Mail call: tin wall pocket made into a romantic Victorian style mail holder

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Update 2018: Just a quick update on this post to show that yes, I am still using my sweet mail tin! In the past couple years I’ve acquired a few vintage postcards that I keep in the tin… and when I remember to do it, I swap them out for various holidays.

I’ve been on the lookout for a tin wall pocket to use as an outgoing mail caddy in my home office (because I really AM trying to write more letters!), and finally found something this week at Goodwill that would work (99 cents – hooray!):

Not a bad little piece (though it must have been “crooked day” at the tin-folding factory!), and even the finish had some depth to it.

To begin, I spray painted the tin piece white, then gathered some home-made paper elements (using graphics from The Graphics Fairy)…

…and some romantic adornments…

…and set about figuring out how everything should be used. I knew I wanted a label on the front, and also had the idea of incorporating some vintage postcards. (My “postcards” are only partials because I was having trouble with printer settings. I decided I could still get the look I wanted of having them tucked inside the pocket even if they weren’t full-size.) I first glued them together at a jaunty, “just tossed in” angle…

… then glued them into the inside back of the pocket.

I layered my pink ribbon and ivory rose by wiring them together, and further layered by tucking in the hanky as a backdrop for the ribbons.

Here’s a peek at the “Mail” label:

I actually tried several different arrangements of all these elements, and this was my favorite. So, here’s the finished piece, ready to hold my letters (or, more likely, bills)!

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