Year of the Fire Horse

 The Lunar New Year starts today, and it's the turn of the horse.

This stamp from Korea looks even better in person, and if you look carefully it has a special postmark.

The 2015 Mail Snail

Heleen in Netherlands has a fun mail blog. She also has this handsome guy that she created available to copy and color in.

I used some watercolor pencils as well as gold and silver (the silver just looks grey in the scan) to send him right back to her.

7 days of Jean - 7: gold gouache

Jean sent me this great envelope with wonderful gold gouache calligraphy some time ago. This is another one where the scan doesn't do it justice - the gold is complimented perfectly by the Year of the Horse stamp.

Year of the Horse part 4: stamps, and a Bonus Link

The first MMSA challenge I took part in was for the Lunar New Year of the Horse, which I think are very attractive.  The reason I sent 11 postcards in for the challenge is because the stamps come in sheets of 12 (I always send the organizer, Karen I her own card as well). The colors I used in my cards were inspired by the sheet.

I wondered what kind of stamps I would see on the cards I would get in the exchange....

Counting them up: one 39c Disney, one forever Building a Nation, one forever freedom flag, one forever justice flag, 1 forever Modern Art, one with 3 x 33c apples (thick item), one 32c aloha shirt +2c, three with 33c apple + 1c, one forever Harry Potter, and one forever autumn flag.

I was surprised not to get a single Year of the Horse one - maybe I'm more into the stamps than the average swapper. And it wasn't because people are bothered about overpaying - 7 out of the 11 had excess postage.

Now a reward for either skipping past my ramblings or reading all the ramblings - a fantastic piece of mail art received by Eric B (in France, although he blogs in English).

Link to fantastic horse-related mail art. 

Year of the Horse part 3

The final three postcards in the MMSA Year of the Horse swap arrived 4 days after the first batch.

From Joyce and Gina:

From Hester:

St Valentine's Day part 1, Year of the Horse part 2

Last Friday ended up being the best day for mail since I started sending out envelopes, postcards etc under the broad guise of mail art - a total of 8 great postcards and 3 great envelopes!

I received 8 postcards from the MMSA postcard swap, the theme was the Year of the Horse. I sent 11 in for the exchange, so hopefully there are another 3 to come. Scans do not do them justice - many of them are collages, so each has a different feel, and they are different sizes, which the scanner tends to obscure. It was amazing to get all these at once, even though I'd seen many of them on Karen I's website

From Karen Y and Valerie K (the seahorse is a great interpretation of theme, and is one of my favorites):

From Eric (all the way from France!) and Tricia J:

From Susie H and Tina W (the green is an overlay with the horse shape cut out - very cool, and my other favorite of a very cool bunch):

From Currie S and Naila M: 

First Year of the Horse & First Jubilee script

It is the first day of the Lunar Year of the Horse!

Cathy O sent me a wonderful envelope combining the colors of the Lunar New Year of the Horse stamp and the Jubilee script. The gold lines and dots are great.

Sadly it arrived in the middle of a big snowstorm, so got a little wet in parts. AND it was the victim of a cruel pen at the PO. For 2014 I'm going to try and 'cover up' these offenses to give envelopes their original look.

Year of the Horse Preview

Today is the final day of the Year of the Snake. For the past 6 years the USPS has issued really nice cards to go with the stamps, particularly for the Year of the Ox, but for some reason (financial?) they did not so for the Year of the Horse.

I had been playing around with a circular design for the Lunar Year animals, so decided to color them taking cues from the Lunar New Year of the Horse stamp, which I think is very attractive. I printed them out in 12 different designs as postcards and sent them to everyone from Jean W's envelope exchange plus a few friends and family members. 

I stumbled upon Karen's postcard swap blog in time to send a duplicate set off to her for distribution. The way Karen I and her super-organized swap works, I should receive 11 postcards in return (I sent one to Karen to thank her for organizing the swap).

Good fortune to all this year!