Envelope 89

Time to start catching up on responding to people who have sent me mail art.

Envelope 89, featuring Lady Liberty a couple of years prior to the US hosting the World Cup in '94, goes to Michelle W, who last sent me the popular Paisley envelope.

Stamped with herself (although isn't there a story about the stamp image being from Vegas?)

And addressed with a couple of soccer balls in place of the zeroes in the zip. Let's see what the post office scanners make of that.

At first I didn't pay attention to the 'liner' as it didn't have an eye-catching image. On second glance it has a sweet mini-story as intro to a, presumably, longer article. The hedgehog part cracked me up.

And finally, the back.

New number one, and aluminum can mail

I check my blog's stats occasionally, and the post about the first envelope I sent to Jean (envelope 100) has been the most viewed... until now.

The new top dog is envelope 81, which I sent to Jack M in the envelope exchange.

Tied in third place are the gingerbread snow scene I sent to Cathy O in the exchange, and the paisley envelope Michelle W sent me.

Rounding out the top 5 is the 3D address I sent to Smash.

And in completely unrelated news, Tony M has blogged about a piece of mail art that you have to see to believe. Kudos to La Poste for delivering it, and to the mail artist who made it.

Paisley

Michelle W sent me this fantastic envelope. I like the address in the corner like that, and the PO didn't mind her cheeky folding of the stamp over the side. My mail is definitely getting more and more colorful and interesting as time goes by.

With my latest arrivals, looks like I should be sending some of my own out... 

Envelopes 68 and 92 / Exchange 6

Michelle sent me the great racetrack envelope as part of the exchange.

I first sent envelope 92... it is one of the 20 yr old ones, but I think it is a Georgia O'Keefe poppy.

I chose the O'Keefe stamp from the modern art set. I think it may have been a bit too large for the envelope, and perhaps competes too much with it for attention.

I tried to get the address to be a reflection of the red on black, but really it didn't work for me at all. The black is too stark, too square, too something. I felt that I had completely disfigured this envelope!

Fortunately I hadn't touched the back, which I think is stunning. Hopefully if Michelle displays this one she keeps it turned this way!

This is the problem with these unique envelopes. Once they're done, they're done - and so my options were to send it or trash it (and the stamp). So I sent it, and I also decided that Michelle deserved better, and sent her a second homemade envelope. I think this one worked much much better. 

Envelope 68 - another one on flimsy glossy magazine paper.

Stamped - I am really enjoying hiding Mr Cash in the black parts of my envelopes.

Addressed - I tried to evoke the name tags on the astronauts.

This one also came with a fun 'liner' - an orange that reminded me of a rising (or setting) sun.

And of course, the back.

Thanks to the inter webs, I could find out a little bit about the image on this one - it was from Capricorn One, a British film from 1977. Link to IMDB if you're interested.