Blogging A to Z: M for Mail Art

April is here!! It's time for daily blogging, lots of visitors and meeting new friends.  In other words, time for the Blogging A to Z challenge hosted by Arlee Bird and his team of minions.  Thousands of other bloggers from all over the world participate in this blog hop each year, and anyone may join in as long as they blog each day during the month of April, (except Sundays) the blog posts correspond to the appropriate letter for that day, and they sign up on the link list. Simple!

Oh, my.  I had so many choices for M--modern, mixed media, modeling paste... but I'll settle on one today that makes me oh, so happy; Mail Art.  The post office doesn't even have to have the correct address on my mail (although I'm sure it helps!) to deliver it to me.  My incoming and outgoing mail is almost all highly decorated--or at least sports a strip or two of washi tape...

I'll Share a few photos with you and leave it at that for today. They speak for themselves. :)

Recycled Chiptole take-out bag.  Yes, I mailed it with the handles still on it. :)

Black and white...

This postcard was made mostly from junk-mail pieces. 

Phone book map envelopes.

Another postcard from junk mail pieces. 

Altered file folder filled with goodies and enclosed in a clear bag for mailing.  

Thank you for dropping by today.  I'd love to read your comments if you care to leave any.

Blogging A to Z: C is for Collage

April is here!! It's time for daily blogging, lots of visitors and meeting new friends.  In other words, time for the Blogging A to Z challenge hosted by Arlee Bird and his team of minions.  Thousands of other bloggers from all over the world participate in this blog hop each year, and anyone may join in as long as they blog each day during the month of April, (except Sundays) the blog posts correspond to the appropriate letter for that day, and they sign up on the link list. Simple!

I actually have quite a few words that relate to the letter for the day: Create, Color, Craft, Canvas... lots of artsy words begin with C.  But today I will try to focus. :)  Here is what the Free Dictionary has to say about my topic:

col·lage

  (kō-läzh′, kə-)

n.

1.

a. An artistic composition of materials and objects pasted over a surface, often with unifying lines   and color.

b. A work, such as a literary piece, composed of both borrowed and original material.

2. The art of creating such compositions.

3. An assemblage of diverse elements: a collage of conflicting memories.

v. col·laged, col·lag·ing, col·lag·es

v.tr.

To paste (diverse materials) over a surface, thereby creating an artistic product.

v.intr.

To create such an artistic product.

My favorite use for collage is in mail art.  I like to cut up magazines, junk mail, catalogs, etc. and apply various pieces to the outside of an envelope.

Sometimes I use collage in my art, too.  It is the one time I don't feel guilty about using someone else's art. :)

Pieces I cut from stationary and a book page.

odds and ends from my table after a variety of other crafting experiments. I glued them all to a larger piece, then cut to ATC size 

This used a variety of materials, from scrapbooking paper to bits of an envelope that came in the mail (gold leaves). The skeleton is stamped and embossed on a piece of clear acetate, then cut. The tree is cut free-hand from wood veneer, and there is a piece of cork behind the skeleton's legs.  The birds are cut from a Martha Stewart border punch. The fern leaves behind the mushrooms are purchased embellishments by K & Co. 

This ATC used tissue paper on the back ground, some stickers, die cuts and washi tape. 

I have done a few collages on canvas, too. Here is one I really like:

This was my first canvas.  I have done a few others, but this one is still my favorite.  If I was doing it now, I would use some different things, but as a first try, I am pretty pleased.

Have you ever done collage? What is your favorite source for usable materials?

Tags and Postcards

I spent two glorious days last week with my gelliplate.

Then I used some of them in various projects.

 All these above are post cards except the second one which is a5x7 for a monthly art swap called Happy Art Swap (#haswap)

This one is a tag I made for someone on Instagram. My sweet daughter was feeling generous and ordered a few items from my Etsy favorites, just because. One of the items was the new Dina Wakely scribble birds stamp set. Another was the Tim Holtz layering stencil with splatters. I'm pleased with the projects so far, and I have a pretty hefty pile of prints to create with..

In the printing sessions I used file folders to clean my brayer and stencils and have had fun altering them as well. I am sending one off today in a mail art swap with a variety of little ephemera pieces, and I used three others to organize my mail and swap groups. As time goes by, I plan to add more things to the fronts, but at least I have a place to store my various swaps while in progress.

It feels great to be back making art (besides washi tape postcards)

Those are a tremendous amount of fun to make, and I am making a valiant effort to use up my washi tape samples by the end of summer. Several have already been sent out either naked with stamps on them, or as a little note in another mailing. Don't those fun strips of color just make you happy? :-)

Traveling Letter Journal

I have two pen-friends who are both interested in art and pen-pal letters.  We all connected via swap-bot, although I had met Karen on Instagram. Over the last several months, we have done a variety of collaborations, and recently embarked on a new one.  Beth bought a small journal and we are each going to write in it, preferably with doodles and whimsical writing as well.  Here were my first couple of pages.

 This first one is doodles and paint. I used glaze gel pens by Sakura for the doodles, and Twinkling H2O watercolors for the fill-in.

And this is the finished spread.  I did one more page, but it is all writing, so I didn't post it. The journal will travel around to each of us, and we will get to read what the others wrote, then add a message to both of them. We still write regular letters as well, but this is a fun little adventure, especially with all the fancy lettering and doodles. 

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??

In and Out Mail Art

The mail has been flying around the world between Zoe Cottage and parts far-flung! Here is a picture of my table last week while I was sorting things out, filing, and tossing a bit of the incoming mail...

The box in front is full of ONE pen pal's letters/mail!  She is a prolific mailer! :)  We swap a lot of washi tape, and have done other projects together, besides just writing letters.  I imagine her stash of MY incoming mail looks similar!  I ended up recording a lot of the information gleaned from the letters and tossing the actual letters in the trash because I just don't have room to store all that--and then to what end? I am not very sentimental, but I will say that some of these letters were keepers, and I couldn't part with them. They are inspiring with all the artistic additions and sweet sentiments. It's okay to keep, but it is also okay to toss, right?

I have also sent my fair share of fun out into the system, and here are a couple of mailings I sent recently.

 This one was an altered file folder.

And this was a pile of outgoing mail last Monday. I do love sending pretty envelopes with washi tape and vintage stamps!

Mail Art and a few ATCs

Here are a few ATCs I made this week. The first two are experiments with glass bead gel on some gelliprint backgrounds, the other was using some black paper I had painted on with twinkling H2O watercolors.

grapes

The light really reflects off the shimmery paints, so you can't see the colors well in the photo, but they were pretty cool! :)

And here are a couple of postcards I made with some fun backgrounds I made using bubble wrap and twinks.

 This first card is for a swap with the theme of circles. I got a couple/few on there...

This second one is for a swap with my friend in Scotland who does awesome doodle drawings.  Lately she has been on a bird kick, so I made a card to trade with her using birds.  These are all but one of my bird stamps, and as many other bird embellishments as I could round up!  (including two bird washi-tapes!)

Happy Valentine's Day!

I am not posting a lot about hearts and love today, but I do wish all my friends and family a happy day to celebrate LOVE!  What I do have to share: Pictures! :)

First up are some Artist Trading Cards (ATCs) I made this week.  All have been traded already.  I used some of my Gelli-prints for the backgrounds, and pawed through my collection of "extras" that people send with swaps to find some of the embellishments.  I also cut up a florists calendar for some of the arrangement photos.

This was a "jam" which means three people added to the background.  My contribution was the background, and the rest of it was so bad, I tore it all off and reworked it.  It is much more subdued than my usual bright colors, but I liked it anyway.

The next one is for a swap that required the use of the inside of a security envelope for the background.  I had been saving them for a while, so I had a lot of patterns to choose from.  Rather than just using them for the background, I used them for the whole thing!

And here is the card, ATC sleeve and envelope I sent the finished product in. I was quite happy with the overall effect, and I hope the recipient will be!

This is on the loom this week.  Purple, teal and off-white color combination.  Elizabeth has two completed and listed on her etsy shop, and this one should be up sometime next week.

And last, but not least, here is a short stack of outgoing mail from this week.  I just love decorating the envelopes with washi tape!  :)

I haven't forgotten the promised photos of the garden room.  Ornery has been working a little bit each evening, and just about has it ready to add the grow media.  Seeds are sprouting right and left in the little trays, and the temperature is finally tolerable outside. Hopefully by the end of the weekend, I will have some good pictures to share.  Meanwhile, there are huge boxes stacked everywhere awaiting the completion of the grow bed system.  They are full of grow stones media, and they are taking up a lot of space in the garage and living room!! :(