Mail art challenges

Hello everyone,

I am in love with mail art at the moment and when some challenges rolled around on Swap Bot I was intrigued to say the least.

For the first challenge, we had to create a decorated envelope with the following things on them: an animal, something blue, something with stripes, some type of text and deco / washi tape.  Here is how I fulfilled the criteria:

- The bird is an animal. So is the butterfly ;)
- Something blue is the airmail sticker and I sprayed the envelope with blue spray ink
- The striped washi is the something with stripes
- I used an alphabet washi tape to be the type of text
- The green graph washi is the extra washi tape

Mail art envelope - front (address blurred)

Mail art envelope back

For the second challenge the list was a little complicated. Here's the list:
* A rodent or similar sized critter
* A ticket or ticket stub (travel, concert, sporting event, or any other ticket)
* A candy wrapper or piece of a candy wrapper
* A game piece or playing card (includes monopoly cards/money, yahtzee papers, bingo cards, etc)
* Something round
* Something yellow
* A rubber stamped image or design ( can be in ink or paint )
* Something cut from a magazine
* 3 of the same thing

I decided to just go for it and let loose. I dove into my junk journal stuff and went for it. Very little planning, a whole lot of glue and this is the result.

Mail art envelope - back

Mail art envelope - front

Isn't that so much better than receiving a bill? ;)

Cheerio
Mar

The ticking of time - a mail art project

Hello guys and gals,

So not too long ago I was tempted into yet another mail art project and this time the theme was... well, it was actually Time.

Time themed envelope - front

For this one I kept it simple and broke out my stamps, inks and watercolour pencils. A little bit of decorative tape along some graph paper makes up the address label.

Time themed envelope - back

The back is done in pretty much the same way, except that it's all stamped and watercoloured. I love this decorative frame stamp and have made a mental note to make use of it more often.

A collection of time theme notecards and matching envelopes

We had to include a little gift inside the envelope, so opted to make a set of blank notecards and matching envelopes for my partner. I used the same elements (stamping, watercolour), but had to add this gold gel medium to round it all off. It fit perfectly.

I've had the time stamps for quite a while and was happy to break them out for such a great swap.

Time to say goodbye ;)

Mar

Feathered Mail Art

Hello lovelies,

I recently had the opportunity to indulge my love of birds in art. A swap came rolling my way for a bird-themed mail art project. I opted for making a decorated envelope.

I had a couple of pages lying around from an old encyclopedia that had gorgeous bird images on it. I had a general idea that the birds should have their attention focused around the receiver's address.

I made the envelope out of an old music sheet and used gesso on it to fade it out. Next I splashed some watercolour droplets on it before sticking down the bird images. I also stamped the images surrounding the address area and used my watercolour pencils to add some colour to them. I outlined the birds with a yellow marker to make them stand out more.

Bird mail art envelope - front

For the back of the envelope I did pretty much the same thing.

Bird mail art envelope - back (address blurred)

I really love how this project turned out. It's not like I have a thing for feathers or anything like that (wink, wink).

Thank you for stopping by
Mar

Pollen-free flowers in the mail

I have a love-hate relationship with flowers. They are gorgeous, but oh boy, my sinuses go haywire in Spring. I have found a great in-between in my craft room and flowers are one of my go-to imagery when I make projects.

I participated in a mailart swap that had a flowers theme. I opted to make an envelope with as much flowers as I could fit onto it.

Mail art envelope front (with address blurred out)

Mail art envelope back (with address blurred out)

I gesso'd the envelope and just went nuts with collage and stamping. I also took the opportunity to slip in one of my favourite quotes of all time. Anais Nin surely knew how to turn a phrase.

Happy day darlings
Mar

Swap Bot fun

So to push my arty ways and have mailbox love from all over the world, I have fun on a swapping site called Swap Bot.

It's an American based site, but it has quite a strong international following. If you are into exchanging things with people from over the oceans, come have a look :)

So here is what I have done for some swaps recently:

Black&White Valentine ATC

I love playing with darker themes every now and then, so this was an instant draw. It's pretty tough not to associate this theme with old black and white movie, so I wanted to force myself to think outside the box. I went for a little grunge and dark Alice-in-Wonderland-y angle.

Blue ATC

This one was a pretty simple swap. We just had to make an ATC where blue was the main feature colour. Easy peasy. Valentine's day is on my mind, so why not make something a little more lovey dovey? 

Black ATC

Same as the above swap in that we had to make an ATC with one colour as the main focus. This time is was black who had to take centre stage. Off course I couldn't resist going a little spooky ;)

Love-themed bookmark:

This swap celebrated two of my favourite things: love and reading. Resistance was futile off course. Love can be a little grungy right? So that's what I went with for this swap.

 

Tag-o-Love:

I do love playing wth tags in my craftroom and this swap was the perfect excuse. I thought I'd mix it up a bit and instead of going the usual vertical tag, I went oh so horizontal. 

Spruced up envelopes:

This is not so much a swap as a little something to make the swapping experience more special for my partner. I dress up the envies I send the swap in. I tend to forget to take pics of them, but here are some I caught before they went on their journeys. Maybe blogging will help with that? Hopefully.

HINT: I tend to make a bunch of envies in a big batch. Then they are ready whenever I need them. I take it on as a seperate project. Or just keep some envies lying around and as you craft, use them as the 'clean up' paper. You'll be surprised how quickly they come alive :)

Took the photo after I added the address, so blurred that out.

That's it for now gang.

Mar