MMSA Silver Muse - sent

Currie Silver, a long-standing participant in Mail Me Some Art, passed away earlier this year. Hong hosted an MMSA challenge that honored Currie's memory, and art, with a theme of Silver Muse.

This is what I sent in, trying to use up some of my circular cards and metallic pens. I also sent a dragon that I must have forgotten to scan... I salvaged this image from the MMSA site.  One of the cards was for Honi as a thanks for hosting.

Tune in tomorrow to see what I received in this exchange.

A tale of two of the envelopes

Nikki H, who sent me the great MMSA favorite book card inspired by Salem's Lot, wanted to exchange mail with me outside of the swaps.

I picked out envelope 488 and paired it with two American Glass stamps. Then I reread Niki's address and realized that she lives in Canada. Oops. So this one went to Currie S, who was next in my 'reply to' pile.

And then the hunt was on for something to send to Nikki. I really didn't want to send her one of the global stamps one her first envelope from me (they have their place, but they can be monotonous) so I chose envelope 683 and two stamps with complementary blue tones. (I guess they are not complementary in a color-wheel sense, but you know what I mean).

MMSA - favorite book

The theme was favorite books.

See if you can guess the book from the art (two are very easy).

From Alyssa and Currie

From Nikki and Lois

The ones I sent

Update:

I'd like to take a moment to celebrate the work of Currie, who passed away last month. I only knew her through her mail-me-some-art postcards and a few emails we exchanged, but she was always an inspiration. She was a fantastic artist, and a very positive person, even while dealing with her own health problems as well as caring for her mother who died earlier this year. Thanks for the great connection, Currie, it means a lot to me, and I will miss it.

Karen has put together a tribute over at MMSA.

MMSA round postcards

The last MMSA challenge for 2014 (and possibly the last one ever), presented the challenge of creating round postcards.

Here are the ones I created (the silver mandala is the one I sent to Karen; the second one is inspired by Jean's post about diatoms):

And the ones I received from Currie, Kathie, Dian and Sheri. They are all so different and cool - I loved this challenge, it made me think really differently about  creating a circular design.

I also scanned the back of Kathie's (the record - clever idea) as she included some fun facts about the recording artists, and Sheri's - I love the weird food-monster she included.

Envelopes 318, 322 and 334 - butterflies

#318 is another one from an old calendar featuring Japanese woodblock prints.

I liked the colors of the spicebush stamp for this envelope. I played around with the position, and ultimately liked the idea of a butterfly erupting from Mt Fuji.

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#322 is from the same calendar.

I thought the distant sheets looked a bit like butterflies. Sent to Currie in thanks for her MMSA postcard.

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#334, a classic woodblock.

Waves and butterflies: both ephemeral.

Sent to Jean.

29 faces in september part VI: envelopes 381, 359 &198

16/29: # 381 to Currie

There were several candidate stamps for this one, however I really liked the circus stamp. I've had a hard time using them as they tend to be quite dominant on an envelope (plus the large ones are extra large).

The back

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17/29: #359 to Cathy

If only I had one of the Star Wars stamps for this one. I do like the smile on Gwendolyn Brook's face on this stamp.

The back.

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18/29: #198 for Rose

Sometimes the scanner doesn't do so well with white edges.

The first appearance of Miles Davis on the blog, I think.

And the back.

A seahorse from Currie

Bonus mail from Currie S: