IUOMA

The International Union of Mail Artists is the grand daddy of them all. The website can feel a bit intimidating at first, but if you're into mail art, it is a great place to find like-minded people. And everyone is extremely friendly and welcoming.

MomKat in Greece is one of the first IUOMA members I exchanged mail art with, and we are still sending back and forth between Columbus and Thessaloniki in Greece.

Here's her latest collaged piece.

Through my connection with MomKat, I started exchanging mail art with stripygoose on a regular basis, as they know each other very well, and hang out together whenever MomKat is in London (UK).

The latest from stripygoose, including an artistamp from Positively Postal, another IUOMA artist I connect with:

Another favorite from IUOMA is Mail Art Martha, also in the UK near London. Here's her latest:

Here's a piece of mail art from Keith (in California). We've been exchanging for a few years now.

And here's my first piece from Mim (on the east coast), sent unsolicited, and much prettier in person - the scanner didn't seem to want to pick up all the details.

Have you ever mailed someone you didn't know?

Did they respond?

Ssssssunday Ssssstampssssss - shapessssss

I love the Animail sssset of ssssstampsssss that Royal Mail issued recently. I arranged to sssssend one to Ssssscott in Hounsssslow:

For more fun shapessssss visit Ssssunday Sssstampssss.

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).

Circus posters

Two commercial envelopes off to the UK jazzed up with Circus Poster stamps.  The tiger stamp is one of my all time favorites.

Bananas in

A month ago was banana day - here's what landed for the celebration!

A joke and a giant banana artistamp... and its babies on the other side. And a ruby red £1.00 - the current one is brown; I like this color better. Thanks, Scott.

Thanks to Dean for this double-sided wonder.

 

stripygoose sent this card, and when the bands are removed.... they are banana-shaped.

TicTac (Ptrzia) sent these incredible faux stamps.

Angie's banana card and another cool faux stamp.

And a wonderful package from Carina.

And then stripygoose sent an amazing minizine collection!

Katerina's banana moon went missing, so it is nice to see it in the zine.

Banana Mail

Today is World Banana Day, so here are the envelopes I sent out in recognition to the Banana group at IUOMA. Apologies for the images - the scanner did not like the bright yellow marker so these are phone pictures.

Guest blogging at Positively Postal

My week of posting at Positively Postal is up. Head over there to see what I had to say about these pieces of mail art I received recently from Mail Art Martha...

...Brooke...

...Eric...

...and Scott.

And mail art I sent out to Linda...

...Marti...

...MomKat...

...Keith...

...and stripygoose.

Cheerios

I'm guest blogging over at positively postal this week (link lower down in the right hand column).

Today is a joint blog, in that I used the back of a cereal box to create two odd-shaped pieces to send naked in the mail.

This one is to the Artist in Seine.

And I thought you'd like to see how I fit the stamps, address and message on the back.

The other one was sent to MomKat.

London Pub Collective

Mail Art Martha, MomKat (both of whom I already exchange mail art with), stripygoose, and Scott aka Positively Postal met up in a London Pub to create mail art earlier this year, and I was one of the lucky recipients (card arrived May 6).

Lots of stamps, birds, blue and yellow.

I wanted to create a linked set of mail art for them, hopefully by the time this post rolls around I will have created something and sent it out...

..mission accomplished! The imminent postage increase of May 31 was a good motivator. I created a set of four large envelopes from a promo poster for Brother Bear that Karen N sent me ages ago, a collective sending if you will. And the Send a Hello and Send a Smile stamps were perfect for this. I apologize for my photography skills - I could not get the stamps and envelopes in focus at the same time. And these guys were just a little bit too long to fit on the scanner without creasing them even more.

Inside everyone received a piece of hive mind. This is not quite how they ended up looking, as they were printed onto transparencies and glued to colored cardstock, but the final product doesn't scan well. Use your imagination :)

And a commemorative print on gold tissue paper.

Thanks so much for thinking of me, everyone.