Mail Art Happiness

My mailbox has been very happy lately! Here are a few of the wonders sent by pen pals and Postcrossing friends. First, a marvelous creation by mail artist Sally Wassink. On the outside: “Burn on completion” and “2016” stamped in red, and Sally’s “Wurlitzerworld January 1, 2016” postmark.

Inside: a handy pocket calendar for 2016 and matches to burn it at year’s end (I won’t!)

With the bottom stapled, it folds and tucks just like a matchbook. Ingenious!

Judy Staroscik, a mail art pen pal I met through IOUMA (the International Union for Mail-Artists), sends me intricate handmade artist trading cards and other gems. Judy’s latest, a small card and ATC that she made on an art tour to England last year:

Carrie, a Postcrosser from Minnesota,made me a gorgeous stamp-art postcard with an inspiring message for the new year. The stalk / flowers on the right are embossed with gold ink.

LadyOla, a Postcrosser from Belarus, was sweet to note from my profile that I adore triangle stamps! She used this one on my postcard — it looks like a fragment of a tapestry, doesn’t it?

Ceejay, another treasured pen pal I met through Postcrossing, sends me her own beautiful photo cards with wonderful gifts tucked inside, often precious triangle stamps she finds for me!

And last but not least – a Postcrosser from the Netherlands made me this extra-special card with sequins, real lace, and a pop-up cuppa tea and flowers!

Curious about Postcrossing? Click this link. And this is my Postcrossing profile

Have you sent or received any mail art lately? I hope your mailbox has many happy days in 2016, both outgoing and incoming!

Happy New Year from Father Time

To welcome 2016, a New Year’s vintage embossed postcard with a weighty message:

“May Time, who sheds his blight o’er all / And daily dooms some joy to death / O’er thee let years so lightly fall / They shall not crush one flower beneath.”

The excerpt from a poem entitled ‘Peace Be Around Thee’ by Irish poet Thomas Moore, 1779-1852, is perfectly captured by the illustration — bearded, sandal-wearing and scythe-bearing Father Time scatters years sketched as golden-tinted balls. There’s no writing or postmark on the back, but another copy of the card online has a 1908 postmark.

My past posts about vintage New Year postcards:

New Year’s Day 2015.

December 1012 post.

A matched pair of Christmas and New Year postcards.

Happy New Year! May you send and receive many postcards this year.

Thanksgiving Good Cheer

Herewith some 1910s Thanksgiving wishes! Most of my vintage T’giving postcards have turkeys on them, so this one is unusual.

I thought our fair lass was preparing a vegetarian dinner, but closer inspection shows that her cornucopia and basket overflow only with grapes. Perhaps she was tasked with providing the wine; hence the message on the front: “Thanksgiving Day Good Cheer.”

The message on the back: “Grandpa & Grandma.” Postmarked 1915, it’s addressed to Master Wilbur W. Daily, #28 S. 8th St., City.

Next, alas, more doomed turkeys. On this heavily embossed card Tom Turkey displays his fancy tail feathers for his lady. The borders around “Thanksgiving Greetings” and the picture are painted with metallic silver and have an art nouveau feel.

Minnie sent this card, addressed to Mrs. J. Vanderplou, in 1910. The message: “Dear Aunt Annie, I got the paints and they are nice ones. When I got them I was so glad. I painted with them already. Mamma said ‘that she would like to go to grandma’s house for Thanksgiving. Mamma is going to write soon.’ That piece of goods that you sent is very pretty. xxxxxx.” A model Thank You note indeed!

To all of my friends who celebrate, with or with out turkeys (not in our house anymore), have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Pop Goes the Mailbox!

Yesterday: happiest mailbox day ever! Sometimes when I’m owed a lot of Postcrossing postcards they seem to arrive in clusters. Makes me wonder whether some mail art lover along the route is delaying a few of them to admire as a collection? For whatever reason, yesterday I had incoming mail aplenty: three postcards from Postcrossers ’round the world, and from faithful mail art pen pals came a selfmade photo-card and a vintage ephemera collage card.

What in the world is that in the middle, you may be wondering. I’m so glad you asked – that is an amazing handmade 3D postcard!

Roselyn, a Postcrosser in Florida who was randomly given my name to send a card to, made this wonderfully fun, unique popsicle postcard. She told me she had been thinking about 3D mail art since she saw some on Pinterest,  and that after reading my profile she decided to give it a try! Following this post by Sandra Denneler on SheKnows, Roselyn sculpted blue styrofoam into a popsicle shape, added 2 wooden craft sticks, and attached cardstock to the back.  

It only took two first-class postage stamps, and I bet a bunch of USPS people along its trip from Florida to California were grinning as much as I did when I saw it.

A Postcrosser in Germany sent me this very special wooden postcard – there’s a small sketched owl at the top left, and a punched-out owl figure.

Such a fantastic idea! I’ve made postcards by printing on wood veneer, but the delicate wood-cut designs used to create these cards are just exquisite. Click here to see the artist’s website, and here for his Etsy store.

Finally, this gorgeous handmade postcard from a pen pal I met through the San Francisco Correspondence Co-op. If the link doesn’t open for you and you’re interested in joining, let me know and I’ll send you information.

I love the combination of ephemera she chose: old trading stamps and a lire note, with some music and asian type thrown in.

I’m constantly awed and inspired by the creativity of my mail art friends, and it’s as much fun to make my own creations to send to them as it is to open my mailbox and find a treasure! Hope you have a Happy Mail Day!

A Vintage New Year

To start off 2015 right, I bring you a gorgeous Happy New Year postcard.

Three brilliantly-colored birds perch on a snow-sprinkled branch. All of the details: the birds and their meticulously drawn feathers, the gold banner, the festive holly branch with red berries, and the lettering: “A Happy New Year” are embossed. There’s no message or postmark on the back. A copyright on the front has a date of 1911.

Want to see more? I showed you two other wonderful vintage New Year’s postcards in this blog post. And in this post I showed you a matched pair of Christmas and New Year cards.

Happy New Year! May you send and receive many postcards this year.

In My Out Mailbox

Which do you find more rewarding, sending or receiving mail? The days that my mailbox is full of cards from Postcrossing and other mail art friends are fantastic, but it’s also a big thrill to make or select pre-made cards to send out into the world. Last week I jammed our mailbox with cards and flipped up the flag.

This one went to a Postrossing friend in Singapore, who said that he liked photography and that self-made cards were just fine with him. It’s a photo of the sunset over San Francisco Bay that I took from our deck. I added the “El Cerrito” because there are no commercially-made postcards for my little town – so of course I had to make some!

When Postrcrossers specifically say they don’t want self-made cards I search through my large collection to find the perfect pre-made card. A person who likes castles is getting the vintage card you can see in the bottom right corner of the photo at the top of this post.

I sent my photo-card of a hummingbird at a fuchsia flower to a young girl in Taiwan who has a really upbeat profile. She said she’d like to see something beautiful or an interesting thing that happened in my life. A visit from a hummingbird to our garden is always so special to me, so it fit the bill.

This photo-painting I made of an Epipactis orchid grown by George went out to a pen pal who likes flowers. When I make postcards from my photos I print on extra-thick cardstock or Epson velvet-fine art paper, which has a wonderful textured surface and is thicker than normal photo paper.

Finally, I made this postcard from discarded books and ephemera. It’s going to a pen pal I met through the San Francisco Correspondence Co-op.

Anything fun going out your mailbox these days?

Vintage Easter Greetings

It’s Easter postcard time again! The Easter bunny (looking more like a dignified Sir Rabbit), and emerging yellow chick wish you “A Happy Easter.” The message on the back, written in pencil in 1912, has faded badly, but the parts I can still read are somber compared to the prettily flowered front. It starts out: “Well Ann, how do you do. We are having a hard time.” The only other part I can read says: “Phil is working himself to death. Your friend, E.”  Yikes!

The next card doesn’t have the bright colors of many vintage postcards; its strength is a wonderful heavily embossed design of a chick with a posy of spring flowers. There’s no message on the back other than the sender’s initials, and the date isn’t legible on the postmark. It has a one-cent Benjamin Franklin stamp, which doesn’t help much with dating because that was the price to mail a postcard for very many years.

The last one, mailed in 1924, has an overtly religious message: “And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre – ‘He is not here but is risen.'” Tiny print under the image at right says “The Women at the Tomb.” On the back is only written “Best Easter wishes from Aunt Sarah.”

Want to see more vintage Easter postcards? Here’s my post “Mad Hens” from 2012. And this is “Happy Peeps-Day” from 2013.

Have a wonderful Easter!

Mail Art pen pal

In a recent post I told you about Postcrossing, a website for people around the world to send and receive postcards. In a scant four months I’ve sent 47 and received 37 cards! My postcards have travelled 395,996 km (246,061 miles) and those I’ve received have gone 298,069 km (185,211 miles). Here’s my Postcrossing map:

In their profiles (click the link to see mine), people tell a bit about themselves and can say what kind of cards they’d like to get. A wonderful Postcrosser from back East who was chosen at random to send me a card saw that I collect vintage embossed holiday cards and mailed me two fabulous old postcards. She used a triangle stamp on the envelope, because I mentioned in my profile that I collect those. Talk about a Happy Mail Day!

Emailing through Postcrossing, we realized that we have many similar interests, and she proposed corresponding by mail. I couldn’t say yes fast enough! She also loves photography, and sent me a greeting card she made from her wonderful photo of a Fall garden, along with two more precious vintage embossed holiday cards from her collection.

For my first offering, I decided to send one of my accordion cards, which I made by printing four of my native flower kaleidoscope designs onto a sheet, and folding it. I wrote on the back.

I’ve started making upcycled envelopes from paper that would otherwise be thrown away or recycled. I chose one that I made from an old calendar of botanical drawings.  The stamp in the right corner is one I designed from my photo of a masdevallia orchid. I had the stamps made through my Zazzle gallery.

Have you had a Happy Mail Day recently? If so please tell!

Here are my other blog posts about handmade postcards:

Passion for Postcards

Handmade Fabric Postcards

Printing on Wood Veneer

Passion for Postcards

I’ve told you before how much I love vintage postcards, and that I love making fabric postcards from my own artwork. Last month I read a great book on mail art called Good Mail Day that had a list of sites to swap mail art. One really struck my fancy, called Postcrossing, where after you sign up you send postcards and then receive postcards back from people all around the world.

In their profiles people tell a bit about themselves and can say what kind of cards they’d like to receive. I have a huge collection of postcard books, and it’s really fun paging through them to find the perfect one for each person. A girl in Belarus said she liked “cars of your country,” so I chose this cool card for her.

It takes a while for you to get your first postcard, because you only get on the list to receive one after one of your cards reaches its destination. You can send out 5 cards at first, so hopefully at least one or two will reach the person quickly. And pretty soon they increase the number you can send out at once; I’m up to 7. This is one of my favorites, sent by a woman in Germany:

She mentioned that when she read my profile she thought it would have been better to get a card from me, so I sent her a message (you can contact people through their profiles if they agree to that) saying that I’d love to send her a card. I just mailed her my own ladybug greeting card:

At first I sent only commercial cards, but a girl in the Ukraine wrote that she liked handmade cards, nature, and animals, so I decided to print one of my hummingbird photos for her. I had read that postcards to Europe shouldn’t be too flimsy or they might crumple, so I printed the back and front on one sheet of paper, folded it over, and pasted them together to make it double-strength. Printing the back let me include a fun “Postcard” graphic I scanned from one of my vintage cards, which I also use to print on my fabric postcard backs.

I just sent my photo of a monarch butterfly on a sunflower to a woman in the Netherlands who likes postcards with flowers and animals. I printed it on Epson Velvet Fine Art paper, which is thicker than most other inkjet paper.

It’s so fun both to send and receive cards. If you sign up for Postcrossing and want to exchange cards let me know – you can do direct swaps along with the random selection of addresses that the site generates for each normal swap. Happy Postcrossing!

Here are my other blog posts about postcards:

Handmade Fabric Postcards

Happy Peeps-Day!

Happy New Year!

Mad Hens

Woman Vacations on Santa Catalina Island

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Printing on Wood Veneer

Happy New Year!

Don’t you love new beginnings? Nothing better than a fresh start, and a turn of the year is about as fresh as it gets. I found some treasures in my vintage postcard collection to help you celebrate the first new day of 2013.

The design, the holly leaves and berries, the horse-shoe for luck, and the words “Happy New Year” are all embossed. The original is a bit more yellow-golden, but I liked the coppery shade of the scan. It’s postmarked Dec. 27, 1907, from New Mexico, and was sent to Miss Annie Roberts of Blair Okla. I can’t read the signature, but the message is: “Dearest girl, I am going to answer your sweet note real soon & not do you like you did me. Hope you are having a good old time nowadays.”

Miss Jennie Bouman of Niantic PA received this card from her friend Mrs. Milton Gotshall of Boyertown PA on December 31, 1906. I love the girl with her little sailor suit, and the enthralled kitty with its merry red bow.

And finally, a card sent by “E.V.A” from Times Square NY on December 31, 1913, to his or her Benjamin in Wellsley Hills, Mass. On the back: “If you were only here I would wish you a very very happy New Year.”

And so to you the same, although you are not here in person, I thank you all for visiting my blog this past year, and wish you a very very Happy New Year, and an “unbroken chain of the good things that will make you happy”!