Space

An exchange envelope for Suzanne made from a calendar.

V is for Venus

The stamp for Venus, issued as one of the eight 'Views of Our Planets' stamps in 2016, on envelope 805. The stamps are striking, so can be tough to find matching envelopes. This one is made from a calendar of watercolors.

Here's a view of the full sheet.

To see more stamps with a V theme, check out the links at Sunday Stamps.

The final Eric Monday - part 42 - to the moon and back! Now with added frogs!!

The final 50 that I sent to Eric was a special postmark celebrating 50 years since the Apollo mission. I wanted to send Eric the rest of the planets of the solar system.

From his blog:

And Eric sent a very nice thank you, with a personal postage stamp featuring 50 frogs.

Solar system (II)

S is also for stamps. Not every mail artist cares about the postage stamps - for many they just serve the purpose of getting the art from A to B through the postal system. 

Since I got back into mail art I do try and think of creative ways to use postage stamps to enhance the mail art by theme, color, and sometimes even number.

The planets of your solar system set issued by the post office last year are very nicely done, and have afforded me the opportunity to make some fun envelopes.

Using old wall calendar pages to make the envelopes, here are the exchange envelopes I sent out for April.

Do you have a favorite stamp?

And if you're wondering why this post is titled Solar System (II), you can see my first Solar System blog post here.

I used all of the planets stamps on another piece of mail art here.

(PS: I have a bonus letter S that will show up on the blog tomorrow if you feel like checking back in.)

The scanner says 'no' to neon

In from Jon

The scanner did not like the neon on the front

Here's a photo to show the difference.

Solar System

The recent stamp sheets Views of our Planets and Pluto Explored allowed me to send Eva a solar system on three envelopes.

Sun

Asteroid belt

New Horizons

And the full view

PS. Today is the full moon known as the Harvest Moon or Corn Moon in North America.

Neptune from Amy

A lovely envelope from Amy, with the colors matching the Neptune stamp perfectly. And a clever way to write Ohio.

Thanks for the surprise mail!

Venus from Veebee

I posted the making faces MMSA postcards recently. Well, the one from Dorothea had its own adventure - it must have received the wrong barcode as it was delivered to Veebee in Texas!

Veebee very kindly sent it on to me in the wonderful Venus-themed envelope, complete with vintage stamp.

And even more fun on the back - a compass-shaped wax seal that traveled perfectly through the mail - with a nice big hint for the post office. Thank you!

Eric Mondays part 20 - Planet Insomnia

There is a company here called Insomnia Cookies that will deliver warm, freshly baked cookies any time! They arrive in a small pizza style box. The cover made me want to use it for one of the fifty fifties for Eric.

It seemed a bit bendy to put in the mail, and as I personally do not use this service, it wouldn't be likely that I would get another box. So I mailed it in this space-themed envelope. (I forgot to take pictures, so these images are from Eric's website).

Mail art call celebrating 500 years of Royal Mail

stripygoose and Positively Postal hosted a mail art call 'Make the Most of the Post' to celebrate Royal Mail's amazing milestone.

The USPS planets and Pluto minisheet gave me inspiration to send all 10 stamps on three envelopes:

I stood in line to get them hand cancelled (to try and avoid ugly black lines all over the stamps) and the clerk asked me where the stamps were - seriously! Perhaps he had not seen any of the new stamps yet.

Update: here they are side by side, so the intended message is easier to read (click to enlarge).