First mail from Jay Block

One of Jay's trademark torn collages arrived.

Too small

Usually my envelopes containing MMSA postcards are pretty dull, but this time everything fit inside this envelope:

MMSA: Stamp heads sent in

MMSA postcard swaps are back for 2016. This is what I sent in for the stamp head postcard swap.

These days the MMSA challenges are guest hosted. The stamp head one is hosted by Christie J, and here was her bonus card (extra large stamp head and card).

Minimalist and more from Keith

Keith from IUOMA sent me this spontaneous and minimalist mail art.

Security envelope handmade envelope.

Inside was a single sheet of paper...

...and the other side.

My response:

And sent back in envelope 557.

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With the arrival of this next amazing envelope arrived it seems like his signature is turning security envelopes inside out.  And in this case, he created the most incredible underwater encounter. These images are precisely cut out and securely adhered - I would never have the patience or the skill.

And inside was the sheet, which is stitched back together, with Keith's new additions. The spider is outstanding.

The blog is so far ahead of real time now, that I can bring you the third installment.

This is what I did to the sheet.

And the envelope Keith sent is one of the most creative things I've received this year, so I was trying to come up with something a little extra special, when i noticed he had commented on the mail art book I sent to Erni. So two selected pages from Keith's trashpo book...

The dimensional picture.

And the random selection of stamps I used to cover the postage.

Double the Oz

I sent two envelopes to Eva for her Wizard of Oz mail art project.

If you're  regular reader you may want to sit down first, because I hand colored this first one. It was a commercial card, and the yellow made me think of drawing the yellow brick road with Oz shining in the distance. I just noticed that I could have placed the Ocean Temperatures Global stamp upside down for a more accurate rainbow. I think the sky appeared a bit bluer on the real envelope compared to the scan.

The second is another tornado image. I liked the tones in the Hudson River School of Art stamps.

HLPN

Recently I have been sent a lot of ephemera included as mail art. Some pieces could stand on their own, others have been proclaimed as 'use it or trash it' by their senders. Some have arrived with no message.

I used pieces from four different senders to make the following collage:

Cut into four postcard sized bits. the tissue paper was thin and gauzy (and a nightmare to glue down) so i decided not to risk sending them naked.

The recipients were:

H

L

P

N

Spontaneous envelopes - 207, 351 & 565

CJ had commented on the rowers from envelope 208, so I sent her its companion.

I sent this one (similar to one I sent to Petrolpetal) to Kyosuke in Japan.

And on Eva's blog she wrote about a calligrapher's 'confuse the mail delivery system', aka 'Annoy a Postman' so i sent this is as my request to put Ohio on the map. Not sure if Schin is still running this project, but I thought this was a fun envelope to send regardless.

Envelope 208

These rowers made me think of New England. Sadly the scanner decided to find a million waves that weren't there.

Which made me think of this stamp.

Sent to Hester.

And the back.

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I just noticed that this is post 300... and the blog just passed 20,000 views - thanks, everyone.

Not as good as a sick bag

A response to the sender of the sick bag, Eric Bruth.

And since I picked up that card at a highway rest stop, I found 3 vehicle related stamps to use for postage.

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And while on the topic of stamps, I almost used Jimi on this envelope, then this one from the Hudson River School set caught my eye.