iHanna swap - final

Here are the last 2 cards I sent in for the iHanna swap.

And the two I received from Thomas...

...and Debbie.

Thomas' had this great note on the back. In fact, since he didn't mention the iHanna swap at all, there's a chance it is nothing to do with the swap. Ah, the mysteries of mail art.

And Debbie sent hers in a clear envelope for protection. This could be fun to reuse.

Envelope 65

This is one of the oldest ones I have left, sent to Eric B.

Quite hard to decide what stamps to use on this unusual image. Black and white? Johnny Cash? In the end I opted to go with Ray Charles. 

Addressed:

And the back.

MUNI

This postcard from Karen I has a lot of great components to it... great composition!

Karen also creates great faux postage that was on the addressed side:

Paper bag 2

I received another great paper bag from my local card & wine store, which I sent to Tony M in France. Fortunately I still have some kaleidoscope stamps left that go well with the reddish color.

iHanna swap part 3

Three more that I sent out:

And three I received from Maudy...

...Deidre...

...and Caroline.

butterflies to bed

The final postcard I sent in for the found poetry challenge.

you know the feeling. the soda fountain that loves you back

Found poetry MMSA postcard from Alyssa.

form remarkable

The third found poetry card I sent in for the swap.

risky adventures in the past

Found poetry postcard from Lynn.

back into the field

The second found poetry card I sent in for the MMSA swap.

a particle

Found poetry MMSA swap postcard from Judith.

Scavenger hunt answers

Answers:

The one I sent in to the swap (it had eleven - bonus points are possible):

Seedling

Stone pavers

Street map

Stained glass

Sea

Swimmers

Selvage

Stamp

Silhouette

Stone wall

Seven sixes

The one I sent to Karen:

Shoot

Shave

Stuck

Sloshed

Standing

Studying

Shout

Slap

Shake

Stop

And Gina's card had 14:

Sea green

Snake

Shnelly mail snail (I'm not sure exactly where that is)

Swan

Shell

SEcurity envelope

Sand piper

Siamese

Sharpei

Sheep

Seahorse (Gina has used this as an artistamp in the past)

Splash

Swell

Stapes

Gina added even more on the addressed side.

he pushed curled shrugged paused

One of my entries into the found poetry MMSA swap.

toddle down with fun ideas

The first of the found poetry cards I received in the MMSA swap - this one's by Carroll.

MMSA Brown and blue part 2

The final two I sent in for the MMSA brown and blue challenge:

And received from Leslie and Peggy:

iHanna swap part 2

Four cards sent for this swap:

And cards received from Sherry...

...Jennie....

...and Tracy Lee and Constant-Grace.

Tangledelay - F&F #67

After my first participation in about Su's Friends & Faux postcard project I shopped for a card in her etsy store.

Weeks went by, no card appeared. After about 4 weeks I emailed her, and she graciously sent me a replacement. That was #70.

And of course, a few more weeks went by and #67 showed up, with this rather large label on the back:

Looking at the amount of postage Su had on the envelope it certainly didn't seem to be insufficient, however this one must have travelled by surface mail (not sure if anyone uses that term anymore).

This is my addition to this one - one of my black & white flowers stamps. A little large for the space provided, but I made it work. I sent this off to Jan H and her artist group - I'll be interested to see what they come up with.

Brown and blue MMSA part 1

The brown and blue MMSA challenge was one of my favorites - not because of the cards I created, but because of everyone else's efforts. They are all blogged on Karen's website. (The link should take you to a list of all entries labeled brown & blue, just scroll down - you may need to click to older posts at the bottom).

Two I sent:

And two I received from Jan and Lynn:

Scavenger Hunt - letter S

This MMSA challenge involved finding 10 items beginning with the letter S. Not only did I have a tough time finding 10 items, but I had an even harder time creating a pleasing composition. I sent the top card in for the challenge, and the bottom one in for the host, Karen:

And received this fun card from Gina V:

See if you can guess the 10 items beginning with S from each card. I'll post the answers in a forthcoming update.

horizontal cloud + bonus mystery metro map

At long last sent Hester W a response to her great green card with the elegant liner.

Envelope 178 is another cloud scene; this one looked better horizontally aligned. I sent a note on another of my mystery metro map cards.

The envelope stamped (the address was placed in the brightest part of the cloud in blue to match the stamp):

MMSA transparency

Karen over at MMSA has been throwing in some technique-based challenges. She is a genius at making it just challenging enough that you try something new, yet not so technically/artistically difficult that you give up or decide not to participate. She also provides great examples, and suggestions so that you don't have to go out and buy a ton of supplies that you'll never use.

The results from something as simple as adding a layer of transparency blew me away. The depth and vibrancy of the images compared to plain card was a big surprise.

Four I sent out, including one for the host:

And the ones I received from...

...Julie (one of the transparent pieces decided to go and have its own adventure, and it left an interesting mark):

....Rose (one of my favorites of the year so far - the scanner does NOT do this one justice):

...and more bees from Nora (another favorite - this one is a masterpiece with tiny rivets holding the transparency layers together).

Julie's also had a 'stamp' on that I haven't seen before - I wonder if this is one of those you print yourself at home?

iHanna DIY swap 1 'Ghost in the machine'

The gracious and talented Jan H invited me to join iHanna's spring DIY postcard swap where you send out 10 postcards and receive 10 (which will most likely not be from the same folk you send cards to).

I sent out 10 plus a bonus to Jan. The top one is the one I sent Jan - it is a result of the scanner deciding that orange=purple and blue=green. I kept the image as I thought it looked amazing. It's the second time the scanner has done something odd that I thought was worth keeping.

Here's a bonus card Jan sent me:

And one from the the swap from Lauren:

Friends and Faux Postage

This is F&F postcard #70 that is winging its way to Adrienne. 

The stamp is the first of the Finnbadger Fauxhio (symbol: Ŧ) definitives - the 1/4 Black (the Ŧ postcard rate). This is what it looks like on the perforated, gummed paper I splurged on a  while ago.