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Envelope 597 to Rose

and envelope 682 to Jan.

February exchange envelopes received

This lovely hand made envelope from Amy has wonderful vintage postage and got amazing cancels at the post office. Unfortunately, one of the postal machines must have thought the same thing, as there is a little bit nibbled away.

I love the way Carol C extended my surname onto the back. Clever!

Rehj played around with the computer to get a quilled effect on the letters to match the quilled heart stamp.

A classic  beauty from Lynne S.

I am saving the fifth envelope for later in the year - thanks, Rachael!

February exchange envelopes sent

I've had these stamps for quite some time, considering they were issued in 2010. I really wanted to like them, but they didn't inspire me at all. Then I received this beautiful painted envelope from Janet in 2014.

This made me realize that the stamps just needed the right backdrop in order to shine. I saw this image on the front of a free magazine.

And the whole set.

January exchange - snowflakes sent out

I made a set of snowflake envelopes and used up almost all of my geometric snowflake stamps on them.

These are envelopes 619 through 626. Five for the swap, and three bonus envelopes to Jean, Jan and Bridget.

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.

Bonus November envelopes

Jean and Jan sent me these envelopes marked November exchange. 

Another Charlie Brown stamp, and my favorite Johnny Cash stamp with matching colors.

Advent - trees

I am not sure why, but a lot of my envelopes and mail art postcards feature trees. These were done for one of Jean and Jan's envelope exchanges.The tree was based on one of Jean's images of the early stage of an envelope. If you're interested, the final envelope looked like this.

This is one of the few times I've asked for hand cancellation at the PO. This is how they turned out (image from Jean):

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 :)

Charley Harper to Carroll

OK, to make up for an unexpected zombie envelope, here's something much nicer.

The theme for Jean and Jan's November envelope exchange was 'what are you thankful for?'. The themes are not compulsory, however I am thankful for the work of Charley Harper.

To Carroll:

October exchange

I'm going to save a couple of envelopes for next year's Halloween spectacular - thanks Jean and Kathie!

The others are from...

...Debra. At first I thought this was computer generated, but it is hand written - so impressive.

...Dunkin Donuts from Jan...

and this great one from Leah. I have no idea where I put this envelope, so here is the scan from Leah's website.

October exchange - Halloween is coming!

To Jan

September exchange - awkward photo calendar envelopes part 1

I picked up some cheap 2015 calendars back in February to turn into envelopes. I used an awkward photos one to create these envelopes, and accompanied them with stamps that had famous faces.

To Jinanne

To Jan

From Lilli in Canada - the stamps celebrate 75 years of the Canadian National Film Board.

August envelope exchange part 6 - the bonus envelopes part 1

To Jean

To Jan

July exchange - received part 2

Here is part 1 of the envelopes that I received in the exchange.

Soft dark grey was a mini theme for this exchange. The envelopes look so much warmer in real life than they do on scans.

From Chuck - I still marvel at all those hand-drawn lines. And I'm enjoying the splash of red to compliment the black and grey.

A bonus one from Jan - this time with an older style airmail stamp for color.

Hester sent me a bonus envelope. This is the reverse of a wall paper sample. Very cool, and I really like the unusual printed instructions/codes. It is also fun to see the pattern on the inside.

Thanks, everyone, for another great exchange.

Jean and Jan's June exchange - incoming

Here are the five envelopes I received for the June exchange.

Some very cool lettering to go with the new postcard rate coastal bird stamps from Cathy. Clever how she did the double L in my name.

This envelope from Eric makes me think of smoggy Victorian London.

Firework fun from Jan.

Jean sent the cool translucent (looks white here) batman envelope, then followed it up with her flower letters.

And a lovely water color piece added to the envelope by Martha.

Thanks to Jan and Jean for hosting, and thanks to the participants!

Sunday Stamps - say it with flowers

These are the envelopes I sent out for Jean and Jan's June exchange. Don't be shocked, regular followers of this blog, there is hand-lettering ahead, so sit down if you feel faint.

I usually send out my hand-made envelopes for these exchanges, but this time I thought I would mix it up a bit. I prefer to take on an alphabet that is do-able, and one that is forgiving of mistakes and inconsistencies. I'd admired the cream letters that Chuck sent Jean and then Jean created some lovely envelopes, including this one she sent to me, which started out like this.

So I combined the letters from Chuck, the tree branches from Jean, and the Vintage Tulip stamps, which are my selection for today's Sunday Stamps. To see more flower-themed stamps click here. They were first issued in February as 70c stamps, then reissued last month as non-denominated 2 oz stamps (currently valued 71c). Based on drawings from engraved plates originally created by naturalist artist Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717), they are printed using the intaglio method, i.e. the engraved lines are slightly raised, giving the stamps a vintage feel themselves, as few modern stamps are printed like this in the US. The only other one I can recall is the $2 upside down Jenny.

Five envelopes are for the exchange, and three were bonus ones to Jean, Jean's Mom, and Eric. Perfect that non-machinable international (1.20+22c) = 2 x non-machinable domestic ;) And I thought the design warranted a red hand cancel from the post office, so this marks the third time I've requested this service - two clerks thought they looked great and were happy to oblige.

They are posted more or less in the order I addressed them, and even I can see there is a progression from thinner to thicker, and there is a lot of variation, but I think it still looks OK.

And the group shot.