Jean & Jan's May exchange - envelopes received

The first envelope received in this exchange is a wonderful night scene by Janet F.

Red, white and blue from Florence.

Pretty calendar page envelope from Smash.

Another great wallpaper envelope from Hester with matching note.

And the final one - happy chicks from Marti, with my first sighting of the Special Olympics stamp. I still think that USPS should have had a global forever version of this one - just imagine all the postcards being sent home to all the athletes competing from all around the world. The symbol would have been perfect for the circular stamp.

Jean and Jan's April exchange - received part 1

From Rehj. I *think* this was done on the computer - looks fantastic with the love ribbons stamp.

From Hester. This envelope is handmade from wallpaper - I love the Calder stamp, the asymmetry of  stamp placement and the vertical format.

From Me to You, from Cathy. I had skipped buying these stamps as I thought they weren't particularly inspiring - turns out all they needed was Cathy's artistic touch!

Janet sent me this fantastic cherry. Really beautiful colored pencil work. And this might be the first time I've received a water lilies stamp.

Winter exchange part 1

A fun hotrod-related envelope from Jean.

And the second of the four different holiday franks, even though the envelope was handstamped. Hello, Hermey! 

And from a non-exchange card, Santa!

A very blurry Bumble. If I get a better one, I'll blog it as well.

And here's a Rudolph cancel that happened to coincide perfectly with a design on the envelope:

And the vending machine 'sticker' version:

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And fun script in two styles from Florence.

I also like the style she used on the return address for her own name - I'll have to give this a try, although I bet it is harder than it looks.

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This beauty is from Janet F. Perfect stamp and accompanying scene.

And then you flip it over and it is faux postage and stamp city! Love the year of the horse artistamp.

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Fun envelope from Wendy, including some fantastic vintage Christmas stamps. Does she know that diagonals on envelopes are a feature of mine?

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And one from Karen. The details that she took from the stamp and incorporated/extended onto the envelope, like the tree line in the distance, are amazing.

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A traditional beauty from Smash with vintage stamps. The silver and black script against the dark green background is striking.

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Marti sent this one - a great combination of things, including a vintage Christmas stamp and a contemporary one from a few years ago.

The back of this one is also fun.

And I received an envelope with this vending machine 'sticker' - a forever version of the stamp above.

Winter Exchange - the Christmas catalogs

For the largest portion of the envelopes I sent out for Jan & Jean's winter exchange I used a Paper Source catalog. The colors in the catalog went really well with Winter Fun, Rudolph, Holiday Bauble and Global Wreath stamps.

On the topic of Paper Source, Eric had admired the bag I sent to Jean, so I sent him another one I had acquired.

The USPS philatelic catalog also made for some great holiday envelopes that worked well with a lot of the holiday stamps.

This one to Jack isn't from a catalog, although it looks a bit like it. It is from one of those pages of a magazine suggesting gifts for men. I thought this looked good with one of the modern art stamps.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

If you don't celebrate Christmas, I hope your day is peaceful.