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longest reign

Another milestone. Back in September on the 9th the Queen became the longest serving reigning monarch surpassing Queen Victoria’s reign. This indeed needed a mailer to celebrate this. I thought I’d let the dates speak for themselves by using matching stamps with the same number values. The top mailers stamps spelt out the date she became the longest reigning monarch, 9.9.2015, and the bottom used the years which she has reigned, 1952-2015. Now I posted both at the same time and from the same place, but one turned up mashed, opened, badly franked with biro on the stamps that didn’t get franked, while the other turned up a day later sealed in a 1st class bag with perfect souvenir franks. Why? Who knows, they both didn’t add up to a 1st class stamp, can only guess they got one over the other, or just maybe took offence that on one I spelt monarch wrong!

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mail tennis v

Advantage Royal Mail. 5 of 5. This tennis themed DL was done with the spirit of Wimbledon in mind. My good friend Haiminh played with me to see how many rallies (or journeys) we could put the same envelope through the post. I served, he returned, I did back etc. We managed five rallies before it disappeared within the Royal Mail ether. New balls please.

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mail tennis iv

Advantage Royal Mail. 4 of 5. This tennis themed DL was done with the spirit of Wimbledon in mind. My good friend Haiminh played with me to see how many rallies (or journeys) we could put the same envelope through the post. I served, he returned, I did back etc. We managed five rallies before it disappeared within the Royal Mail ether. New balls please.

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mail tennis iii

Advantage Royal Mail. 3 of 5. This tennis themed DL was done with the spirit of Wimbledon in mind. My good friend Haiminh played with me to see how many rallies (or journeys) we could put the same envelope through the post. I served, he returned, I did back etc. We managed five rallies before it disappeared within the Royal Mail ether. New balls please.

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mail tennis ii

Advantage Royal Mail. 2 of 5. This tennis themed DL was done with the spirit of Wimbledon in mind. My good friend Haiminh played with me to see how many rallies (or journeys) we could put the same envelope through the post. I served, he returned, I did back etc. We managed five rallies before it disappeared within the Royal Mail ether. New balls please.

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mail tennis

Advantage Royal Mail. 1 of 5. This tennis themed DL was done with the spirit of Wimbledon in mind. My good friend Haiminh played with me to see how many rallies (or journeys) we could put the same envelope through the post. I served, he returned, I did back etc. We managed five rallies before it disappeared within the Royal Mail ether. New balls please.

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one proud nan

Congratulations Grandma. This DL was done on the announcement of the newest Royal family member. It set off nice and clean with just the Queen shouting for joy, but she came back with a Dali tash as the frank had missed her along with biro dashes and barcode stickers. I quite like the way though it looks as if the barcode has dropped down and she has had to jump out of the way to avoid it.

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how it all began

Meet the family. In this one I used a family tree as a vehicle to house the stamp. As every reigning monarch has had their image on a stamp this is also a perfect way to display a selection of them starting from the penny black to the Queen Elizabeth one used as postage.

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undercover police

Call the cops! Recently received a Royal Mail postcard for an undelivered item due to there being insufficient postage on the said item, and a charge of £1.50 when you go down to the depot to pick it up. This postcard has a stamp from the smile series issued a few years back, and the laughing policeman was stuck on the front aligned with an old photo of a policeman carrying a marrow! They must of married up well as the Royal mail didn't even see it and so assumed it was just a postcard with nothing on it (hence no frank). Fear not frankthis fans did they still charge me for it, oh no.

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mad hatter

An unbirthday card? No great deal of thought behind this one, just loved the way the image married up with the stamp acting as the bit of paper in his top hat.

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Double dutch

Waht the hlel is tihs? I had read from research, from Cambridge University that it doesn't matter what order the letters are in a word so as long as the first and last are correct. The human brain doesn't read every letter but the word as a whole so makes it easier to decipher. Thought I'd use this to write a message on the envelope and explain where it has to be delivered. Seems Cambridge was right!

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A letter from the Queen

Well I never! Before Christmas I received a letter from her Maj thanking me for congratulating her on sixty years on the throne and the Jubilee along with a note that says I hope I will understand that because of the enormous amount of letters she has received it has not been possible to reply to me until now. Now I had never sent any letter so this is the only explaination I can think of.

Back in June I did of course do some Jubilee mailers for the occasion. One of them is re-created above, using the national anthem ending in GOD SAVE THE and the Jubilee stamp. They never arrived so I assumed some stamp nut or collector within the Royal Mail had kept them for himself. I even emailed Royal Mail later to have a little moan. My address was printed on the back to keep the front clean.

SO...  I can only assume whoever picked it up took my address as the senders address and forwarded it onto the palace for her pleasure. So low and behold I think someone's nabbed it and half a year later she says thank you. Well thank you your Majesty for indeed brightening up my blog. A little bit of me was tempted to write to the palace and explain the mix up but think I'll let this one slide!

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first class bung

Celebrating the Chinese New Year. One of the Chinese traditions for the New Year is to burn money for old ancestors in the after life for good luck. I didn't know this and guessed the majority of posties wouldn't either... and I just thought a wad of money would look great as a mailer. Address and stamp on the money band. Would a lose bung of what could be forign currency just go through... oh yeah

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as nature intended

How would this stamp work with the mailer? A nice cute little vulnerable chick on a journey could either of been perhaps learning to swim posted on a rubber ring, chirping an address, growing into a fine swan or maybe just on the end of an Eagles talons for lunch!

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QR code address

"Blip" to obtain delivery address. This was the only written instruction on the envelope under a QR code, simple enough. The QR code was generated online using my address and then just printed on the envelope and posted as normal. This took around two and a half weeks to arrive though. I'm guessing whoever it arrived at didn't have a smart phone? Or perhaps just plopped to one side till someone knew what to do with it? Any way postie scribbled address on the front and voila!

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once every four years III

The leap year anti-proposal kit. Another leap year mailer but playing on what is special about the day rather than the day itself, February 29th being the only day ladies are supposedly allowed to propose to men for marriage.

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once every four years II

The second leap year mailer posted after the last collection on the 28th to get the 29th of February frank. This one only came through yesterday so took two weeks. No definition to explain the 11p postage of sorts just the little line 'once in every four years' under the stamps with the address on the back, but this got franked twice front and back missing the stamps so postie put a little line through them.