Parchment Post

Parchment Post's winter collection arrived last week.  And is it ever a doozy! Jamie put together quite the collection of cards.  My favourite: Scout's Honour Co.'s winter supplies card.  Who can resist those snowshoes and ice skates?

good things

1. New washi tape.  (Picked up at The Paper Place.)
2. Nonna Maria.  My favourite puppet who completely reminds me of my very own Nonna Maria.
3. Winter walks
4. Baked a gingerbread cake for my mom's birthday.
5. Drive.

incoming mail

Last week was a quiet week mail-wise.  This week was the complete opposite.  My mailbox was bursting most days.  Thank you to all my lovelies: Alison, Phillipa, Alice, Tess and Marisa.

the diamond jubilee

2012 marks the Queen's diamond jubilee.  Canada Post is celebrating her sixty year reign with five stamp mini-panes.  They're stamp-on-stamp designs that use an original stamp design.  I really like seeing the new stamp side by side with the original.  Love that 4 cent-er!  It was issued in 1953 to commorate the Queen's coronation.

Valentines

Valentine's Day is definitely on my mind.  And it's only January!  This is one of the perforated mini cards in my stash of Valentine stationery.  I always loved giving and receiving these little cards when I was in primary school.

A few other tidbits..

The Monster Factory is holding a contest.  You can mail a Valentine to your favourite monster and they'll send you one back.

How pretty are Yen's handmade Valentines?  Sweet with a capital S!

The Wedding Co Magazine

A great big thank you goes out to Catherine for including my vintage stamps in The Wedding Co Magazine!  I always adore seeing my stamps next to beautiful calligraphy.  (This is the fine work of Rajiv Surendra.)

good things

1. Danced to Give Me The Night.  1980 goodness.
2. Yellow tulips.
3. Joey's blueberry apple juice.
4. The 1955 exhibit at the Bulger Gallery.
5. Won a little food photography award at the Drake.

P.S. The Paper Place is all stocked up with my vintage Valentine stamp packs!

incoming mail

Dear Marni, 

Thank you for the sweetest embroidered stars!

xo

Jaime

Valentine stamp packs

A bit of news:  My shop has been updated with these Valentine-themed stamp packs. Each set will have one of each of these three stamps: 1981 Montreal rose, 1972 World Health Day and 1980 gardens stamps.  Plus a mix of other vintage beauties!

In other news, I've now opened up shipping outside of Canada.  

fold + mail

Fold and mail stationery makes letter writing a piece of (pretty) cake!  You can see my guest post for The Paper Place here.

isavirtue stationery

How absolutely sweet is this collaboration between Kaitlyn and Kate?  These two talented gals created a limited edition stationery line to honour letter writing. Which is exactly what the stationery inspired me to do.  With the help of my trusty old typewriter of course!

good things

1. Bobbette & Belle's salted caramel macarons.
2. The Descendants.
3. New British Roald Dahl stamps.
4. A snowglobe snowfall last week.
5. Tap and Italian classes have started up again.

P.S. Canadian postal rates increase today.  Domestic letters now need 61 cents worth of postage.  Send More Mail's stamp packs now all contain that amount.

incoming mail

Lots of pretty mail graced my mailbox this week.  Courtney in Brooklyn sent me an awesome notepad and pen (I'm totally hooked on this pale grey pen already!). Donna sent me a wicked postcard from her trip to Palm Springs and Phillipa rustled up a vintage Florence postie.  Best of all was my first letter from nine-year old Tess. She got it just right: aren't stamps so cool?

Toronto, my love

I love Toronto.  For the past sixteen years this is the place that I've called home (minus one year abroad).  It's one of my true loves.  I've been sporting my Kid Icarus I heart Toronto button lately.. and I mean it!

the dragon

Hats off to Canada Post for issuing yet another gorgeous Chinese zodiac stamp! The dragon stamps were released yesterday.  When I went to my local post office at noon the full sheets had already sold out!

P.S. You can see last year's rabbit stamps here.  

Twilight

It's that time of year again: wedding planning season!  The shows are on and I'm looking forward to attending The Wedding Co Show this weekend at the Carlu.  (My favourite show in town!)  Being a wedding photographer makes me very familiar with the shows.

Late last year Chantal at Papillon Press designed an invitation based on the Twilight characters.  I stamped up the envelope and think the final suite is just so pretty.

good things

1. Seven degrees + biking in January.
2. Tangerines.  On our second box this winter.
3. An old, swoopy lovesong.
4. The Sunday Antique Market.  (More vintage postcards found!)
5. Reading one short story a night from Bats or Swallows.

incoming mail

I definitely feel spoiled this week.  Alice was so kind to send me a rubber stamp from Seoul and Ella (hello new friend!) sent me note with some rad stickers.

vintage Barbados

One of my favourite things to do when visiting Joseph's grandparents is to look through their old photo albums.  They have travelled far and wide.  And still do! They just returned from Hawaii (and they're in their late 80s!).  Grannie always seems to find some vintage postcards to give to me.  These beauties are from Barbados.

P.S. Thank you Danni of oh, hello friend for including Send More Mail on your swoon list!

12 cent beauty

Now that the holidays have passed I'm back at stamp pack assembling.  The packs now contain 61 cents worth of mint vintage Canadian postage.  That's the new domestic rate for a standard letter as of January 16th.  Isn't this 1927 stamp a beauty?

Paper & Poste

A few months ago Joseph and I shot some beautiful custom invitation suites designed by Paper & Poste.  I definitely styled to my heart's content using vintage stamps, ribbon, twine and other bits and bobs.  You can see more from our shoot in the custom gallery here.

good things

1. How To Make it in America.  (Whipped through two seasons in a few weeks.)
2. Back home.
3. A freezer full of mom's cookies.
4. Fresh moleskine all ready for the year's journaling.
5. The Trip.