D is for Delicisio

A set of six stamps highlighting the impact of Latin American cuisine in the food culture of the USA.

Used to mail these microwave meal package covers.

1490

In from the Artist in Seine. This one involved some opening that I had to do to get to the Ohlala.

Naked mail art

When it comes to mail art, naked usually means that the item in question is sent without a cover or envelope. This means that the piece travels through the mail stream with no protection, so it is always possible that something is added (usually postmarks, but sometimes other markings, dings etc) or even subtracted (bits going missing).

Dean, aka The Artist in Seine, always sends his work naked. And he is very creative about it, too. He also always makes sure the back and front are equally interesting (something I'm pretty bad at).

Here's some banana mail from him

And another piece (with a tiny banana) that has a piece of a computer attached to it!

And yet another one from Mr In Seine himself, featuring geocaching!

Although most of my mail art is sent in a handmade envelope, I sometimes send naked mail. More about that later in the alphabet. 
Have you ever sent or received an unusual item in the mail that wasn't packaged up? Did it make you or the recipient smile?

Recycled Christmas mail

I recycled the sides of a USPS box as four Christmas 'postcards'. I have yet to find out if they made it to their destinations...

Update Jan 14 - one has been received in France.

Update Feb 25 - the one to the UK also arrived intact.

Dean's Banana Hammer

What a crazy 3D piece of mail art from Dean for Banana Day. I am very impressed this piece made it intact.

Bonus Halloween part 2

Double-sided Halloween from Dean

More from Dean

It is an Artist in Seine mini-series!

Know who is behind the mask

More Halloween advice for Dean

Tout simplement

The day that I mailed yesterday's Halloween costume advice to Dean, this arrived.

If you're going to a Halloween party this weekend...

The Artist In Seine strikes again

Red mail art

I'm bending the Sunday Stamps rules today, where the theme is 'the color red'. Actually, I pretty much threw the rules out of the window and let a passing band of animals trample them. Just kidding, you can skip the mail art part and find my red(dish) stamps below.

For actual stamps with this theme, head over there.

Independence day happened recently, and I sent this piece to The Artist in Seine.

Update:

I found an image of stamps I used to send a package a while ago, featuring red and blue stamps.

Two stamps from the lead up to the  New York World Stamp show, issued in 2015. The $2 stamp celebrating the postal error of the upside down Flying Jenny stamp printed using the intaglio technique, and a 46c patriotic star, both issued in 2013.

USPS controversially printed 100 sheets (6 stamps per sheet, sold inside an opaque envelope) of inverted Flying Jennys out of the several hundred thousand print run that were randomly distributed to post offices and the stamp fulfillment service center, thus fabricating a rarity. Despite the controversy, the rarer stamps are currently worth tens of thousands of dollars. The value of $2 was also controversial - no domestic rates are that high, so the stamp does not see much use in regular mail. The original error stamps were valued at 24c, and are currently worth in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Banana Day

Another Banana Day occurred April 20.

This is what I sent out.

And this is what came in.

First, minions from MomKat.

The next day, this much-delayed banana from MomKat showed up.

stripygoose's banana mail showed up next, forsooth! Even the stamp is banana colored.

The next three arrived on the eve of banana day.

From Dean, a little crumpled.

Here's the smoothed out version.

And the front.

A Browning banana from Linda.

And a yellow banana from Toni.

Perfect timing from TicTac, this one arrived on the big day itself with fantastic faux stamps.

A red banana from Carina showed up a few days later.

Sent in this great envelope - with fun (as always) Finnish postage.

And this last one was posted on April 20 in Brazil, arriving 3 weeks later. Thanks for my first Brazilian mail art, Intransferival!