Friday, February 20, 2009

Friday Friendship Postcards from Bloggyfriends!


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Last September, Stevie Wren hosted a postcard exchange, and 11 bloggiefriends participated. We each designed postcards and sent them off. Going out to the mailbox became a very exciting event as the postcards arrived one after another. Each postcard was a treasure of artwork, recipes and places to visit. What a fun idea that was. In the picture you can see all of my postcards strewn about and waiting to be put away for safekeeping.

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I just happen to have the perfect place to store these beautiful cards - my Letter to Marilyn Box!
This pretty work of art, made with an empty cigar box. was given to me 15 years ago as a birthday gift by my brother Bill. It contains a note from the artist:

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"The Letter to Marilyn Box
This box was commissioned by Bill for Cynthia on the occasion of her birthday. The golden box has letters going out and flowers coming in. Words are lilacs and tulips and squash blossoms. Cynthia loves art and poetry, both of which are symbolized in this box. Note the letter in the slot...it must be a birthday card for you! Enjoy!"
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The artist put pretty stamps, tiny handmade envelopes, gift cards and postcards inside the box.
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It's the prefect place for artistic postcards from Bloggyfriends, don't you agree?

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Stop by Marie's Voila! Vintage Postcards to see who else is participating in Friday Friendship Postcards

26 comments:

Mescrap said...

This is such a great idea.
I missed the swap conducted by Stevie Wren. However, she is so kind and willing to exchange with me.

soulbrush said...

what a beautiful box, and those words are touching too.what a great bro you have. lovely, i missed this too, but lately i seem to only have eyes for one little person! Maggie!

Pat said...

Great idea, shall we do this again? If you send me your address again (where is it...?), I'll send you a postcard. Write to me on the link on my blog.

Midlife, menopause, mistakes and random stuff... said...

Hey.........don't leave me out of this postcard swap please? Pretty please? Pretty please with a cherry on top? Sounds like a blast :)

Steady On
Reggie Girl

steviewren said...

Muse, your brother's gift is the perfect place to for keepsakes and I'm glad that you considered our postcard swap worthy of your box.

I've been wondering lately if people would participate again if I made the swap an annual thing.

MuseSwings said...

Stevie - I think there will be lots of interest if you have an annual postcard swap. Hmmm...still lots of room in my box.....

Anonymous said...

A perfect place for storing postcards. It's quite a struggle to know how to keep them for the best.

Martha@A Sense of Humor is Essential said...

What a lovely gift and pictures. Thanks for sharing, always nice at Muse's place.

Lavinia said...

Moosey I just went by Marie's site and looked at Wednesday. By gum, you were right,she IS the lampshade culprit....and how!

THis is a very pretty box. I'm honoured that my postcard will go in there. I had feared that it would end up lining the bottom of your birdcage or mending that hole in the screen door or used to scrape soil out of your old orchid pots but then I remembered that you use twenty-dollar bills for pesky little jobs like that.

Lavinia said...

Moosey I forgot to add, you use *other people's* twenty-dollar bills for pesky little jobs like that.

Linda said...

Nifty idea! I am afraid though, I am not that artistic. Blessings.

Betsy Brock said...

What a clever idea! I like it!

I'm tagging you with the letter 'F'! Can't wait to hear what you love! :)

MuseSwings said...

Livvy - so good of you to humor me by checking out that lampshade. Yep, the only time I repot my orchids is when I'm short of cash. I have to launder the money it before I go to the Dollar Store. No wonder the FBI is staking out my house. It's either that or the thing with the Pretender to the Russian throne that we met on that cruise.....What'd he call himself? Ivan the not so Terrible?

Lavinia said...

Actually Dahlink, he was Sergei the Sacrilege, and he was our vodka bootlegger for the duration of the cruise. The ship's engineer didn't have a *clue* about what was really going on in the fifth boiler! Sergei had half the crew in on his shenanigans. Boy did things get hairy when Sergei yelled "all hands on deck". Anyhoo, that was our cruise on the Baltic. Good times, but poor Sergei, I heard he vanished on a frozen Russian lake when his troika fell through thin ice. A fitting end actually as Sergei skated on thin ice for most of his life, as it were. It brought a tear to my eye when you sang that tender tribute "rah rah rasputin' at his memorial service. Steviewren accompanied you on her duduk, didn't she? Safe to say St. Petersburg will never be the same, after that whole affair. Oh well, at least we got to keep the vodka....clever of you to smuggle it out in those Russian nesting dolls.

High Desert Hooker said...

What a wonderful gift and so perfect for bloggy friend postcards. How neat!

MuseSwings said...

Sergei...yep that was him alright. He bribed the captain into making a port call in Spain because we were out of olives. All that vodka and no olives - almost as big a tragedy as his demise in the Volga. Speaking of thin ice, are we still welcome in St. Petersburg or can we only go to the St. Pete in Florida now?

Anonymous said...

Musey, I think the part when the Cossack border guards tore our passports from our hands and threw them to the poor starving Russian circus bear who was hanging around, and he wolfed them down, I think that was their hint that we were no longer welcome in that particular hemisphere. It was nice of you to toss that bag of boiled peanuts to the bear, I'm sure he appreciated it, as our passports probably didn't assauge his hunger exactly. Anyhoo, what one hungry circus bear couldn't accomplish, a half-dozen bayonets pointed at us certainly did. We skedaddled out of there at a pretty fast clip, didn't we?! What a trooper you were in your three inch heels, I hadn't seen you move that fast since Sergei had hollered "Vodka martinis ready" on the deck of the S.S. Babushka, our cruise-ship.

-Livvy

MuseSwings said...

Well just how close can we get to the border without getting shot at? I only have to get close enough to holler over to Olga. I want her to check the apartment for my uhm... investments. (and Debby and Stevie's credit cards) Does your Cossak uniform still fit? Maybe you can just barge over there and have a bit of a look;see. Oh, and for your information the Russian version of boiled peanuts isn't worth one wooden Kopak (kapon...Kojak...Kodak..?) The grits were okay except for the beet juice. YOU KNOW I HATE BEETS...oh, sorry.

Karla Cook @ Roads to Everywhere said...

That does look like a fun swap!

Anonymous said...

YEs moosey I know you hate beets. If I ever forget all I need do is remind myself of that poor besotted peasant farmer outside Moscow who tried to woo you by giving you a bushel of beets (his best crop!) and you showed him what you thought of that love offering by hurling it off the bridge. But it was NOT YOUR FAULT that at that precise moment, the Minister of the Agricultural Politburo was passing beneath the bridge in an open barge and the bushel of beets landed on his head, knocking him out of the vessel and into the alligator-infested waters. Yes, it was too alligator-infested! But that is besides the point. The point is that all fingers pointed at you and we had no choice but to hijack that passing donkey cart and hightail it out of Russia for good and all. Did you ever hear, that the minister made it out of the river alive, just a little wet and with some seaweed clinging to his collar. The peasant farmer meanwhile was fined a hundred rubles for wasting his best cash crop. YOu basically made borscht out of his heart, you heart-breaker you. But this was all years ago and time heals all wounds. They demolished that bridge, by the way, to keep the adoring mob from turning it into a shrine to you and your brave actions which threatened to spark another revolution.
-Livvy

MuseSwings said...

Livvy, Those alligators? That was half of my decoy shipment from Alexi's Acme Plastics. The shipping cart fell into the Volga. Thats why the minister escaped unscathed except for seeing red from all those beets. I took care of the farmer - I sent him a Valentime's day card and he thinks I'm coming back to marry him, ex-cetera. He's getting his troika decked out with bells and he's out of the beet buiness. Cabbages is the new crop. And those adoring people, isn't it amazing how you and I escape from these Feudian farces looking like the Lone Ranger except that there are always two of us. I heard them exclaim 'ere we drove out of sight "Who were those babuska'd babes!"

Sreisaat said...

Happy PFF.
Beautiful box to put those lovely cards! I wish I had joined had I known about this :)

Postcards Crossing

Anonymous said...

Musey! So the rumours are true after all! And to think I spent half the night defending you to the KGB when they "questioned" me at Alexi's Acme Plastics factory in Volgograd. People for miles around heard me shrieking "Nyet!" in vigorous denial that you knew anything at all about plastics explosives smuggled in Russian samovars. Now I feel like a dunce. Oh well, t'isn't the first time and shant be the last! ANd by the way the last time I came by your place I saw the lovelorn letters from the farmer. Talk about 'From Russia With Love'!
-Livvy

MuseSwings said...

I was so sure you were saying Dah! that I dashed off to the Hotel, left a quick note to the farmer (I TOLD YOU I HATE BEETS) grabbed what I could in our 32 travel cases and trunks and headed for the Siberian Frontier. Next time, would you please remember to pack snowshoes!

sandy said...

Oh what a great idea, this exchange! Such beautiful images.

ChaChaneen said...

That box is such a lovely gift, I'm so touched by it. So personal too! I lurve it! AND I love that idea with the postcard exchange. This is the BEST PFF post! Have a blessed Sunday my friend!