Mail Art and Mother's Day.

 Back to my old "tricks" with Mail Art collages. I found some left over scraps from a previous series and used them to create two new pieces. They remind me of landscapes.

The random letters spell nothing but with the addition of a question mark and en exclamation, wow, they sure do seem to be telling us something.

 I think this one is a particularly strong landscape. Alien, with so many suns in a black sky. What do you think? Evokes landscape, right?

 I made cards out of the photo that I posted on Facebook of my little arrangement on my porch rail. People thought these were small, like salt and pepper shakers, but the cactus is a large cookie jar in reality.

People gave me nice captions for them.
So I made up the postcard and sent them out to people with their caption on the reverse.

 I made lots of cards, so here are a couple that I added text to, making my own conversations.

These strike me as quite amusing. I have more cards to work with so you might see more examples of my silliness.
If you'd like to receive on in YOUR mail box, let me know.

 A friend asked me if I'd like some old stamps and of course I said, yes. BUT I got something even better than stamps, though I did get quite a few of those. What I got lots of were first day covers! I don't know if they have monetary value, but for me what a treasure trove for Mail Art. Here's one envelope that I changed up a bit to send out to someone. I popped a card saying "Creativity is a Practice" into the envelope so it wouldn't go empty.

Today was the American holiday called Mother's Day. It's been all changed up from the original idea of it, made so commercial. I never required that my kids celebrate me on this day. I felt pretty much honored on a regular basis year round, but it's nice day to be out and about. Every year for a long time, I've sent my kids cards on Mother's Day - if not for them, I wouldn't be one. But now we have a little grandgirl, and I like celebrating this new life and our DIL. We walked to Carytown where Z went to her favorite restaurant for her usual, a mini-baguette. She walked lots, amazing how fast she goes. We were exhausted but she still had energy.

So back to the First Day Covers: do you know anything about them, did you ever collect any? What did you do with them?

Dotty Mail, tiny baguette, and a recipe

 Oh, dots are so satisfying! The acting of punching holes with my different sizes of hole punch, the placing of the dots, the placing of the punched paper, mmmm, so satisfying.  And if one were of a mind to, one could write a story for each of these. A children's book, anyone?

 I like clouds a lot, as regular readers of my blog know, and I like reflections of clouds in windows and water, too. Here's a photo of clouds reflected in a building in Washington, D.C. We passed it by, in the train, on the way home from our last trip. If you look carefully at the bottom row of windows you can see the reflection of the top of our train.

 This morning, we went out early to meet a friend for coffee at Can Can. The Bonne Maman confiture is a miniature, ditto the baguette (a ficelle.) We enjoy these little reminders of Paris, though none of the employees speaks French. Bummer!

Even though the heat is brutal, I decided to make a cake yesterday. I was going to make a vegan tea cake but my book of recipes opened to the page holding this recipe - Brown Sugar Toffee Cake. Oh, yes! I went out and purchased the Heath bars necessary for the topping. It was a big hit at the dinner party we went to, and you can find the recipe here, if you want to try it yourself.

End of the stay!

 Le baguette - we ate many of these. We will not eat another like this for a long time. They are so distinct to this place.

View along the Seine last Sunday, when it was closed to vehicles and people promenaded, bicycled and skated along the route. 

 A group of my Mail Artist friends and I walked all the way to the Louvre and a bit beyond, on Sunday. Here's the Pyramid du Louvre.

 Yesterday, my Honey and I walked to rue du Bac, where we stopped in some galleries and Deyrolle, which some of you may have seen in the movie Midnight in Paris.  We looked in the window at Sennelier. Here are some papers showing their water-colors. The reflection is of the Louvre on the other side of the Seine.

 After a long walk, we took the #70 bus across the river and back to Hotel de Ville.

 The ice skating rink is still up and very well used. The light made the Hotel de Ville look rosy.

 Another view of the lovely old carousel.

These are the last of the pastries, unless we get some at the airport while waiting for our flight. Au revoir pastries, baguettes, Paris.

Mardi - Tuesday

There's an international harp competition being held here at the Cite this week. One of the practice rooms is on our floor and we're treated to harp music most of the day. I was so happy to see this silouhette of the harp and harpiste this morning.

Lunch today, Douceur de 9 Légumes, avec une touche de
crème (creamy vegetable soup,) baguette (whole wheat,) olives Provençales and cornichon.

continuing the walk

We spotted these fancy Converse shoes in a men's store window. Richt across street there is our local Monoprix. This store is aware of environmental issues, will discontinue free plastic bags in 2 years, will recycle your batteries for you, has bio cotton clothing, and more. The street was very lively with people walking, bicyclists, the carousel by the Metro entrance...I love the way the damp sidewalk reflects the lights and everything glows. We stopped for a baguette, some wine and a homeopathic remedy for me. We also found Bon Maman fig (figue) preserves, which we can never find at home. And a happy find for me, my face cream, yay! It's cheaper to buy it here than at home! So far, it's the only thing less expensive. Have I mentioned how expensive it is here for Americans?