Eric Mondays part 40 - the second sub

Another pictorial postmark celebrating a 50th anniversary for Eric. This image is from his blog.

WTF is a bocksbeutel part 2

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

Today is International Banana Appreciation Day

Here's a group shot of the banana mail I sent out to a group of banana mail lovers over at IUOMA, plus a few extras ;) Thanks to Linda F for the banana stamp she sent last year.

Banana mail went to the UK, Netherlands, Greece, France, Canada and the US.

Double the Oz

I sent two envelopes to Eva for her Wizard of Oz mail art project.

If you're  regular reader you may want to sit down first, because I hand colored this first one. It was a commercial card, and the yellow made me think of drawing the yellow brick road with Oz shining in the distance. I just noticed that I could have placed the Ocean Temperatures Global stamp upside down for a more accurate rainbow. I think the sky appeared a bit bluer on the real envelope compared to the scan.

The second is another tornado image. I liked the tones in the Hudson River School of Art stamps.

Banana Mail Sent

There are several important banana days in the IUOMA banana world. Today is one month since World Banana Day (Feb 21) so I thought I'd share my outgoing Banana Mail.

Most contained a banana circle of life card (top right in the image below), but there were three usurpers in the bunch.

To Erni and Edmund

Envelopes containing photo art and collage art to make up for the lost Bläck Friday trashpo. (I'm sure this one will make it into Hester's 'sick mind' file)

And to celebrate (albeit belatedly) the 1st anniversary of Edmund Hippo's homecoming.

Envelopes 492, 577 & 590 - Banana Time

November 18th is international banana day, and some of the folks at IUOMA send banana mail to celebrate.

I was late to the game so sent two reversible banana cards to Rebecca in two time-related envelopes.

Card 1:

Banana Time envelopes:

Card 2:

Of course I sealed the envelopes without telling her who I was, so i sent her a third explaining my omission. Always a struggle to find something to match the winter flower stamps, but pod-woman and her weird blue glow came through for me!

Rebecca is also hosting a fantastic mail art call with the title 'Spirit of the Forest'. The deadline is Feb 1. You can see the call and entries here.

                          _____________________________________________

Bonus: the Artist in Seine saw Rebecca's IUOMA post about my banana cards, and spontaneously sent me this postcard. I don't know if he has a pact with the devil, but there doesn't seem to be any postage on it. I'm not sure about being an international mail artist yet, but I'll take the compliment!

Envelope 513 - circles

Victoria over at IUOMA created an abstract design and cut it into 36 pieces, then asked for people who wanted  a piece to send her mail art.

This is the envelope I sent:

With a global stamp for an extra circle:

Addressed and sent to Argentina:

We'll see if I sent it in time for a piece of the art.

Christmas Eve with Tony

Mail from Tony always feels like a present. 

I sent my entries for the 5th world day of faux stamp artists to Tony, and none of the stamps were cancelled, so he used them on his return envelope:

The back:

His message was to reuse the stamps, so I made a few small alterations, and sent it back:

And the rear view:

Hot air mail

Eric included this mysterious postcard in his envelope from the 2014 exchange.

The 8 in a circle looks familiar for some reason, but I couldn't figure it out.

I even scanned the image and ran it through a couple of web searches - no luck. I downloaded a scanning app on my phone - the bar code just says the same code on the card - 4HNC. 4HNC is a code for a protein, not sure if that is a clue or a red herring. Does the PL in IPL-33 etc refer to me?

In the end I decided to not worry about it, and sent Eric some hot air right back.

I had a bash at decorating the address side, although I don't think the small balloon will lift the large basket off the ground.

Update: Eric has resolved the mystery - see his blog post here.

Petrolpetal

I finally did decide to join IUOMA - a couple of people from MMSA are active there. There are some extremely welcming people - Petrolpetal promised to send me mail art, however a postal strike in South Africa lasting around 3 months prevented this from getting here until recently (arrived 10 November, postmarked 26 September).

She wrote 'messy' on the back - I love it, very abstract. She included three great mail art postcards - now I have to decide if I should keep them or mail them forward.

In the interim I had sent envelope 446 sent to Petrolpetal of IUOMA. I love the small yellow lego face.

Stamped - I'm beginning to like this global stamp a bit more, very useful for envelopes with lots of colors - and of course I only have one left and USPS is sold out of them.

(Edit: mysteriously these stamps are for sale again at USPS.com)

Simple address label.

And the back.

Post is on the move again in SA, so hopefully Petrolpetal will have a mail bonanza this month.

Update: this just in from petrolpetal... the mail must be on the move as this envelope arrived. It has a really odd frank on - or maybe it was franked twice? In either case, even though the stamp and address are in fairly standard positions, the address was cancelled.

Maybe it should be petrolmetal, as part of the contents is a stamped piece of metal from a beer can!

29 faces in september part III: envelopes

7/29: #380 to Adrienne

These people look like they're having fun.

I think this is the first appearance of the global ocean temperatures stamp on the blog. It's not my favorite stamp, however I think it looks great here.

Apparently the rest of the US likes it, as it has completely sold out, as has the 2013 global forever stamp, which I like more. So currently if you want a global stamp you have to buy last year's holiday wreath. Until late October when you can buy this year's holiday wreath.  (I really hope they do other designs and not just a new wreath each year).

The back.

____________________

8/29: #98 to Karen

This is one of the 20-year-old envelopes.

Stamped

Addressed. The scanner acting up again - I kinda like this version. Plus I couldn't get it to scan correctly once the address label was on.

Scanner handling the reverse just fine.

____________________

9/26: #103 to Hester

This is another one of the originals.

I like placing the poets stamps over other faces or eyes.

Addressed

I like the colors and patterns appearing on the back