Winter trees

Today's Sunday Stamps theme is Winter Scenes. A set of four different stamps was issued in 2014 titled Winter Fun.

I have to say I am not sure what the cardinal bird has to do with winter fun, although I do like the stamp.

Here are some envelopes I sent out where I used watercolors and ink to create a tree scene with a color to match the sky on these Winter Fun stamps that USPS issued in 2014.

Edelweiss Post

Every now and again I like to browse the Edelweiss Post shop (on Etsy.com). Patrick sells vintage stamps and sets of envelopes stamped with vintage stamps. This year I treated myself to a set for the first time. They will no doubt show up in a future blog post.

Today's blog is to show you the amazing attention to detail Patrick puts into sending his packages.

This is what came. First of all, I am amazed how good the Harry Potter stamps look here, and how well they work with vintage purple. And Patrick takes the time to get hand cancellations - done at the Minneapolis main PO. As he describes it: a beautiful art deco structure built in 1931 on the banks of the Mississippi River. I have quite a few HP stamps left - maybe all they need is a nice kraft paper envelope!

The only thing that was not ideal is that the package took 2 weeks to get here. Perhaps it did indeed travel by airmail.

And then even better, another layer of wrapping inside. I felt like I was opening a Christmas present. Yet another vintage stamp as part of this packaging.

And a great note as well as tea - this level of customer service is really above and beyond - thanks to Edelweiss Post!

And apologies to blog readers for this entry being an ad for Edelweiss Post, I couldn't help myself.

Art is too hard

I found some time to continue my collaboration with Keith.

One side:

The other side:

A card I made to write a note to Keith on:

And all sent in a Warhol calendar envelope:

Who is Eduardo Munez part 3

Envelope 490 off to the mysterious Mr Munez.

The deadline is March 1st  21st, so if you are planning on sending envelopes in from the US you've got about 2 weeks about a month left to get them in the mail. There are some great envelopes on the EM envelope blog. They are up to 50+ envelopes, and they'd like to receive 100 - so if you'd like to see your envelope in a film, step away from the computer and send one right now!

An invitation to collaborate - a response

Remember Brenda's invitation to collaborate?

This is what I eventually added.

Back and front...

Inside...

And sent back in envelope 129. I even used a trick from MailArtMartha's playbook and reused the return address label.

Too small

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

Sunday Stamps - cycles - bi, tri and motor

I originally didn't have a post for this theme, then this morning I remembered this strip of setenant stamps from USPS issued in 2012.

I have used three of them on mail art, two were for a mail art call on bicycles.

To see more bicycles, tricycles and motorbikes, head to Sunday Stamps.

WTF is a bocksbeutel part 2

Thanks to jean's reminder, I did finally get my bocksbeutel mail art sent off.

Starling Wars - The Birds Awaken

Stripy goose sent me this fantastic piece of mail art.

It was too big to fit through the letter box... and either Royal Mail or USPS had done a great job of keeping the stamps and mail together.

The back:

The Birds Awaken....

And a bonus card!

Thanks for the out of this world mail art!

White shapes III - VI

To Malok.

To Jon F

To Kathie

To Jason

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).

Time for clocklovers

I was a latecomer to the Clocklovers Group at IUOMA, so didn't expect any mail. Fortunately the group is awesome...

Dean mailed his Dec 22 from Paris and it arrived Jan 2, with an extra IMB. And a fantastic karate world champions stamp, too!

Heleen's was mailed around Christmas from Amsterdam, and arrived on Jan 4. Great clock stamps in and out, complete with Roman numerals which are still with us thousands of years after the Roman's aren't. Lovely 'mooi Nederland' stamps, too.

I forgot to scan the items I sent inside my envelopes. Fortunately Dean scanned his:

As did MomKat:

Ti Ar Raden shared photos, too.

Helen shared her pictures just yesterday!

Many of the items making up the mail art I sent were originally sent to me by Erni and Jon F, so each one is an unwitting collaboration of sorts.