Miscellany: Paperless Post Test Drive

I love reading and blogging about books. My other favorite hobby is stationery. I love sending paper invitations for parties. I try to use (use up, I should say) my collection of boxed cards and notes as invitations when I can. For instance, I recently used a set of vintage-looking postcards for a pot luck invitation and some Italian note cards for my mom’s birthday brunch.

But there are only so many minutes in the day! Sometimes sending an electronic invitation is the way to go. So I was more than willing to take Paperless Post up on its offer to make a test run, including their hippest designs from Happy Menocal, John Derian, Jonathan Adler, and my favorite Rifle Paper Co., in exchange for a review here on Rose City Reader.

My law firm hosts an annual "clothes swap" event every fall, so I used my coins to make a the most elaborate clothes-themed invitation I could come up with.

Here’s what it looked like:

I wanted fun, because this is a casual event, that also had fall colors because it is in October. I love the invitation card itself, because the colors are fresh and autumnal, and the images are perfect for a clothes swap. The original design was for a birthday party, but it was easy to customize the words. You can also change the font itself, the size, or the spacing. And for no additional coins, you can add "letterpress" effect, which I did because I think it makes it look more like paper.

I chose a Rifle Paper Co. background to mix in flowers with the same green and persimmon colors with the geometric prints in the clothes:

There were a lot of envelope liners to chose from, but I went with the suggested liner with green stripes:

And, finally, I chose a feminine stamp because I liked it:

The design I picked cost "2 coins" and each add on -- fancy Rifle Paper Co. background, adding an envelope, coordinating envelope liner, fancy stamp -- cost an additional coin, for a total of "6 coins" per invitation. Coins vary in cost depending on how many you buy, from 25 cents per coin to 10 cents per coin.

We sent the invitation to 150 people, so needed 900 coins. The most cost efficient way to do this would be to buy the package of 1,000 coins for $100. So sending these fancy invitations to 150 people would cost $100, which is much less than paper invitations and, of course, we paid nothing for stamps!

I'm not ready to toss my stationery collection in the recycling bin. But I'll definitely use Paperless Post for more invitations, especially for professional events or when the alternative is that I send no invitation at all.

Mailbox Monday: Two Very Different Books About Work

Two nonfiction books about work came my way last week. They are alike in their topic, but quite different in their subject matter and style. The first is a coming of age memoir, the second is a history book.



My Salinger Year by Joanna Rakoff. This one is the memoir. Rakoff spent a year working as an assistant for J. D. Salinger's literary agent, responding to Salinger's fan mail. She uses that job as the hook for her memoir about starting her career as a writer in the the literary world of New York in the late 1990s.

Even with its eye catching cover, I missed this book when it came out a few years ago. I got my copy this week at a wedding. The bride and groom had the charming idea to give copies of their favorite books to each of the guests as wedding favors. They had a table spread with books and each person chose one that appealed to them. I loved the idea, of course!



Persistent Callings: Seasons of Work and Identity on the Oregon Coast by Joseph E. Taylor III, new from OSU Press. This one is the history book, as you can tell from the title.

It is the history of the Nestucca Valley in western Oregon, from aboriginal times to the present. The Nestucca Valley is a river valley with no incorporated towns and more cows than people. The watershed abuts the Pacific Ocean and the economy long depended on farming, fishing, and logging, before gentrification brought vacation homes and tourism, often to the detriment of the hardest-working residents.

Persistent Callings is a local story that speaks more broadly about the social, economic, and environmental changes to rural life in the American West.

What books came into your house last week?

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday, a weekly "show & tell" blog event where participants share the books they acquired the week before. Visit the Mailbox Monday website to find links to all the participants' posts and read more about Books that Caught our Eye.

Mailbox Monday is graciously hosted by Leslie of Under My Apple Tree, Serena of Savvy Verse & Wit, and Martha of Reviews by Martha's Bookshelf.