Glossary / FAQ / Abbreviations

[blueness]

This thread was saved from pX last year – and has/will be tweaked & revised as time goes on…
special thanks to all the pX-ers who originally put it together piece by piece!

ATC - Artist Trading Card
One rule: 2.5" x 3.5" (64mm x 89mm). Should be able to fit in a sleeve like you'd put baseball cards or such, so while they can be made using any medium, they should be relatively flat.

Decos are little blank booklets that are passed/mailed from one artist to another, each artist along the way filling a page with any medium of art. The creator of the deco decorates the front cover, includes atleast thier name & address, and the name & address of who the deco is intended for (decos can be created by and intended for the same person). Often created with a theme, and each person decorates thier page by thier own interpretation of the creators them and/or instructions (usually noted inside the front cover). Decos are usually sized at about 3x5", but this size is not a requirement.

FSB/FB - Friendship Book
A Friendship book is usually a few sheets of paper stapled together, to form a small mail-friendly book. The creator of the FB decorates the front cover, includes atleast thier name & address, and the name & address of who the FB is intended for (FBs can be created by and intended for the same person). The last page usually contains information on where to send the full FB home once full. The book travels from person to person, each one adding their own personals. Information may include any of the following: name, snail mail address, email address, whether they're looking for new pen pals/new swaps, interests, age, or anything else they choose to include.

FS - Friendship Sheet
Similar to Friendship Books, but made on a single sheet of paper or stationery.

FSB / FB / FS Abbreviations
A/A - Answers All (in regard to pen pals)
A/M - Answers Most
A/O - Answers Only (listing what type of pals they're looking for)
A/S - Answers Some
Addy/Addie - Address
BD - Birthday
DOB - Date of Birth
Envie - Envelope
ICR - I Can Return (meaning when the book is full, this person is willing to send it to the person for whom it was made)
LLP - Long Letter Pals (meaning they are looking for pals that will send lengthy letters)
N/P - No Prisoners!
NPW - New Pals Wanted
NSW - New Swappers Wanted
SAHM - Stay at Home Mom
SASE - Self addressed stamped envelope
SNNP - Sorry No New Pals (person can no longer accept new pals)
WA - Wedding Anniversary
WAHM - Work at Home Mom
WD - Wedding Date
WS - Write Soon
WW - World Wide

NSB - New Swappers Book

PIF - Pay It Forward
If someone did you a favor - something big, something you couldn't do on your own - and instead of paying it back, you paid it forward to three people ... and the next day they each paid it forward to three more ... and the day after that, those 27 people each paid it forward to another three ... and each day, everyone in turn paid it forward to three more people ... in two weeks that comes to 4,782,969 people.
www.payitforward.com/

RAOK - Random Act of Kindness

Slams are a remnant of childhood. Do you remember passing around a notebook among your friends and on each page was a question you had to answer? Well, these are along those same lines, except that we don't try to make each other cry by asking questions like "Do you think Jodi is fat?" like my friends used to do in grade school.

Fat Slams
Some people do ones called Fat Slams, which are done with notebooks like in the old days. But generally slams are made by hand, are small enough to fit in an envelope, and are about 20 pages long. You can use 8.5x11" paper folded in quarters (cut the top edge, of course). For a cover you can use a card or a page from a magazine cut to size. Then just staple along the fold. On the first page, put who the slam was made by (plus who it's for, if not you) and the date. On the second page, tell slammers to sign in. On all the rest of the pages, put a question at the top of the page. Some people use the last page for a sign-out page, but I don't think that's necessary.

Some slams have themes, such as Food, Travel, Clothes, Music, TV, Movies, etc. Others are just random questions. I like all kinds, but I prefer to do ones that ask probing questions like, "what's the best job in the world?" as opposed to, "what's the last TV show you watched?" But really, anything goes.
**thanks to craig for posting the above info on slams!

Lyrix are similar to decos except each page is decorated using lyrics from a song. Some are simple - with the lyrics simply written in them. Others are artistic with pictures and/or other decorations.

Quotz are similar to Lyrix except instead of song lyrics they contain quotes from movies. These can also be themed, such as Quentin Tarantino movie quotes. Some are simple - with the quotes simply written in them. Others are artistic with pictures and/or other decorations.

Crams are similar to FBs, but no personal information is included. The object of the game is to 'cram' as many names and addresses into the space provided as possible.

Xslips are slips of paper that have two or more snail mail addresses on them. At the top it says something along the lines of Make 5 FBs for #1, Move #2 up to the first place, and put yourself as #2. Copy 10 times. They sometimes differ in instructions, applying to any mail-friendly item, such as Send 2 sheets of stickers to #1. Copy 10 times. 'Copy' means you make 10 copies of the slip, and in turn send them out to 10 new people.

When you get a bunch of x-slips, you look through them and decide which ones of them you want to participate in. The others you can pass along to someone else along with any new ones you make yourself.

Zines are self-published magazines reproduced at Kinko's or your local copy-house, distributed through mail order and word-of-mouth. Content can be pretty much anything. I've seen zines about arts, crafts, music, television, school, food, and so many other topics...
www.zinebook.com/

Perzines are short for personal zines. It's basically just stuff about the author and the author's life.