most Beautiful Letter You Have Ever Written. Normally this is only accessible to my students so, to be fair to them, the lesson and its downloads will only be public for the duration of International Letter Writing Week 2018. I hope you find it useful! Read the lesson and download the resources here: The Art of Storytelling

• Make your mail lovely: if you like the idea of decorating your envelopes to make them even more cheering this week (or any week), there are all kinds of ways you can do this. Open up an old envelope and trace it over a used calendar picture or wrapping paper to make a colourful envelope template. Decorate a plain envelope with washi tape and stickers. Press flowers and enclose them with your letter. If you’d like to make mail-art like the pictures in these pages, I send out free templates every month in my newsletter, which you can pick up here

Alright that’s about all I can think of. Shall we write a letter every day in the coming week, to share love and combat the social isolation that so many of us are feeling these days… even when surrounded by people and with the Internet at our fingertips? If you’d like any more support or if I can help you in any way, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Yours truly,
Naomi xo

Loneliness, letters, and a new challenge

"Are you lonely Mummy?" Scout slips her little hand into mine and looks up at me with concern.

I have been encouraging my children to interact with other children here in France. We go to the playground most afternoons, around about the time that the French children come out of school. Ralph and Scout are signing up for karate and ballet respectively and, with some help from the maire (the mayor), they have both been given special dispensation to attend Ecole Maternelle, despite the short time we are here and the fact that Scout is the wrong age. 

At first, they pushed back. They are such good friends, my little ones, and almost entirely self-sufficient. They didn't feel the need to fight their shyness or traverse the language barrier to make new friends. But I persisted, and like the brave little champions they are, they have acquiesced.

But all my talk about making friends and not being lonely took root, and now they are worried about me. "What will you do?" they want to know. "How will you make friends?"

Apparently, we (and by "we" I mean "the Western world") are in the midst of what is being called a loneliness epidemic. 

Digital technology has made communication easier and faster than ever before, but it turns out that when it comes to psychology and mental health, communication is not the same as connection. 

In a recent survey of more than 20,000 American adults, close to half reported feeling alone, left out, and isolated. One in four Americans said they rarely felt understood. 

Scientists and psychologists are now saying that social isolation and loneliness will reach "epidemic proportions" by 2030, and that this will create a public health crisis. The latest research, based on more than 70 studies covering close to 4 million people from across North America, Europe, and Australia, has found that loneliness and social isolation significantly increase the risk of premature death.

It all drills down to this: feeling connected to others is a fundamental human need. 

On the other hand, while connection and communication are not the same thing, neither are connection and proximity the same. Many of those people in the previous studies who said they were lonely were living with a partner. This backs up something that I firmly believe: the key to combating loneliness is not about how many relationships you have (or how many Facebook friends, YouTube followers or Instagram followers you have), but about how meaningful your relationships are.

That's why I feel OK, and how I attempt to ease the fears of my children on my behalf. I have moved states and countries enough times that my friends are scattered all over the world. I have learned how to remain connected despite being geographically separated. That's not to say I don't genuinely love a coffee catch-up with my dear friends, or to share a meal with my husband at the end of a long day, but I do know how to feel connected when we are apart.

The sting of loneliness can be felt by just about anyone, at any age and in any circumstance. However, social isolation and disorienting experiences can definitely create or exacerbate feelings of loneliness. So people in nursing homes, hospitals and prisons, for example, as well as migrants, people who are unwell at home, and the live-in carers of people who are unwell at home, are more likely to become quite lonely. 

This is a beautifully and sensitively-written article that talks more about modern loneliness. 

So I was thinking. What if we were to all reach out to people who were either lonely, or at risk of feeling the kind of social isolation that leads to loneliness? Could you help? 

A week-long challenge

International Letter Writing Week is coming up next month (it's the week that coincides with the official UN World Post Day, on 9 October). What if we were all to commit to writing a letter or a postcard a day to someone who is lonely, throughout that week, to help them feel more connected?

A letter is a lovely way to share your emotions, and invite others into parcels of your days, that is second only to catching up face-to-face. Even the tangible nature of your letters - your handwriting, the stationery you chose, any gifts or embellishments you made - make them personal. For someone who is experiencing loneliness or isolation, your letter is like a hug, and the time you give to properly reading a letter from them is a listening ear, or possibly even the shoulder they need to cry on.

You don't need to write "I thought you might be feeling lonely" (no-one wants a pity-letter!). Just write "I was thinking of you and thought I'd write to say hello." You could write to the same person seven days in a row, or write to a different person each day. Here are some ideas: 

• Write a letter to a grandparent or another family member who lives alone 

• Write a letter to a friend who has moved somewhere new 

• Write a letter to someone you know who is unwell and stuck at home

• Write to a sick child via Post Pals 

• Write to a prison inmate via Write a Prisoner

• Write to children in hospital via Cards for hospitalized kids 

• Write to a nursing-home resident via Love for the Elderly 

• Write to a homeless person via Silver Lake Love 

• Write to a seriously-ill child via Send kids the world 

• Write to a soldier on deployment via Adopt a US soldier 

• Write to a refugee on Manus Island or Nauru via Letters to asylum seekers 

Of course, the act of writing to someone, when you write from the heart, does you bucket-loads of good as well. Sometimes I feel quite selfish when I'm writing my letters, because writing and making them makes me feel so good. Probably, it helps me stave off the loneliness I might otherwise be feeling, too. 

In the article I linked to above, loneliness is described as "a let-out-of-breath topic." So many people feel this kind of social malaise, and it's so nice that we can all be allowed to talk about it at last, and not feel any stigma. Maybe if we all get writing, we can turn the tide of isolation, and start to forge real connections again. 

What do you think? Are you in? 

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ps. If you're in the mood for even more letter-writing inspiration, I want to remind you about my letter-writing and mail-art e-course, "The Most Beautiful Letter You Have Ever Written," from which this challenge-theme and the list in it was taken.  

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. There's also a host of downloadable resources, and access to my own private mail-art pen-pal group. Registrations are open right now, and you can find out more here. 

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