Heaps of Postcards

Pretty much everyone that knows me knows I love postcards.  I've been sending postcards to friends and family for many, many years.  I mail out postcards while on vacation, and I send silly or outrageous postcards, for absolutely no reason, too.  Sometimes it's fun to sign with a fake name (like a celebrity).  I used to send postcards fairly regularly to my grandmother, from destinations where I was working...often not exciting or glamorous places (like Lincoln, Nebraska) but my mom said my grandma LOVED to get mail from me, no matter where it came from.  Now that I've joined Postcrossing, I'm always on the lookout for original and unique postcards.  Some people of course, request the typical tourist postcard but I prefer selecting a card that is more personable whenever possible.  

I also have an obsession with shopping on etsy, but that's a story for another time.  I have found a number of talented artists and photographers who produce postcards, so here's a roundup of my most recent purchases.   

(Click the picture for information on the seller)

I adore Leila's Day of the Dead art.  So beautiful, colorful, original.  Prints, paintings, 

decorative pieces -- she is making new pieces all the time.  A Day of the Dead Hello Kitty!

 Julie of LaPapierre is a mighty talented Canadian artist.  She specializes in stationery packs and is becoming very popular with adding fresh designs to her shop, as well as marketing herself very creatively.  The "Punk Pin-Up" is one of my favorite items!

Claudia, is the artist behind NextLola, creates colorful illustrated postcards, stickers and notebooks featuring her animals.  The illustrations are adorable!  She was recently featured on the Postcrossing blog.  If you didn't have a chance to read her story, you can see it here.

I got four letters and a thank you card posted on Monday before I left on a business trip.  Mail went to Ukraine, Germany, San Francisco, England, and New Mexico.

 The back of the envelope for Carolee; all Italian-themed, from the card to my return address label.

 Green and gold for Julie.

Happy Mailbox and Veg

Wow, my mailbox has been happy lately!  I've received great letters from Postcrossing friends Manuela in Germany, Anna-Danute in Moscow and a new correspondent, Tatiana, also in Moscow.  Tatiana tells me she doesn't like when these dolls are called Babusha, because it means "Grandma."  so now I have to learn to call them "Matryoshka" dolls!

I received this colorful illustrated VW from Felicity Lingle, in a paper sack upcycled into an envelope, with spaceship stamps.  Love it - thanks, Felicity!

I've also received a lovely letter from Gemma in England, who enclosed some of her awesome illustrated prints, which will soon be for sale!  Claudia of NextLola's Zoo sent me some clever vintage stationery with her lovely letter.

I was so excited to find out I was one of the very lucky recipients of the box of paper goodness from Carolee at "Make Every Day a Good Mail Day."  Winners just paid postage for a Priority Mail medium box that was STUFFED full.  Inside was stationery, handmade journals, 50+ postcards, 50+ envelopes, tons of stickers, four rubber stampers, bits and bobs of paper, tags and unused U.S. postage stamps, and a vintage headcount number counter thingy, which you can see in the picture (grey metal box with red buttons).  I have no idea what I will do with it, but it's one of those things that looks cool just sitting on your desk.  Thanks so much, Carolee -- I can't wait to incorporate much of this into my correspondence.


I have been extremely lucky with blog giveaways (I can't seem to hit a winning lottery, though) -- my haul from the past year or so includes a couple of books, a pin, a shirt, an envelope of Bianca's ephemera goodies, an envelope of Sugene's ephemera goodies, a handmade illustrated print, some food containers, and a vintage jar.  Whew!  So, I am putting together a giveaway of my own because that's what us bloggers enjoy doing.  And I'm not going to regift all of the aforementioned stuff ~ I have been choosing some great goodies for the package.  Stay tuned.

Here are some shot of some of my outgoing mail:

The deer envie is reused; my honey got a bumper sticker from the Coues Whitetail Deer society, and I knew the envelope would be perfect for my penpal in Finland.  This is the back of the envelope; I used a large vintage elk sticker to cover our address.

Last but not least, we went to the Chandler's Farmer Market, which is downtown on Thursdays, and here is the gorgeous produce we brought home.  I had never seen orange beets before!  The small oranges are blood oranges.  Isn't this colorful? 

Cigar Box Doll Bed & Postage Stamp Quilt

Love this from "Just Something I Made."  Click on Cathe's name at the bottom of the post for her blog.

Cigar Box Doll Bed and Postage Stamp Quilt

Thursday, February 24, 2011

The other day as I sat there looking at my stash of vintage cigar boxes, and my other stash of vintage postage stamps* I couldn’t help but think how they would work so nice together. Eventually, with my old box, stamps, printable cotton fabric sheets, and some digitally scanned images, I created my own fun piece of folk art- a charming little doll bed.
I began with the box, trimming away the lid. Digging into my box of vintage game pieces, I found the perfect bed legs and attached them to the bottom of the box. I trimmed off a bit of the box lid and attached the large section to one end of the box as a headboard. I used E6000 adhesive for both the headboard and legs.I gathered a load of colorful stamps, laid them out in a grid and scanned them. Here are the digital images made from the stamps, feel free to use them for your projects (just please don’t sell the images- they’re supposed to be free.) Click on each to snag their slightly larger images.I printed the red stamps and the multi-colored stamps to printable cotton sheets. I sewed the two pieces fronts facing in, leaving an unsewn section open to turn the piece right-side out. Once turned, I pressed the piece at the seams, stitched closed the hole, then stitched between each row of stamps vertically and horizontally.
Here is my tiny two-sided postage stamp doll quilt.
I created a pillow from a vintage envelope image I shared HERE and addressed to Little Miss Dolly. I printed the front and back envelope images to fabric and stitched them together complete with flap and stuffed with fill.I printed a handwritten letter image that I shared HERE to the dimensions of my cigar box and used it as the top of a little mattress sewn and stuffed with fiber fill.I tucked the mattress into the cigar box and made up the bed with the quilt and pillow.If you create a similar project, you may need to do a bit of sizing of your images in Photoshop, Photoshop Elements or other image editing software to get them to the dimensions needed to fit your own cigar box or for other projects. Be sure to let me know if you make something with the stamps, I’d love to see it.*A very special thank you to JSIM reader, Tracey Ireland, that sent me all the beautiful stamps used in this project (and also in THIS fun project a while back!)

Mail as Art

 While Mum and I were out running some errands last week downtown, we stopped at the new Chandler City Hall building, which is just gorgeous.  They have moved the Vision Gallery into the building and the current exhibit is, "Full Deck:  A Short History of Skate Art."  There is amazing art, all on skateboards!  Of course I really loved the one covered in postage stamps!

 

 I also spotted these small canvas pieces, with a postage/Southwestern theme:

 I looked around my house to see what artful things (besides books) that I have with a 

postal theme, and I see this shopping bag with faux postage stamps:

 And these goodies are a paperweight featuring Big Ben in London, a magnet 

with a Japanese postal box, and a tea tin of a British postal box:

(Sorry the photo came out sideways)

My favorite is this often-used zippered pouch that holds mail art supplies when I travel 

(click for details):

I would love to have this little bag (click for details):

 

What kind of postal art or goods do you have at home?

Be My Valentine

Hello lovelies!  wanted to share some pretty Valentine images with you.  Here's our 

February pinup calendar girl (Gil Elvgren), momentarily taken off our wall to scan.

 

 

 Everybody is familiar with these conversational candy hearts.  

But have you seen them in Spanish?   

Dulce - sweet/candy, Hola - hello, Beso -- kiss, Te Amo -- I love you  

I didn't realize I had so many vintage valentines ~ here are a few of my favorites:

 

 The backs of the vintage Valentines are always interesting.  You can tell they are vintage just by the old-fashioned names:  Ned, Fred, Esther, Thelma, Leo, Roy, and Shirley.

 Pink cupcakes are definitely perfect for your Valentine: