Creative Writing

Being The Letter Writing Revolution blog creator, you would assume I have a plethora of stationary in every colour, weight, size and shape. You would be greatly mistaken. I have spent hours over the years perusing stationary stores buying loads of cards that I knew would come in handy at some point. I used to be employed by Canadian Art Connections (http://www.cac1.com/), a fine art publishing company in Victoria, BC that was the official publisher for the Trans Canada Trail posters and cards. I had a stock room filled with greeting cards at my disposal of fine art images by the likes of Ted Harrison, Linda Frimer, Roy Vickers, Graham Herbert and the late Emily Carr. When I was in any store where there were funky postcards or cards of any kind, I would buy a few and they would promptly go into my large and unusually deep "stationary drawer." After years of collecting stationary, I went through a cleansing period recently and decided that it was time to part with this extraordinary amount of writing paper, envelopes, cards and even hundreds of stickers. I bagged them and offered them to my nieces who gratefully accepted. That was a mere three months ago............

Had I known that I was going to launch The Letter Writing Revolution, I might have hung onto a few cards. Hence, the topic of discussion on this post...creative writing but not the creative writing you are thinking of. I am talking about the creativity required to turn a boring piece of paper (white or otherwise) into some cool stationary.

Thankfully, a trip last summer to Paper/Papier in the Byward Market in Ottawa, resulted in a stack of various colours of card stock sheets of paper with some envelopes, the majority being black. That's right, black stationary. I love black stationary because it is so unusual and unexpected. It is so easily jazzed up as well and silver ink shows up on black paper quite nicely. Recently, having to reply to a few letters from dear readers, I had to get creative. I was not about to send a letter on white computer paper stuffed in a standard, white business envelope. No way. Thankfully, I had hung onto my purchase from Paper/Papier and so I had something to work with at least.

I did something that I have always loved doing. I found a stack of old magaiznes (Alive magazine to be exact) and I cut out images that I thought would make interesting additions to my plain coloured pieces of paper. Here are some of the results:

Unfortunately, I own a crappy camera otherwise you would REALLY be able to see how wicked my creative writing paper is.

Other options for creating cool writing paper is using your own personal photos and cutting and pasting them onto a document, then printing. You can also find interesting images/pictures/photographs online which can easily be applied to regular computer paper. And if you're feeling really wild, throw on some glitter or stickers. I tend to lean more towards classic, simple creations. Plain paper can easily come to life with calligraphy or the use of coloured ink only.

Have fun creating your own stationary...........

The Challenge Update:
I have received a handful of mailing addresses from my followers. So far the challenge will be relatively painless since I only have a handful of letters to write. This misses the point, tho. When you have started a revolution about letter writing, the purpose is to write a lot of letters and encourage others to do the same. You only have to gain by participating in the challenge (see the post entitled "45 Letters in 45 Days Challenge"). Don't be shy!! Send me your snail mail address to keonjulie@hotmail.com and you will receive a handwritten letter in the mail. Simple and joyful. If you live within close proximity to me or you are a family member, I still would love for you to participate. Thank you in advance!