Mail Art Monday: Three New and One Original

Three out of three of my incoming packages this week were from new mail art pen pals and my single arrival was to my original pen pal, Jessica.

INCOMING

I've known Anika Starmer for a while now (close to a year, I think) via Twitter but this is the first package I have received from her. She was the the runner up on my cork stamp giveaway and since she was so very close I had to send her a set as well. In return, I ended up winning one of her paintings from her 20 in 20 challenge. She pulled together a delightful and colour coordinated parcel that included her geometric painting, handmade cards with envelopes, an original sketch, colourful victorian inspired cut outs, stickers, vintage seed packets, an origami balloon and a temporary 'to do' list tattoo.

Anika left a small note on the origami balloon saying that if I needed help figuring it out, I should ask. Uh, I need a little assistance. Perhaps another video tutorial? Anika just launched another blog, Classettes, which will house her creative tutorials. I will definitely be trying out her friendship bracelets as I have a bunch of colourful floss leftover, wee recipients who won't notice any irregularities and quick access to the teacher to bug if I have questions.

Dana Davis asked if I'd like to exchange beautiful mail and I jumped at the chance. I've been reading her blog and drooling over her beautiful, lush garden. I feel as though her package was influenced by her garden as it featured flower prints, a handmade flower card and several beautiful photos (which I will attempt to paint and perhaps send back to Dana). There was also a clever 'How to be an artist' sheet, large and colourful buttons, a map themed page from a magazine (all of the items featured are drool-worthy), an inspirational card, a colourful round print and three cork frames.

I believe that Dana is fairly new to exchanging mail art so I will put my creative brain to work to make a package worthy of this great start.

Emily Orpin put together a reply that was perfectly suited to my taste. This wasn't entirely surprising as the contents of her blog usually make my heart flutter. The treats were housed inside a handmade map envelope and included map bunting (yup, heart is fluttering), a seagull clipping, a print from her recent trip to Dubrovnik, personalized and patterned stickers and a sweet personal letter.

The two show stoppers were the bird bird clippings with stamps on card stock and the beautiful, blue Maedeup ornaments. I love the images, the torn edges of cream paper mounted on dark kraft paper and the light overlapping stamp.


OUTGOING

I delayed my reply to Jessica Gowling since she was away for most of the summer and I knew she'd have quite a lot of packages to sort through when she returned. I gathered together a funny assortment of clippings, found material and original pieces. Jessica wrote about my package here.

My daughter recently started drawing pages during our craft sessions and was specifically outlining that this was for "mommy's friends to send in the mail". Jessica received an original (and the first discernible) rainbow by my 3-year-old. Usually her drawings are bursts of erratic colour (that I love) but recently the images are now forming and there are things that look like rainbows, flowers and birds.

I'll be taking a couple of weeks off from creating new mail art to work on a few projects including new creature watercolours, a few craft projects and studio resort/organize/cleanup. By the time I begin creating again I hope to have some fresh ideas and new material.

... J