Mail Art Madness January Edition

The two pieces of mail art above come from Jennie Hinchcliff. Yes, THE Jennie Hinchcliff of Good Mail Day and Red Letter Day fame.



Andrea Jay sent these two similar pieces. The stern looking lady reminds me of my 5th grade teacher. Yikes!



Sue Wood and I are traveling companions on The Crazy Train. If you compare this scan with Sue's original here, you can see the Octopus disembarked before the train pulled into The Crazy Barn at Crockett.



PostMuse of the Orphaned Postcard Project sends this one and writes that she is enjoying making mail art using some of her old postage stamp stash. Great idea!

Recent (and not so recent) Incoming

Check out this hand-decorated envelope by Sirpa. She also decorated the pages of the letter in a similar fashion. I admire doodles. I'm not a very good doodler. You can view much better photos here on her blog.



This cheery polka dot one comes from Anita in Tennessee. Hugs and prayers to you, Anita, on the passing of your mom.



It's always neat when someone connects from out of the blue. Linda found my address or my blog and just decided to write. Love it!

News from Wasilla

No, I don't know Sarah Palin and this post isn't about her. It's a letter (plus some pretty awesome goodies) from Tanna, one of my newish pen friends who happens to live in Wasilla, Alaska. I must admit though, in my first letter to Tanna, I did ask her if she knew Sarah Palin. She replied, "No, not personally... but I can see her house from here."

Still makes me laugh.

Introducing Farley

Meet my new friend, Farley. My pen friend, the lovely and talented Cari Polena, created him and sent him my way. How Sweet Is That! Check out her blog, Swanky Lifestyle, for cool mail art posts and more, lots more. She's made an entire finger puppet army you can see here.
Stay tuned for more posts from Farley.

Reflecting on 2010

Overall, I met my goals. Write 365 letters...check. Publish more blog posts...check. (not a LOT more, but hey, 49 is more than 41) Shoot for 100 Followers...check. 112 Woot!

The only real goal I didn't meet (again) was the whole Getting Organized thing. I guess that one is a Rollover Goal (again) for 2011.

Contest A Bust -- But Winners Nonetheless

Well, the Happy Accident Hat Contest is officially over. I left it posted for quite some time. Only three people requested a hat to decorate, so those are the three winners. All three will receive the same prize package consisting of the items shown below.


These are math chart stickers. Use the whole chart or cut them up and use only the parts you want.


Next we have a few die cut shapes...a cupcake, a present, a balloon, and a birthday cake.


A couple of sheets of Heidi Swapp arrows might come in handy to decorate some envelopes. The white arrows on the red, white, and blue set didn't show up, but, trust me, they're there.


Finally, I've included three note cards with envies, some mini playing cards, a pen, and a little mini composition book.
Oh, there are also 3 rolls of paper tape, but the scan didn't turn out well, so I didn't include it.

Congratulations, girls. I hope you enjoy the goodies.

What Got Ripped This Week

First up are two cards from Postcrossing. The pink flower card is from Maartje (NL-500846) who says The Netherlands is famous because of its flowers. True, but hey, these aren't tulips. The other card comes from Russia. It shows the Metro Station at Taganskaya. Isn't the architecture grand!





The next three are general mail. First off is a first day of issue postcard from elle.mental. Someday I hope to have my own cards with an issue date. Maybe that can be a New Year's goal. Next is a letter from Angelia of A Year of Letters fame. Sorry, Angelia, I'm a repeat and don't count towards your total of 365 letters to DIFFERENT recipients. And last, but by no means least, is my art letter book from the awesome Caiti Wefler.






Finally, here are my first three Christmas cards of 2010. Predictably, the first one is from my daughter Heidi, who has her act together. The next one is from Elizabeth to Santa, but in care of, yeah, that's right....ME! And last, we have one from Greenway Creek Golf Club, where my husband is a member. He's retiring at the end of the month....but I'll save that for another post.

Have You Ever Done This?

For those of you who think I'm crazy, here's another piece of evidence. Today is a snow day, meaning no school for me. This makes the second day in a row. I'd rather have gone to school both days, as now we have to make them up on Dec 20 and 21...sigh. But, back to the post.

Even though it is a snow day, I set the alarm clock (on my cellphone) last night anyway. Never mind that it is not necessary. I wake up and get up without an alarm. And, always earlier than 6:15. But, it makes me happy for that alarm to sound and for me to be able to smile and shut it off. It is one of my life's little rituals.

How about you? Have you ever done this?

Duck-Duck-Duck-Duck-Duck-Goose

Travelers Insurance sent this set of six cards, 5 with orange cars and the 6th one blue. The five orange ones had the word "duck" on the back and the sixth one said "goose" to symbolize the 1 of 6 drivers without car insurance. I thought the cards were clever and sent all six out via Postcrossing.

Here I Go Again

There I was, just minding my own business; chugging right along on my goal of writing 365 letters in 2010. The end is in sight, my goal almost realized. I had begun thinking about next year. Would I commit to another 365 letter writing campaign?

I was thinking....probably not. Oh, I certainly intend to keep on writing letters, but maybe take it down a notch to say, maybe 200 or 250. Then I read Angelia's post over at A Year of Letters about something new on the horizon.

Hey, I could get in on the ground level. I wasn't behind yet. It seemed like fate.
Yeah, I went. I saw. I caved.

So, here I go again. MailArt365 if you'd like to follow along and/or join in on the mailart fun. There are several signed up already. It's not just me on the Crazy Train.