Mailart 365 has moved

Today I figured I could spend lots of time creating because there isn't mail pick-up on Sundays. I had this envelope book project planned for a few days, picking out the bits and pieces, but not actually putting it together. I always pick out way more than I use. I've made this little book project a few times. The first picture is the book opened to its center.

I have a ton of coffee-related ephemera. The only other theme I have more of is alcohol-related. And I have almost as much cheese-related ephemera. Booze, cheese and coffee ... my favorite comestibles.

The second picture is the front. I will write the address on the blue strips and take it to the post office to figure the postage. I do not want to put this inside a cover. I want to mail it as is. I may cover the front and back with clear packing tape just to help keep it clean while traveling. I will seal all the edges with special clear stickers that are used to seal magazine edges. This art is going to a penfriend in the US, although I almost wanted to mail it to myself. It is one of my favorite works.

When I uploaded the images, I discovered I had forgotten to put the MailArt365 sticker and art number on the back (left image), like I had planned. Both will go in the upper left corner. I'll sign the lower right.

The first page has a coffee cup with "Snowball's Chance" covering the original Starbucks branding. Once upon a time I wanted to have a coffeehouse and in my daydreams, I called it Snowball's Chance. The daydream evolved from just a coffeehouse, to a coffeehouse by day and then at night the coffee bar would rotate to reveal a very hip wine bar.

The next page contains a vintage clipping from a magazine like Life or Good Housekeeping from sometime between 1940 and 1959. The clipping pulls up so the entire article can be read. The article is by Mary Margaret McBride, a well-known journalist and radio commentator. It details a "new term in our language," the expression "a coffee." I've typed out the article and put it on Google docs so that anyone can read it. I thought it quite quaint and charming. I especially like the part where you can keep coffee warm by leaving it "on an asbestos pad over a low flame."

The center section has the ribbon tie ends glued to the page and slipped inside the pocket. This ribbon is a lot heavier than ribbon I usually use for these envelope books, but the colors matched the envelopes so well that I couldn't not use it.

I don't understand decaffeinated coffee. It doesn't taste very good and the process to decaffeinate it is really nasty.

And the last page has another pull out, like the Mary Margaret McBride article. This one is the story of goats discovering coffee. A goat-herder noticed his goats being quite frisky after he moved them to a new location. So he checked out the vegetation they were eating and decided to pick the berries and see what he could do with them. And that's how coffee came about. Well ... the story is mostly legend, but it is cute.

I have written letter on a few small sheets of paper and inserted them into the book pockets and will take this to the post office in the morning. It will be interesting to see how this one travels. I'd like to do more of these as the year goes along. I had lots of fun, and used up lots of bits.