Mail Art, of course, and more

 I discovered this photo that I'd taken with my cell phone, forgot I'd taken it. A tee shirt at a shop in Duck. We do heart Duck. It's basically a dot on the map of the Outer Banks, but has nice places to stroll & look in little shops & now a really nice board walk along the Sound.

#117

#118

I'm playing with bits of old colored paper again. It's difficult to work with them because any adhesive that spreads onto them doesn't clean up well. Ugh! I dislike messy glue-ing. 







I'm finding good quotes about color to write on the backs and post to Facebook with these. Today is day 120. Have no idea what I'll do today. Maybe I'll keep going with color bits through the weekend and start a new series on Monday. 245 days to go!

I drove through the park on my way home from Spanish class on Wednesday and had to stop and get out of my car to appreciate this tall tree. It was still full of wonderfully yellow leaves. They looked so bright against the blue sky.

Mail art catch up Part 2 and some ocean

#111

 I made two postcards while away at the beach using images from a 1946 National Geographic story about the Outer Banks. My tourist cards!

#112

 When we returned home, I started to play with scraps of colored paper and some press on letters.

 I added circles and attempted to create an illusion of transparency again.

 Sometimes the effect is stronger than at other times.

The waves were wild, the energy of the ocean was so intense. The wind was blowing so strongly and the foam that came up with the waves would blow away down the beach like cotton puffs. It was chilly, but worth being there to see, hear, and feel the power of the ocean.

Mail Art catch up part 1 and some clouds

#106

 The week leading up to our U.S. thanksgiving day, I played with some postcards from the water set. I altered them and added random text.

#107

#108

#109

 This is the card that I made specifically for thanksgiving. When I posted it on Facebook, the quote was about being grateful that thorns have roses. I like the way this one turned out very much. The smiling woman is so gorgeous and the rose so lovely. The background is a print and if you look closely you can see some hands in it.

This is the sunset last Friday night at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. On the Outer Banks aka OBX where we spent 3 very peaceful days.

Mail Art update, autumn colors

#101

#102

#103

 I began to post these to Facebook with quotes on different themes. I 'm not sure if the "likes" are for the image or the quote. I'm thinking - quote. This one had a quote from Dr. Seuss. I discovered that he has lots of good quotes available.

#104

#105

With this card,  I decided to return to altering cards from the box of them related to water. A box of 50 cards, with duplicates. Lucky me.  Large people walking in water is a fun theme for me.









I didn't particularly like the image on this card. It was two people with the same face lounging on the beach. A painting. I decided, after trying to find other faces, to just obscure the figures. I like the way this turned out. A floating rose and a seemingly transparent circle.







So here are two identical postcards. A painting by Milton Avery. I made #104, then turned it over - and oh no, I'd used the card upside down! But it works. It's fun.








Then today, I decided to use the card right side up and see what I could do with it. I used more of the images from the Victorian  illustration book, for the figures and animals.  They really do look like 2 different types of landscapes, right?

 It's autumn! Here's the little Japanese maple in from of our house.

Here's a view looking south-east on our street. I love the colors!

Mail Art, Books, and the Scam

#100

 Today is the 100th day of my second time around with making daily Mail Art. I can't believe it! What fun.

#98

#99

I'm enjoying the random text postcard series for awhile longer. I don't know what will come next. I really am just letting it flow. Finding bits of cut out images, picking 3 or four, arranging them to my satisfaction, and that's it. So simple.







I have no stories for any of these and yet they seem like narratives, right? This one, the 99th, is one I particularly like. It just came together. I think that the illusion of depth is so terrific, if I say so myself. What do you think? It works, yes?






My friend, Andrea, in the U.K. sent me two
books to pop into the Little Library. Here they are.

 Here are the books in the Little Free Library. I took two books out that I thought I might like to read, one by Anchee Min, and a hardback copy of 3 Hercule Poirot stories in one book, by - Agatha Christie!

 Here are the labels from the little package that I received from China (I assume it came from China.) This is the company (I assume it's a company) that has a very amazingly realistic Shoe store on-line. STYLETIME.
Remember that name - do not order anything from them. They are scammers.  Pass this along to any of your friends who shop for shoes on-line.

In the package is a sponge. I didn't open the package, but the customs declaration says that's what is inside, and it feels like it.
Also, on-line, when I looked up the company
name -
there are complaints about it and some people noted that they received sponges!
OMG I'm laughing at my getting scammed.

I don't like it. I've dealt with this via a claim against them, which will go no where I'm sure, but I want to keep warning people to be wary.
I have pinned this package to my studio cork wall to remind myself. Be Wary!

Lots of Mail Art!

 I don't know what's going on with me, but I keep making Mail Art, but not sending it out! In my first 365 Mail Art project, I made it, I mailed it, all in the same day. This time around 365.2, I make a piece daily and just put it on the pile on my studio table. What's with that?

#97

This card was actually inspired by #95  & #96. The substrate is some corrugated that I found.
I love the big Buddha head!

#96

 Today, I received a thank you note from a service person to whom I'd sent a Flatrate box filled with books, DVDs, magazines and snacks. I usually don't get any response, and don't expect any, so when I do, it's a thrill. I included in the box, several of the boring postcards that I got from my friend's mother. I included her address in case the recipient wanted to participate in my Send Sylvia a postcard project, and this service person did. How cool is that?
I hope Sylvia was surprised. You can surprise a service person by participating in Books for Soldiers.  There are women and men in service to the U.S. who do not get any mail. Send them some. 

Mail Art #95 and more

 This is yesterday's Mail Art, day 95. I haven't made today's yet. I'm saving that for a fun activity for after I go to a funeral this afternoon. 

I cut these pieces from a Smithsonian Magazine and put them on my work table, a few days ago. When I looked at them again yesterday, sitting just like this, I was very pleased by the arrangement and decided to simply glue them down on a substrate like that. I think the card has a lot of depth, don't you?

Elections in the U.S. are over. Whew.
Now to get back to a my life.

I want to toots some horns now. TOOT #1 Our son's latest book is out and getting recognition. See it HERE.
TOOT #2 The project that our daughter has been working on for a year launched last month and if you didn't see that post, you can see the business HERE

And here is a portion of the photo that I'll be using soon for publicity. Our friend, who is a professional photographer (site HERE) took photos of me. He did some retouching, took away shadows and, ahem, made me look very glam! Can you tell that I'm a Mail / Postal Artist?

And lastly, some of you may remember my posting about my childhood friend, Myrna. Here's an update - HERE.

Mail Art, what else? Oh, and a bit more.

Here are the Kitty pumpkins carved by my little neighbors. They have held up nicely this week, due to the cooler temperatures, no doubt. I baked my small pie pumpkins and now have lots of pumpkin puree. I used some to make a pound cake. I used my sweet potato pound cake recipe and substituted the pumpkin puree. It worked great! Link to recipe here.

#91

The odd thing about this piece is that I had no idea until I scanned it how dimensional it appears. Amazed myself. Just 3 pieces of paper!

#90

I used 4 pieces of paper for this one. I felt it needed the circle on the left for balance.

#93

 I'm using quotes from Dr. Seuss for this series of cards. The cards are so minimal and non-objective but when I put the quotes with them, they have another life.

#94

Three pieces for this one. I like how the circle appears to do something odd to the red paper. 












The circle rests on top of the two different yellow papers. Because it had a "line" in it with two colors, and I lined that up with the edge of the pale yellow paper, it appears to be transparent. It appears to over-lap it. So cool. That's a Josef Albers experiment for sure.

 This is a poster that my friend took a photo of when she was in Buenos Aires. I'm adding it because of the Kitty pumpkins at the top of this post. I like the idea of bracketing my Mail Art with kitties. I have them on my mind because I'd really like to have one again.

Mail Art, of course, and a warning!

 This is the last of my Hurricane Sandy Mail Art pieces. I'm happy with the way the piece conveys distance, which is how we fared with the storm. It was distant, except for some rain and wind. We were spared the brunt of it.

 This is the card for day #89. I'm amazed, I'm almost at 100 daily cards, again. I titled this one "Sometimes nothing makes sense. Pay attention to what does make sense."

Here's the canal by Brown's Island. Doesn't it look peaceful, so calm. I'm trying to stay that way right now. I got up early because I'm a bit distressed by discovering that I've been scammed.
 
After shopping on the internet for many years, I got caught. The website appeared legitimate;  everything about the transaction seemed real, but after not getting my shoes or any tracking information, I started to wonder. I looked the company up on Google and saw that many people had been scammed. Do NOT repeat DO NOT buy any shoes (or anything else they may sell) from STYLE TIME. Pass this information along to others so they don't get scammed.