Monthly Magic from Tuscany

Imagine this. Once a month a letter arrives from Tuscany. Handmade paper. Gold leaf. Bees. Old stories. Small treasures and everyday magic from a stone farmhouse beside an ancient village. The letters are scented, so it even smells like Tuscany!I'm inviting you to join me in spirit while I gild actual lilies, paint the walls damson plum, and try to card alpaca fleece with a porcupine quill.

July's golden bee-themed letter

I'm Fiona Cameron Tankard. I write, paint, and live in a farmhouse beside an ancient village, with a husband, a Maine Coon, a collie, four alpacas, some bees, and a life-size metal stag called Rudolph who has refused, on principle, to play football with the dog. I want to share it all with you in a monthly Wild and Gilded letter.We spend our lives staring at screens. Wild and Gilded is a small rebellion against that. A real letter. Beautiful paper. A moment of wonder you can actually hold.Twenty years here have taught me that magic doesn't arrive on its own. You have to go and find it — in bees, old books, gold thread, and the unreasonable amount of joy to be had from a tube of gilding wax. Mostly I find it in small, slightly ridiculous places. I'd like to send you what I find.

The Wild and Gilded Letter Club

Once a month, an envelope turns up — handwritten on whatever beautiful paper I've hoarded lately (Florentine, handmade in Rome, occasionally gilded), faintly scented, and brimming with small treasures themed around whatever's happening here: bees, a feral garden, a forgotten object, gold leaf, a story I can't stop thinking about.For five minutes, wherever you actually are, you're also under an olive tree with me, watching a swarm of bees settle on a branch as though they had somewhere rather important to be. Then the letter ends, you go back to whatever you were doing, and you smell very faintly of Tuscany for the rest of the day.

Join the Letter Club

Monthly subscription — $20/month
Subscribing on someone else's behalf? At checkout, just tell us whose name should go on the letter.

Try One Letter

One-time payment — $25
Includes the next monthly Tuscany letter.
The perfect gift for someone who'd love a little wonder in the post — just let us know their name at checkout.

What Arrives Every Month in Each Letter

The letters are sent out at the beginning of each month. The subscription price includes postage. You can cancel anytime.Each mailing may include:
* A themed letter
* Handmade or fine Italian paper
* Original artwork or illustrated sheets
* A hand-painted illuminated initial of your name, for your very first letter
* Recipes and traditions from Tuscany
* Language and folklore
* Small seasonal discoveries

About Fiona and Why I'm Doing This

I've lived here long enough that the Etruscans down the road no longer feel like neighbours as much as very quiet, very old colleagues. William, my husband, is a priest, which comes in handy more often than you'd think, mostly for blessing things that don't strictly need blessing.I started Wild and Gilded because I think letters matter and we’ve simply stopped writing them. It’s so lovely to get a letter, to actually hold beautiful paper that someone touched, to read words written with a fountain pen and ink that is not quite perfect and is maybe slightly smudged because a real hand wrote it. To pick up the energy and the magic of connection, even for five minutes. And to have something tangible to keep and to re-read.So that's the invitation. Letters from Tuscany with magical things inside. For the first 50 subscribers the price is fixed at $20 a month.If you suspect the world contains more wonder than you're currently being offered, you're in the right place.

Join the Letter Club

Monthly subscription — $20/month
Subscribing on someone else's behalf? At checkout, just tell us whose name should go on the letter.

Try One Letter

One-time payment — $25
Includes the next monthly Tuscany letter.
The perfect gift for someone who'd love a little wonder in the post — just let us know their name at checkout.

Questions? Get in Touch

One-time payment — $25
Includes the next monthly Tuscany letter