As this Year of Elevens makes its segue into 2012, imagine a mobile or another crafts piece that includes a dozen stamps all postmarked on a child's birthday, from a variety of countries and over a span of decades. Or imagine a piece that marks a toddler's first spoken phrase. One side would have your calligraphy or printing of the phrase, while another would have a stamp postmarked on the actual date, or from the date of birth, from a country where a language other than English is spoken. In time, it will spark an interesting conversation to discuss world languages, postal systems, how infants come to speak, and other mind-expanding topics.
Scrapbooking makes for good times now and for good conversations later in the year when the book is once more opened. Then, as you gather around and share the scrapbook's stories, keepsakes of specific moments in time allow those you care about to connect and imagine themselves present on days like these:
The birth of a parent or a sibling, or even a grandparent.
The hour the two of you first met.
A day of triumph over adversity.
A return home from duty in a distant place.
To introduce you to family heritage postmarks, the following specials are offered by Mark Foster:
For six dollars, you get one item from your list of four dates, my choice. I'll select the most attractive visually if more than one postmark is available for a particular date, and snail-mail it to you within a couple of days.
For nine dollars, we'll email dates and scans back and forth a few times until you find one you particularly like the looks of for a date of special significance. Then I send you the original by postal mail at the very next pickup time. Some dates, such as major celebrity birthdates and certain serendipities, are excluded.
For eight dollars, you'll get a dozen day-and-month items for a particular birthday, but not a specific year, from a variety of countries and at least two decades. Aside from variety, these will be selected for the best visual appeal. An additional set of twelve for a second day-month pair may be added for four dollars more. Years might not be legible in the postmarks, and excluded from this offer are the day-month pairs of December 25th, January 1st, and February 29th.
Your heritage moments, preserved in time with these colorful artifacts of the actual world on those actual days, are ready for your own handicrafts or can be worked into more polished pieces by a crafter who does this sort of work frequently.
To make arrangements for me to send you, or the craftsperson of your choice, requested postmark jpeg scans, or to bill you via Paypal for one of the above specials, just email me at pi53365@yahoo.com