Mountain of Mail...

So, over the last few months things have been busy, and the beautiful stack of mail beside my desk has been piling up.  Actually it has become more of a mountain of wonderful words, and images and paper secrets. My penpals are so wonderful, and I apologize to them all while I am so behind in my own correspondence back.  As mentioned in an earlier post today, Kyle and I finally finished our wedding invites and most of the organizational details which were occupying much of our free time outside of work. But now I am back on my game.

So to start I have a HUGE backlog of mail art goodness to mention, beginning with a wonderful zine that came to me from Sewon who keeps up the most beautiful Maps and Fragments blog.  Her zine is full of her photographs, which I just adore.  Somehow she manages to capture so many stories in a single frame...and now I have pages of stories all wrapped up in one lovely book!

The envelope was also so cool. There was a hand painted speech bubble for the address...and i can't lie, it totally inspired our invite envelopes!

I received a little bit of spring in an envelope from Jaime! And it was a welcome treat!

 This stationery blew my mind! Love it so much.

I just love the tiny bits of flare that J adds to all her letters! This washi tape is like a tiny whisper of spring hanging on to the edges of my eyelids.

From Phillipa, I received two beautiful cards...that both look hand printed.  One was of the type writer above, which just makes me long for the click clacking of keys...

...and the other was of a friendly panda bear, who came wrapped in the most delicate envelope I have ever seen.  It was transparent...and I could see the bear looking up at me when I peeked into my mail box.

Anika sent me an incredible package. It was FULL of beautiful things.  Including a piece of her art, which I find so interesting.  Her experiments with patterns and shapes are facinating to me.  I made a collage of a few of the things that stumbled out of the envelope she sent me.  For some reason the collection of colours and textures reminds me of the beach at sunset...running in sand as the landscape changes in big sweeping gestures right before our eyes.

Jeannine from Saylor Made also sent me a beautiful package, full of other little packages. It always feels like her mail takes me on a tiny journey, through images and textures.  These round circles came tumbling out of a brightly coloured orange envelope.  They looked like ideas caught in the wind to me...so I tried to illustrate that concept above.

I also found this older print work she made stunning! Made me want to try some creatures using this technique.

My lovely Lindsay sent me these paper snowflakes...I love them!  I want a room full of them.  I want to dance through streams of paper snow flakes with playing a loud love anthem! I'm pretty sure Linsday could make that happen!

Valentines also came and went while I was in the wedding storm.  I received so many lovely heart filled cards! Tanya's simple yet sophisticated Valentine was just so perfect....i think i may need to frame it! And Jaime's embroidered heart made me swoon!

A week ago I came home to this wild work of art...and thought it had to be from Jessica! I love the collage and altered postcard.  But I especially love the 'oh hey'. Don't you? There is something so humourous about that statement with this image.  It keeps me chuckling.

And last but certainly not least, Kye sent me an entire TUBE of papers...incluing vintage wallpaper...which I don't even know how to start using...so many ideas.  She also sent me on old map which I couldn't resist using on a little character.  Thank you so much Kye, your generosity is out of this world.

Well that sums it up for now...next it's my turn...I think Jaime's spring letter has stirred an idea in my brain for a new envelope diorama...and possibly a zine...Happy Spring to all!