How my gingerbread houses got on
United States postage stamps...
Here's how it happened...
Sometime in 2007, I thought it would be neat to have gingerbread houses on holiday postage stamps, because it hadn't been done yet, they are non-religious and most people love them. When I went into my local post office and asked how a person could submit their idea for a stamp design, the postmaster told me I would have to submit my ideas to the Citizens' Advisory Stamp Committee, a big USPS committee, that met a couple of times a year, and blah, blah, blah, red tape, more red tape, blue tape, green tape, then he said, “but, you know there is a lady who just lives down in Northville (about a mile away) who is a photographer of images used on US postage stamps, maybe she would be able to help, do you want her number?” I couldn’t believe he was giving me her number! So I got up my courage and called her and explained who I was and that I had written a couple of popular books on making gingerbread houses. Amazingly, she told me that she had been looking for someone who could build a beautiful gingerbread house to be photographed as a submission for a stamp design.
The photographer took some photos of gingerbread houses that I had (both real size and miniature) and we made a proposal. She sent the photos to the Art Director, who liked the idea, and so we started working on making gingerbread houses that would “read well” on tiny stamps. With each new set of houses I built, I had to deliver them to the photography studio, which is down a bumpy dirt road. I always had to bring my fix-it kit in case of breakage. The first houses were too brown, the next ones were too busy looking, try a different angle... two years and several versions later, we finally turned in a set of photos that made the committee go ‘oooh, aaaahhh’.
After a design (or 4) has been accepted, they put the design in the vault, where it can spend a week or two or perhaps an eternity. The vault is where they keep the accepted stamp designs until they decide to issue them for real or not. Our stamp was in the vault for 4 years. I had been told in the beginning that if the news got out that this was in the works, they would just drop the whole thing. It was really hard not to spill the beans about it, even to my mom. After a couple of years went by, I figured our stamp would just stay in the vault for eternity and I kind of forgot about it (well, as you know life happens in the meantime and blows stuff right out of your mind). I was told, at the beginning of the journey, that we would not be told about any part of the process; that we would have to find out about, it with the rest of the world, when it was published on the website. Then at the end of August 2013, I received an email from a woman who works for the USPS stamps marketing company, who was asking me questions about the process of building the houses and what candies I used, etc., so I figured they must be doing something with it. She was writing an article for the website and she gave me the link to the uspsstamps.com website and HOLY COW!!! There they were!!
We were invited to the First Day of Issue ceremony in New York City at the James Farley Post Office on 8th Avenue and 33rd St. on Wednesday, November 6th. To my great surprise, they had built my little gingerbread house about 15 feet tall in the lobby of the post office! It was great fun. The photographer and I were both presented, by the Postmaster General, with a framed enlargement of the image of the stamps and a set of the stamps themselves. They also had made gingerbread cookies which looked just like the houses. I am just thrilled that I have added something good to the world that wasn’t there before.
Sometime in 2007, I thought it would be neat to have gingerbread houses on holiday postage stamps, because it hadn't been done yet, they are non-religious and most people love them. When I went into my local post office and asked how a person could submit their idea for a stamp design, the postmaster told me I would have to submit my ideas to the Citizens' Advisory Stamp Committee, a big USPS committee, that met a couple of times a year, and blah, blah, blah, red tape, more red tape, blue tape, green tape, then he said, “but, you know there is a lady who just lives down in Northville (about a mile away) who is a photographer of images used on US postage stamps, maybe she would be able to help, do you want her number?” I couldn’t believe he was giving me her number! So I got up my courage and called her and explained who I was and that I had written a couple of popular books on making gingerbread houses. Amazingly, she told me that she had been looking for someone who could build a beautiful gingerbread house to be photographed as a submission for a stamp design.
The photographer took some photos of gingerbread houses that I had (both real size and miniature) and we made a proposal. She sent the photos to the Art Director, who liked the idea, and so we started working on making gingerbread houses that would “read well” on tiny stamps. With each new set of houses I built, I had to deliver them to the photography studio, which is down a bumpy dirt road. I always had to bring my fix-it kit in case of breakage. The first houses were too brown, the next ones were too busy looking, try a different angle... two years and several versions later, we finally turned in a set of photos that made the committee go ‘oooh, aaaahhh’.
After a design (or 4) has been accepted, they put the design in the vault, where it can spend a week or two or perhaps an eternity. The vault is where they keep the accepted stamp designs until they decide to issue them for real or not. Our stamp was in the vault for 4 years. I had been told in the beginning that if the news got out that this was in the works, they would just drop the whole thing. It was really hard not to spill the beans about it, even to my mom. After a couple of years went by, I figured our stamp would just stay in the vault for eternity and I kind of forgot about it (well, as you know life happens in the meantime and blows stuff right out of your mind). I was told, at the beginning of the journey, that we would not be told about any part of the process; that we would have to find out about, it with the rest of the world, when it was published on the website. Then at the end of August 2013, I received an email from a woman who works for the USPS stamps marketing company, who was asking me questions about the process of building the houses and what candies I used, etc., so I figured they must be doing something with it. She was writing an article for the website and she gave me the link to the uspsstamps.com website and HOLY COW!!! There they were!!
We were invited to the First Day of Issue ceremony in New York City at the James Farley Post Office on 8th Avenue and 33rd St. on Wednesday, November 6th. To my great surprise, they had built my little gingerbread house about 15 feet tall in the lobby of the post office! It was great fun. The photographer and I were both presented, by the Postmaster General, with a framed enlargement of the image of the stamps and a set of the stamps themselves. They also had made gingerbread cookies which looked just like the houses. I am just thrilled that I have added something good to the world that wasn’t there before.