Wednesday, January 26, 2011

old valetines




here are some previous year's valentine projects. I took these off my personal blog.

more Valentine post cards




Here are a few more.

More stitched people



I thought I'd show you the fronts of the ones I just did. and then the side with just the stitches showing. On one of them the machine gave up and tangled everything terribly. I had to take it apart and clean it since I often sew over glued papers, it gums things up inside. I'm hoping it will be more cooperative now.

Friday, January 21, 2011

stitched people


I used photos of people, laid them onto cardstock and stitched through from the front. These are the backs which are much more interesting. I don't have the right equipment to do this kind of work but I liked trying with what I have.

Valentine postals





Valentine post cards are on the menu today. Here are the first ones. Watercolor paper backgrounds , rubber stamps, old stamps, and stitching were used. The one with the little crazy quilt heart was done with scraps of free samples from Joannes. I laid them out on a piece of paper and stitched them down on a magazine page. After stitching, I cut out the heart. One page made 14 hearts to stitch onto something. Probably more post cards.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Record Breaking Mail Art Day



I mailed off 67 altered post cards this week. Linda at the post office could not believe what a big stack I brought in. And I forgot to mail one to her this time. LOL Here are a few samples of what went out.

ATCs for a swap


I signed up for a swap called Remember When. I interpreted it as Remember When Men were Men and used my cowboy fabric. The second set I used fabrics with sewing notions and recipes and a picture of a Mom laying down the law. Here's the pics. These will go off in the mail and in turn I will get four back from other artists. I keep one from each series for my personal collection. I'm having trouble decided which ones to keep.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Mother goes postal

I could not resist using this photo of my mom for my mail art.

Grandpa is a post card.

I'm fortunate to have a family archive of photos of ancestors. I love this one and thought he would make a good post card.

frog collage


This post card is begging to go to Texas! Wonder why.

Post card woven background


I worked way too hard on this one with the woven paper background. But I was in the mood for something a bit different so that's what I did. Now it is scanned and colorized in photoshop.

Using photo of my dad


Here's a post card made with a digitally enhanced photo of my dad.

Modesto 's Airmail 100




I got my official response envelope from the Modesto Art Museum where I had entered a post card into their mail art show. This is a pic of the pc I sent them mostly done digitally. I was lucky to have a usable stamp on hand with an airplane on it. The other pics are the envelope and the stamp on the back that I got in the mail today from them.

Enclosed was a list of participants from all over the world. Germany, Spain, Japan, Netherlands, Italy, France, Brazil, Denmark, Greece, Sweden, Finland, United Kindgom, Belgium, Poland, Canada, U.S., Malaysia, Morocco, Portugal, etc. Participating in an art exhibit with people I'll never meet, but in some minute way our lives touched for a moment- it was fun.

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Post Cards - New Year's series



NAPPY NEW YEAR!
A stack of small snapshots of babies which I bought on Ebay a couple years ago surfaced in my studio, and I decided it was the perfect timing to make New Year's cards. I had recently purchased a pad of Hippie Chic cardstock in a 4.5 x 6.5 size which I thought would make great backgrounds for "something - someday". Rather than put it away and forget about it, I used it for these cards. I wasn't sure how well glue would hold the snapshots on the backgrounds so I used little colored staples. I also printed the words Nappy New Year and Happy New Year on label/sticker paper, some transparent and some on white. And I snagged a little saying from a vintage post card that I thought would look good on them. The quote is "May the New Year hold its golden rays and bring you joys through other days. " I used a number rubber stamp and also the word hello on each card. I dont' know who these adorable little babies were, but hope they are thriving. Their images should make the recipients smile. Here are a few. BTW, I hope you have a great year ahead.

Post cards - Wanderer series



Before Christmas some friends and I went to a stamp art shop in Roseville. While browsing, a stamp caught my eye that said, Not all those that wander are lost. Well, being a John Muir specialist - wandering and sauntering are words that evoke all kinds of images and thoughts. So I bought it. Awhile back I had carved the little rubber stamp of John Muir I decided now to use the two together to make some post cards. I used some of the cards from the Rigs Institute Press speech sounds set I bought at a thrift store, I glued some dictionary pages on one side, and stamped on the words, and the figures. Adding alittle color to the edges and sometimes another postal stamp in the corner, they were done quickly. Here is a sample. this is a series of 12.

Post cards - Mona series


While cleaning my work area I came across a background I made awhile back and had never found a use for it. I'm in a use it up or throw it out frame of mind, so thought I'd use it to make a series of 4 post cards. Here are a couple of them.

Post cards - cat series




Another series I've done lately is a third series of cats. 2o of them. There is nothing complex about them. I used images cut from books, altered with other images, like adding a human mouth or eyes, and a quotation . I also used some rubber stamps and stitched around the edges to secure the image to the recycled post cards. Most of thequote are snippets of quotes from the 2010 calendar Butter my Butt and Call Me a Biscuit. Here are a few samples.

More on Postal Art




I've had a lot of spare time to devote to making post cards while it's the rainy season, so have been working in series. I spent a couple days making backgrounds from some experiments done to resemble birch forests. I was trying to recreate something I did a few years ago. I couldn't do it, but the resulting pieces would make good backgrounds for post cards, so I cut them up. these are fluid acrylic paints and torn paper napkins on Stranthmore cold press watercolor paper, 140 lb weight. i used a 9 x 12 pad, so it cut easily into 4 4x6 post cards. I had the bird images printed a few years ago for another project and thought they'd be right at home in a forest. And a new book of quotes, The Reader's Digest Quotable Quotes. I suspect it was Reader's Digest that got me interested in quotations when I was a youngster. Ford Times, another little publication, had the best images of birds, and RD had the quotes. What more could a kid want to read? Oh yes, the best of all, the World Book of Knowledge in 20 volumes. It had it all. wonderful illustrations, projects, poetry, stories, and endless subjects to read about.

Here are a couple of the new birds in the woods series. A series of 20, each one uniquely different.