Ah!

Rubber stamping on an Add and Pass mail art piece.

I've so many other things to put up here but I can't find the images to add them to my blog. This has been a problem since using the Chrome Book. Oh the Mac was so easy, but I was not wanting to spend so much money to replace my old MacBook. Waaa. I opted for a Toshiba Chrome Book, which if you only want to do e-mails and keep documents and do google searches, it just fine. But for other things, I'm just not learning how to do them on this. oh well.

Anyway, here's a visual. And don't forget to send some Tea related Mail Art to my friend. You have until 14 February.
Send family friendly, of course, to CaryTown Teas at 2517 w. Cary St. Richmond, VA 23220  USA
Patricia and Misty will love receiving you mail and it'll be on display at the shop.

Rubber Stamped Mail Art

Having fun with my rubber stamps again.  I was using these to write my PostcardstoVoters. I felt the need to create some Mail Art using the stamps.

 With this card, I did a not so great job with the two stamp set of the bird. Not a good registration. It's one of the stamps that I got at Le Tampographe Sardon in Paris last October. I have to practice using it more.

The little airplane comes from Le Tampographe, also. I think this one is very effective in terms of the spatial effect of the planes overhead.

These two aren's as successful spatically, I think. And the red stamp pad was falling apart so I got globs of red which over went over with another letter. They're okay but not as successful as the first one. I'll do more of these probably.

What do you think? Should I keep on with the theme? Or play with something else?

Mail Art and my struggles

I'm still learning how to get photos onto this blog using Google Photos or from some cloud or wherever they are. I like this new Chrome Book but there are things that are different, that's for sure.

I've completed a full week of Creative Sprint. Are any of you, my blog readers, doing it, too? It's been fun.
This is a piece of mail art that I did for a prompt. The prompt was to be inspired by a children's song or a nursery rhyme. As usual, I had to let my mind mull this around. Then I started to look through my rubber stamps and found a tiny globe and a star. I, then, searched my stamp pads and found my gold one. FUN!
I'm thinking I need to do more like this.

Bear with me, I'll figure this out eventually and will get more images up and running.

So what's happening in your life?

Staying indoors - heat advisory!

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 Last week, I was away from home for a few days with my Mail Art traveling kit. I took a few things with me - some circles, some black paper, a butterfly.









I picked up a brochure while away and cut little figures out of it. Perfect for Mail Art, right?

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Some action going on here.  A pet sphere going out for a walk?












Nice striped dress!
My favorite thing, making - creating the illusion of transparency. Upper left.  What do you think? 









I had this face in my kit, from a brochure I got at VMFA. Did I make it a bit mysterious?

Here's mi corazon. Yesterday, she was in my studio, staying cool, cause we've got A/C. She took out a bunch of my old rubber stamps and made some art for me. She made paths and connections, she told me. She had a lot of fun and even used my date stamp when I told her what it was.

Hearts, Love, Mail Art, and Valentines, VA.

 These little hearts are from a stamp set that I got a long time ago and am happy that I kept. How perfect they are for the day that we're reminded about love, being loving, saying I love you. All of which, we need to be doing on a regular basis not just once a year, right?

 I received some Mail Art recently from Marseille, France - a beautiful painted mermaid. I'll post that here soon, but here's the card that I made in response. I altered a show card - one of Keith Long's wood sculptures. I make myself laugh when I do these alteration. I hope the artist in Marseille will get a smile, at least.

This is for Clyde, my letter carrier most excellent! He's leaving us after 18 years on this route, going to an easier one so he can make it 8 more years to retirement. We will soooo miss him. 

 I had this commercial postcard from the Meatball Shop and don't know why, but the pale flowers and kitty seemed appropriate for it. "You had...." fill in the blank.

photo by Bill Tiernan, Virginia-Pilot 2011

There's a little post office in Virginia, in a place called Valentines, that gets inundated with mail this time of year. The rest of the year, not so much. A few days ago, an article appeared in our newspaper telling about how it's at risk of having reduced hours and maybe even being closed. Lots of rural post offices are in the same situation.
Here's a photo of it that I found on-line. Actually, this is a little store with the post office inside it. You can read about it here.  If you feel like sending a postcard of support, you can mail it to Kathy Fajna, Postmaster, Valentines, VA 23887 - maybe an influx of mail year round will help.

And if you are really interested in Post Offices, check out THIS blog.

It's Wednesday! Midweek hooray!

 Hats for sale! Hats for sale! My sister makes lots of hats for little ones and hasn't any outlet for them. She sent a dozen to our grandgirl, who looks so cute in them. Now she's sent me a bunch which I'll put into my Etsy shop at some point. However, if you need a last minute gift for a baby, let me know, I've got hats galore.

Here are a pair of my mitts keeping Bad Girl Art's Keithley's hands warm. They're made from cotton and linen blend yarn. Oh, look, they kind of match her puppy!

 Chilly weather here, so tea time is anytime during the day. N gave me a lovely gift of a Tardis tea "ball." How cool. It's big enough to fill with tea for a pot but also works in a big mug with a smaller measure of tea. I love it! And that's my nice breakfast blend tea from Carytown Teas.

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I'm coming into the final stretch of my 365 project - can't believe it. A relief in so many ways, but hopefully my practice is well established and I'll carry on daily in my studio.

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In this series, I'm using old postage stamps to create scenes. Above, a landscape of a city with a bridge, airplanes overhead, and a bus headed for the bridge. In the one on the right, a family takes a walk in a city, visiting the sites.

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I'm totally not religious but what does one do with sooo many Madonna and Child stamps! Look, a Mary Cassatt painting in the center. I like this theme, it works so well. What do you think?

Brrrrr, so chilly here!

 We've made some new friends, the owners of NEST, where my honey will have an exhibit in February and currently has 3 pieces on preview.

My mitts are now for sale there, too. I've got to get busy knitting more with all the new yarn from my favorite yarn shop, now closed as of today. waaaa (me crying)

 Every day, I find Bizoo being places that I didn't know about, like IN the fern in the shower. The fern was going into winter mode and Bizoo was taking advantage of a nice outdoor experience while watching water go down the drain.

My friend, whom I call Prima because we share the same family name (with one letter difference,) is now the owner of MerryMaker. This is a shop where our kids used to spend their allowance money on Mrs. Grossman stickers! Here she is holding, for all you Harry Potter fans, a quill pen set. It's a fabulous set and she only has a couple left. Run over there and buy one. Very cool!

  Everytime I visit I find something I need, like Washi tape, notecards in Spanish, cool paper to make into Mail Art cards, and lots of things to just look at.

Stop in and say Hello, if you're in the area.

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Here are the series of cards that I made relating to the chilly weather this week. Brrrrr, that's what these cards say.











I used pen and ink with water, and then some rubber stamping to complete the composition.












Can't you just feel the chill?

More catching up.

 I love being by the ocean. I love the sound of the waves, the smell of the sea, the lines in the sand and the BIG sky. It's so peaceful and so immense, all of it.

 Last Saturday, I participated in a craft sale. Keithley of Bad Girl Art, invited 9 of us to participate at her home. It was such fun and quite successful. I sold more than half of the mitts that I brought with me. The two tiny hats in the photos are by my sister, who makes them out of cotton for babies. I haven't put anything back in my Etsy shop yet, as sales are brisk in face to face.

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More old rubber stamps. Kittens watching the rain clouds go by.

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I'd forgotten all about this beautiful "peace" stamp. I think I'll make a bunch more of these to send out for the New Year.

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Does this one look like ocean waves with moon and stars in the sky?

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Here's a sampling of some of my old cancellation stamps all in a clump. The card was askew on the scanner but I didn't fix it. Sort of more active looking this way.

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The triangle stamp is one that I never used as it was just too triangular and solid. However, it made a nice mountain background for this card. Don't you think so?

Update on everything!

 For American thanksgiving day, we went to Avon, a hamlet on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. It was really peaceful. This is a view of a sand pile that was next to our car, it was vertical but the lines give the illusion that it's a flat plane going off into the distance, right? So interesting.

 This is the view of the sun setting on the sound from our balcony.

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I'm nearing the end of my third year long daily project. This will be the last one that I do. I'm happy that this is coming to an end. I'll continue to make Mail Art, maybe even daily, but I won't have to scan and post daily which will be a good thing for me.







In this series of Mail Art pieces, I've dug around in the unused rubber stamp box. These are old friends and I'm happy to be using them again.









I'd forgotten what fun it is to make these little narratives with rubber stamps.











It's like visiting with old friends.

More of the usual plus the unusual

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 Monday, I switched direction away from my minimals. I wanted to try out my new Cavallini rubber stamps. Oh I do like them, having to do with postal things. Even those waving lines to cancel faux postage.

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I used a nice gray card board, the backing for the stamps that I receive in the mail, and tore up a 2010 estimate for ridding our house of termites. Turned out that we didn't have any. Hah! Used postage stamps from Finland and tiny cut out squares from some other project came in handy.






Here are two more in this series.
Fun with stamps. These are from a different Cavallini set that my honey got for me awhile ago.









And the rubber stamps on this one are from my collection of postal franks and immigration stamps.

 Here's our surprise yesterday -  ususual, snow falling! We didn't get a lot but it was cold and very windy. The valley region to the west and north of us got LOTS of snow. I heard some places got 30".  Wow, memories of my childhood.

Here's another unusual thing - a snapping turtle that we saw at the Maymont nature center last week. It was so prehistoric looking. One of the staff told us that mature one's spend all their time in the water, but when it was less-mature (I guess) they used to have a ramp in the tank so it could climb up out of the water. One day, they came into the center and found this guy taking a stroll!
What a surprise for them!