Envelope 796 to Patrick

I sent this one ages ago, and neglected to blog it.

Orange and yellow on the August exchange envelopes received

Here's my very loose interpretation of the yellow and orange theme for today's Sunday Stamps.

Yellow ice (s)cream cone(s) from Becky on the envelope and the soda fountain favorite stamp.

Orange tiger fur From Lynne, on my favorite of the circus poster stamps.

From Kate, orange and black to go with the Ray Charles stamp.

Circus posters

Two commercial envelopes off to the UK jazzed up with Circus Poster stamps.  The tiger stamp is one of my all time favorites.

Advent - Paper (Source) Bags

I enjoy sending mail art using items not intended as envelopes. Good, sturdy paper bags are great for this. Paper Source bags seem to be held in high regard by readers of the blog. 

I practiced by wrought iron writing on a bag I sent to Hester and she reciprocated with a great bag from a cookware store. I also sent Eric one as part of Jean & Jan's December 2015 envelope exchange. He sent me one from his local grocer.

Quite a few other bags have been sent and received this year:

Target pharmacy bag to Keith.

Ann Sather bag to Martha. Jean also sent me my second airline waste bag... also know as a sick bag :)

Bags!

I sent Hester my remaining Paper Source bag envelope.

And she sent me this great bag. The gold didn't scan well on the old scanner, not sure what the new scanner would do with it, so I took a photo as well. Great stuff.

Minnesota bound

Hopefully by now the snow has gone from Minnesota, where both of these envelopes were sent.

Envelope 239 to Steve D, not quite in time for St Patrick's Day, but hopefully still in March.

And Envelope 164 to Linda F. Not too much longer before the weather is warm enough for open air theatrics in the evening.

Leftovers

It's been a while since I sent anyone a paper bag.

This one is from a trip to Chicago last year - it was used to carry leftovers back to the hotel.

Martha has a great display of her mail art on her glass front door that she changes monthly. Hopefully this one will be front door worthy.

Bonus holiday envelopes 485, 552, 553, 612 and 613

A few bonus holiday catalog envelopes sent out before Christmas.

To Eva, one from the Philatelic. I always find it hard to break up the four stamps - three would have been enough.

To NancyLee, one from Paper Source

To Trula, another from Philatelic

To Julie S, Circus stamps from the Philatelic catalog

And another paper source to Adrienne

Mailarteeth special

This is turning into a mini-French series.

For some reason Christophe's mailarteeth blog fascinates me.

Here's a feline dental record turned into an envelope for his project.

Looking at it now, I wish I had put the tiger stamp in the middle of the teeth and written the address along the bottom.

The reverse.

_______________________________

One of the original envelopes, #77, is perfect for Christophe's project. He thinks I am now addicted to it, and I am tending to agree with him.

Globally stamped.

And off to France.

_________________________________

Bonus! Christophe surprised me with mail art earlier this month.

I think he likes his envelopes to be slightly oddly shaped (look at Eric's blog link in the list to the right - there's a recent one from M. Blaise). And hexagonal stamps! I think that a traditional nickname for France is "L'hexagon" because of the country's shape.

Stamps close up.

And, referencing the batman stamps I put on his pumpkinmailarteeth, one of the caped crusader's many enemies - catwoman.

Mail to and from the UK

This was an unplanned envelope - just did it on the fly after placing the stamps. I should really get nicer pens for fine lines.

And this came from the UK. The 'stamp' is a machine printed one from the post office - this thing is a giant 2.5 x 2.25 inches (envelope is 6x9).

MMSA handmade envelopes - part 5 - bonus envelopes

I sent an envelope to each of the five MMSA swappers whose envelopes I received in the exchange.

Creepy #135 to Julie S (already shown at Halloween).

# 382 - circus couture to Gina V.

#385 - a sunflower to Laurie M.

#386 - the city at night to Kathy J

and #395 - drum set to Doris D.

Jean's white iron alphabet in gold on a paper source bag

I liked Jean's white iron alphabet she showed on her blog, and this paper bag seemed the perfect place for me to try it out.

Hopefully Jean doesn't fall over when she sees that I tried my hand at this style of writing. Fortunately I think it is very forgiving. 

I did mess up the address even though I had a practice line right in front of me. 
I love how well the circus poster stamps match - I think they are tough stamps to use as they are so striking in style, and the colors have an antique feel to them. This size qualified for the Large Envelope 1st class rate of 98c. It might be the first time I've sent an empty envelope.

___________________________

Here's the Barnum & Bailey tiger working well on a dark blue envelope (a bit darker in reality than the scanner decided it would be).

29 faces in september part VI: envelopes 381, 359 &198

16/29: # 381 to Currie

There were several candidate stamps for this one, however I really liked the circus stamp. I've had a hard time using them as they tend to be quite dominant on an envelope (plus the large ones are extra large).

The back

______________________

17/29: #359 to Cathy

If only I had one of the Star Wars stamps for this one. I do like the smile on Gwendolyn Brook's face on this stamp.

The back.

______________________

18/29: #198 for Rose

Sometimes the scanner doesn't do so well with white edges.

The first appearance of Miles Davis on the blog, I think.

And the back.