Envelope 206

Fifth French mail art day in a row.

Christophe has a great ongoing call for mail art with teeth (see the link to the side).

This envelope was destined to be sent in.

Envelope 206

Stamped with appropriate meat-colored fireworks! 

(I am sure Hester will add that to her file on my dark side).

Addressed - usually I block out the addresses unless I have OKd it with the recipient - I don't think Christophe will mind - I wish I had such a great-sounding address! When I type rue de la Metallurgie think of medieval scientists trying to turn base metals into precious ones with potions and witchcraft. And teeth, definitely teeth.

And the back.

Envelope 82

It's the third day of Richard. He surprised me with yesterday's entry, so I thought I'd shock him by responding more quickly than usual.

This is one of the twenty-year old ones.

Envelope 82

Stamped with poets' faces (sadly the poets are no longer for sale).

Simply addressed.

And the derriere.

Chocolate, red and black from Richard B

The day after I sent envelope 245 to Richard B, this beauty arrived in the mail. Richard adds scraps of paper to his mail art which give the envelopes added texture. 

The back of this one is great - Richard pushed the boundaries a bit and added the extra postage required to make up the overseas rate. If you enlarge this, you may be able to see where someone (Richard? doubt it; postal worker - more likely) added it all up and decided it was 'OK' - great stuff.

Envelope 245

I finally sent an envelope to Richard B in Marseille.

Another odd shirt envelope - I almost went with the orange-shirted Ray Charles, however I liked the pink and green kaleidoscopes better.

The envelope.

Stamped.

Addressed.

And the back.

Le Labyrinthe revisted

This arrived from France, unexpected and mysterious.

And inside was this amazing catalogue of all the mail art sent in to Lettres & Images for the Le Labyrinthe theme. All the entries were part of an exhibit from 5-9 June in Gradignan.

There were 168 pieces by 121 mail artists from 18 different countries. Here's the page with mine on:

And the center spread:

You can see all the images much better at the L & I website, the link is down on the right.

Guess the stamp game week 4

MMSA ran a handmade envelope challenge - perfect for me!

I sent in 5 envelopes for the exchange and one for the host. As a mini-bonus for the recipients I included a stamp inside the envelope.

The game is for you to see if you can guess which stamp I included for each envelope.

Answer to last week's game:

Global Forever Evergreen Wreath stamp.

Jean and Hester thought it would be the global ocean temperatures stamp, so 1/2 a point each.

Jean's on 1.5 points and Hester's on 1.0. 

__________________________

Today's envelope is #182

Birds on heads

Jean loves birds on heads, so when I came across this flier...

I knew it would have to go to Jean in some form or another. I used the weathervane stamps from 2012 (coincidentally, I used the weathervanes in the first envelope I ever sent to Jean).

MMSA Favorite City - received part 2

...Paris from Care and Rio de Janeiro from Laure (my first MMSA card from Brazil).

MMSA Favorite City - received part 1

Great variety of cards received in this challenge...

...Bedrock from Jenny and Auckland from Alyssa.

MMSA favorite city - sent

I had suggested a number of different cities as topics for MMSA challenges. In the end Karen boiled them down to Favorite City.

New York is one of my favorite cities, so I sent this in:

The cards were accompanied by these glasses for the full 3D effect. Karen did a great job of playing along and keeping the 3D aspect a secret.

Guess the stamp game week 3

MMSA ran a handmade envelope challenge - perfect for me!

I sent in 5 envelopes for the exchange and one for the host. As a mini-bonus for the recipients I included a stamp inside the envelope.

The game is for you to see if you can guess which stamp I included for each envelope.

Answer to last week's game:

Johnny Cash stamp.

Well done to Jean for guessing correctly - 1 point.
Hester is on 1/2 a point.

______________________________________

Today's envelope is #172

Bonus mail - Fancy French mail art call

Another piece of mail art arrived from France along with Eric's. This is a mail art call from Laurence G in Nancy. It was sent in a transparent envelope and came with a piece of art - it is 2x2 inches, which I think is called a 'twinchie' (not really a term I like, I have to say).

Laurence had 3 calls: 

Birds

Anatomy

Little notebook of curiosities.

I'll have to decide what to send him.

Sickbag mail

Well, I have been beaten at my own game - I send out paper bags, Eric B goes one step further and sends me a sickbag. It is from British Airways, so does that make it a better class of sickbag?

And I know it says 'waste' on it, but come on BA, we all know it is a sickbag. Eric even took the time to alter the bag. Gives a whole new meaning to the term 'trash post'.

Thanks, Eric, this is great!

Another FinnBadger from Jean

Big, bold badger.

Bonus mail from Nancy L (MMSA)

Bonus Finbar mail!

Bonus mail from Jazzie (IUOMA)

Fun spontaneous postcard from an IUOMA member.

Top 5 - new number 1!

I didn't expect there to be a new number one post this soon. And I didn't expect July to beat June by over 400 views!!

Cathy O's great orange, black and white envelope accompanied by Ray Charles is the new number one - thanks again, Cathy, this is really a spectacular envelope.

1 (-) Exchange 11

2 (1) Envelope 100

3 (5) Le Labyrinthe

4 (2) Envelope 81

5 (-) Diary of a missing postcard - Saturday

Guess the stamp game week 2

MMSA ran a handmade envelope challenge - perfect for me!

I sent in 5 envelopes for the exchange and one for the host. As a mini-bonus for the recipients I included a stamp inside the envelope.

The game is for you to see if you can guess which stamp I included for each envelope.

Answer to last week's game:

Red white and blue stamp.

Hester came close with Star Spangled Banner - 1/2 a point!.

____________

Today's envelope is #132

MMSA pink and green part 2

For the second two I sent in I played around with inverting the colors:

And two I received from Tameko and Joyce:

MMSA pink and green part 1

I played with a photograph I took of a pink peony in photoshop for this challenge.

Two I sent in:

Two I received from Valerie (love all the vintage stamps!) and Cynthia (this card isn't done justice by the scanner - the part that looks almost black is a yellow-green metallic color - very eye-catching in person).

Branch Out - bonus mail from Terrie P

This interesting card arrived from Terrie P. Music always looks great as part of a collage, but it's the first time I've received arabic text as part of a collaged card. Adds a lot of mystery.

Envelope 99

And finally responding to Smash's 'pink calligraphy love-stamped' envelope from February, this is one of the originals...

Stamped.

Addressed.

And the back (just don't ever turn your back on a spider woman!)

A dragon from Jan

Jan H sent yesterday's Friends & Faux card back to me in this great handmade envelope. Jan wrote that Jean said I would love this one - and I do, so thank you.

Mr Dragon is made from paint sample chips - very creative and time consuming, whoever designed him.

Guess the stamp game week 1 (MMSA envelopes)

MMSA ran a handmade envelope challenge - perfect for me!

I sent in 5 envelopes for the exchange and one for the host. As a mini-bonus for the recipients I included a stamp inside the envelope.

I'll be posting an envelope that I sent in each week - the game is for you to see if you can guess which stamp I included for each envelope. Next week I'll reveal the answers.

The first one is envelope is #125

Friends & Faux 67 part 2

I sent this F&F card to Jan H and her art group earlier in the year, and they added three fantastic artistamps.

Thanks for taking part!

Faux postage from Alan B

Alan B completed the first Friends  & Faux postcard I contributed to. I sent him one of the DCP postcards I blogged about yesterday, and he sent me a great card in return.

His card also had one of his great Adanaland stamps on it.

Faux postage + digital color postmarks

I sent out some postcards with DCPs for the set of sci-fi stamps.

(Sorry about the cut off images - sometimes the scanner doesn't like white edges)