Mail, Mail and More Mail!

I have been getting more and more creative with my outgoing mail.  I love to write letters, almost as much as I love receiving them!  Below is a photo of a little booklet letter I made.  The cover picture is a color copy of a page from my first art journal back when I started painting with twinkling h2O watercolors.  I folded the booklet so each page is a little inset from the next, and then put washi tape on each edge so it shows all the styles when the booklet is closed.  I sewed the binding with some sparkly DMC floss, and I stamped some flowers on each of the pages with different shades of purple ink.  I glued the recipient's initial on the front cover (which unfortunately I had forgotten until after I had it all sealed inside the envelope!)

The envelopes below are all for the Secret Snail Mail Society I am a part of.  It is a very small group of women who are all interested in sharing mail and mail art. Various members issue challenges and members can participate if they want.  These envelopes are filled with 40 or more little pieces of ephemera from a scavenger hunt challenge.  Much cutting and sorting ensued!

After having two days of NO MAIL this week (I think the postal workers were slacking!) I decided to make a few envies.  This after I realized what a ridiculous amount of scrapbook paper I had sitting on a shelf gathering dust and mites. I think I made 39 envelopes, then I set about using up a bunch of the washi tape samples that seem to be multiplying.  I emptied 14? 17? cards that day.

Here is a sample of one of the envies after I decorated it up. :)

Here are a bunch of them that are ready to go out on Monday.  I am starting to run out of all those stamps I had collected back in the 1990's and early 2000's.  Other than Christmas stamps, I don't have any 37 or 34 cent stamps left.  Still lots of 32 and 33 cents, though.

Hopefully more mail will come in this week than came in last week. It was pretty pitiful!  My count for the year so far of outgoing pieces is 525 counting these that will go tomorrow.  How did that happen??

Happy Art Swap

One of the things I have recently started participating in is a swap I found on Instagram called Happy Art Swap.  Once a month, each participant sends in 4 cards 5X7 size with original art on it.  The organizer shuffles them up and sends out three to each participant, keeps a set for herself, then sends extras to various people.  Here are the cards I made for the December #haswap.

 This first card reflects my love for the written word--snail-mail, pen-pals and the like.  The "letter" is stamped on, then I hand wrote the text.  The other little post card image is also stamped, as is the metallic embossing on the upper left and lower right corners.  The pen was an embellishment in a packet from K&Co, the stamps from my stash, and the green seal I put on with sealing wax.  There is a tiny bit of washi tape on the top of the letter--because almost every single letter I send has washi on it somewhere!

 The background didn't turn out quite like I had wanted it to, so I added the edge of the map to cover some of it up.  No problem!  It set the tone for the seaside feel of this card.  Again, the trees, and I think the letters if I recall correctly are all K&Co embellishments.  I added distress stickles glitter to the palm trees.

 This card, framed in washi tape, has a little card in the upper corner from a winery and is written in Russian.  The flowers were all white when I started, but I painted them all with twinks.  I used little rhinestones for the centers as I didn't want to put brads through the heavy illustration board that I made these cards from.

 This last one is all about the new year.  Lots of fortune cookie strips in the pocket, and all of them offer good wishes.  The words were all cut from junk mail. :)

I don't think I posted the November cards, and since they got deleted before I was able to download them, I borrowed the picture Sandie posted on her blog.  Here is the November set--my first ones ever. :)

Mail Art! and Outgoing Mail for December 1-9

There are many things that bring a smile to my face, but one of the most fun is mail art!  I love getting (and sending) fun things through the mail.  Here are a few of my latest outgoing...

I have been loving using all the old stamps I had collected for years, and from the views on my Instagram I would say others enjoy them as well!

Now, for my actual mail art...  This first one is a post card, front and back, for a SwapBot swap.  It leaves for Great Britain in the morning...

And finally, this piece went out yesterday (in a platic sleeve because of all those fibery little goodies on the side--no sense slowing down the entire mail production in case someone accidentally fed it to a machine!)

I have sent out many more pieces of mail in the last few weeks, but these are the ones I happened to photograph.