Winter exchange - the Magi

I'm not much of a traditionalist, however I love the colors and camels on the Christmas Magi stamps.

Envelope 293

I made this envelope out of paper that I received in the file folder exchange (thanks, Claudia).

This primrose stamp seemed to work the best.

Sent to Lynn B.

The paper was interesting in that there was another print on the other side. I didn't see a stamp that went well with the design. Any suggestions? A pity that you can't really 'reverse' an envelope...

Envelope 513 - circles

Victoria over at IUOMA created an abstract design and cut it into 36 pieces, then asked for people who wanted  a piece to send her mail art.

This is the envelope I sent:

With a global stamp for an extra circle:

Addressed and sent to Argentina:

We'll see if I sent it in time for a piece of the art.

Black & white - Envelopes 244 & 288

I am always attracted to black and white photography.

Made in America stamp.

Sent to Jean.

And the back.

__________________________________

Snow scene.

To Rose.

The back.

Triangles 820, 821 and 822

To Christophe

To Erni

To Nina

Happy Boxing Day

A day for games and lounging around the house recovering from the post-Christmas feast in many English-speaking countries. 

Unless you are up for post-Christmas sales in some countries. 

And unless you are in the US, in which case you have to work, even though this year the 26th is a Friday - just how much work do you really think will be getting done?

This heavy piece of mail arrived:

From the back it is easier to see that it is a travel game of checkers.

And the vignette on the back of the board.

I wasn't quite sure who it was from, so I went looking on the web. Laurence G uses the same striking address labels, and the boy and girl are common stamps she uses in her mail art. Of course if I had looked closely at the moon, I would have noticed it is embossed with her name and address!

I was wondering what to send back to Laurence. None of the envelopes were jumping out at me, then a few days after receiving the little game this appeared on my trash can.

And the back. I have never seen such a thing, and the lid has been slightly damaged for over two years!! And crazily I need an appointment for them to repair it?

Perfect! Not sure if it counts as trashpo, but it certainly counts as upcycling, as it would definitely have ended up in the garbage otherwise. Sorry, Janis, the colors on your stamp are too good of a compliment to this bright pink thing that is going on a trip across the pond.

Update!

It made it to France, and was hand cancelled beautifully by someone at the post office.

And I didn't need an appointment to have the trash can fixed, just a work order number which took one simple phone call (and my trash can's number, which to be honest I never even noticed before!!)

And now the lid has been replaced and all is well in the world of refuse management.

If you're looking for stamp-related activities today, you can vote in Linn's annual poll of US stamps, or vote for your favorites at USPS stamp blog.

Winter Exchange - the Christmas catalogs

For the largest portion of the envelopes I sent out for Jan & Jean's winter exchange I used a Paper Source catalog. The colors in the catalog went really well with Winter Fun, Rudolph, Holiday Bauble and Global Wreath stamps.

On the topic of Paper Source, Eric had admired the bag I sent to Jean, so I sent him another one I had acquired.

The USPS philatelic catalog also made for some great holiday envelopes that worked well with a lot of the holiday stamps.

This one to Jack isn't from a catalog, although it looks a bit like it. It is from one of those pages of a magazine suggesting gifts for men. I thought this looked good with one of the modern art stamps.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

If you don't celebrate Christmas, I hope your day is peaceful.

Martin Ramirez stamps in March 2015

Breaking news...

...really looking forward to these stamps being released next year. And the deer one looks very festive - maybe I can hoard some for next Christmas...

Christmas Eve with Tony

Mail from Tony always feels like a present. 

I sent my entries for the 5th world day of faux stamp artists to Tony, and none of the stamps were cancelled, so he used them on his return envelope:

The back:

His message was to reuse the stamps, so I made a few small alterations, and sent it back:

And the rear view:

Winter exchange - Charley Harper

Hester sent me a postcard using one of the Winter Fun stamps. The cardinal stamp is probably my favorite, although I'm not sure what he has to do with Winter Fun exactly.

Turns out it wasn't a postcard after all, but a comments card from one of Hester's favorite bake shops.

I had been planning on sending this Charley Harper calendar envelope to Hester even before I received her card.

Stamped and addressed.