A very slow parrot

This great envelope from Katerina took a very long time to get here due to the pandemic. For a while the Greek post office was not accepting any items to send to the USA (although I could send to Greece). It hasn't been exactly speedy since resuming, either. This colorful envelope was posted in May, and arrived in July.

Finally it arrived with all of its great contents! It was well worth the wait.

Do you have a mail story that happened because of the pandemic?

What about politics?

A fascinating altered postcard arrived from Sam V in Minnesota.

Notice anything odd?

Brexit/Regrexit

If I checked the time zones correctly, the UK has now left the EU. This blog is rarely political, however this is such a major event that last year, when Brexit was supposed to happen, I made some mail art packages that I sent out. Included were instructions so that the recipient could have their own Brexit or Regrexit, or even a third option.

Alan T returned this to me:

And here's a cartoon sent to me by Fafa, that is drawn by Plantu, a well-known French political cartoonist.

The Royal Mint is issuing a new 50p coin to note the UK's departure.

My favorite story about it is Sir Philip Pullman's unhappiness about the coin - not because of the Brexit link, but due to the lack of an Oxford comma.

In all seriousness, as disappointed as I am about Brexit, I really hope that it works out well for everyone in the end. At the very least things can move forward instead of being in a weird state of uncertain limbo.

Normal service will resume tomorrow on the blog.

A dragon for Halloween

Eva sent me this awesome dragon mail. I love the way she extended his tongue (or is it a flame?) onto the stamp.

Happy Halloween, everyone! Be safe!

Eric Mondays part 8... on Sunday

I've been showing the various envelopes and other bits of mail art I've sending Eric for his 'Fifty' call on Mondays, however this series fits with today's Sunday Stamps theme, flags and ensigns.

Between 2008 and 2012 USPS issued a series of stamps titled 'Flags of Our Nation'. There were six separate issues of 10 stamps, printed in coils of fifty. Interestingly, when researching for this post, I found out that the 5th set was issued here in Columbus on 11 August 2011. Since the stamps were issued over several years, the values change from 42c, to 44c, and finally to Forever.

'But 6 times 10 is 60,' I hear you say. Yes, the 50 states were in there, then they also included flags for the US territories (American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands) as well as the District of Columbia.

'OK, now we're getting closer, but we're still only at 56 stamps.' The final four stamps showed the Stars and Stripes of the national flag against four separate scenes inspired by the first four lines from the song 'America the Beautiful', for a grand total of 60. 

O beautiful for spacious skies, 
For amber waves of grain, 
For purple mountain majesties 
Above the fruited plain! 


I had wanted to create something related to the 50 states for Eric's 'Fifty' call. I saw some images of the 50 states arranged in the style of the elements of the periodic table, and I had my idea. I added four different rankings to each 'element', using the official postal abbreviation, printed them out on postcards, and voila, mail for Eric. The 16 cards were posted one at a time, every few days for several weeks.

I also sent the bonus 10 stamps on a 'master plan'.

If you'd like to see how they look after traveling to France, click here to see Eric's blog.

Bonus points if you can determine what the four rankings of the states are.

Ocean mail

Mail art sent to Heleen inside candy packaging.

This is a collaboration (unwittingly) with Eva, as she supplied the mermaids, seahorses and other ocean stickers.

The reverse was more abstract.

 Stamped and addressed.

Heleen's experience of receiving this one made me smile.

Fin(n)Badger

I don't have any sea mammals on stamps for this week's theme at Sunday Stamps. But I do have some on mail that arrived recently.

This beautiful envelope from Heleen arrived, accompanied by two more of the amazing December stamps.

And inside, an amazing creature - the underwater FinBadger. With a great platypus rubber stamp on the back of the envelope.

MMSA Reigning cats & dogs received

Part of a big mail day, these MMSA swap cards arrived.

From Davida, Ellen, Joyce and Patti.

Insects that flew away

Incoming mail art from MailArtMartha. Including an artistamp of her postman Kevin.

Sadly the bee and flies that were supposed to be there must have flown away at some point during transit.

I think the leftover effect of the glue (and maybe some slight color from the missing creatures) is interesting.

Wizard of Oz mail art call

Eva has a great mail art call for the Wizard of Oz postcards. They can be commercial, mail art, anything Oz related. I have sent her several items. At the end of 2015 I sent her a composite piece made from 4 separate parts.

Any idea what this was made from?

Sunday Stamps - cycles - bi, tri and motor

I originally didn't have a post for this theme, then this morning I remembered this strip of setenant stamps from USPS issued in 2012.

I have used three of them on mail art, two were for a mail art call on bicycles.

To see more bicycles, tricycles and motorbikes, head to Sunday Stamps.

White shapes III - VI

To Malok.

To Jon F

To Kathie

To Jason