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!

Bunny Zine!

All piled high and ready to be fly off to new homes.

The Bunny zine is all wrapped up! I am pretty happy with the results, though some of the water colour was lost in translation, or in the copy machine.  I will learn from this when making my next zine...any ideas what that should be?

And now i would like to make a little list about the good things from this weekend:
1. All night crafting at the workroom, during Nuit Blanche.  Getting to hang with lots and lots of good people...and seeing some old friends and sharing some belly laughs!
2. Butter Tarts...two batches...two emergency phone calls to grandma...still learning.
3. Rainy and cold weekend = long and cozy nap!
4. Good news from oceans away!

Bunnies doing what bunnies do best...hopping.

A bunny sleeping...which is essentially what i did all weekend.

Carrot party, it's a bunny thing.

There are also bunnies on the last page!

A birthday and some bunnies.

Jumping.

First off, I need to send out a huge thank you to the ladies over at Le Funky Mamas, a modern culture blog for mom of today, for featuring my blog as their blog of the month! Totally amazing to be featured on such an awesome and beautiful place here on the internet! Thank you, Thank you!!!

Mom's flowers!

This weekend my sister and i had a party for my mom's birthday.  It was just small and sweet at my place.  We decorated with fabric bunting, flowers and I made my first Angel Food cake from scratch (which turned out somewhat right…but i am not sure it rose to the full extent).  Essentially we had a mother-daughter slumber party.  It was hilarious.  We watched Bridesmaids and feasted on take out.  But the highlight of the night was our spontaneous dance party.  We pulled out some supreme moves.  I made note of our play list for those who would also like some awesome tunes to 'shake a tail' to:

Hold On - Wilson Philips
This Must Be the Place - Talking Heads
Cherish - Madonna
How Bizarre - OMC
Pictures of You - The Cure
Dance With Somebody - Whitney Houston
Ice Ice Baby - Vanilla Ice
River Deep Mountain High - Tina Turner

Process work!

 I am getting closer to finishing up my next zine all about bunnies! I have included some of the process images.  Essentially these are all the cut outs that I will paste onto the zine pages, to make into little scenes, also adding bits of colorful paper to add more colour, and text and line work to add some more details.  I can't wait to finish it off, print some up, fold them up and see what it looks like!  I really hope it works out. 

Bunny dreams.

The clouds and trees.

Ready for the party.

A lonely cupcake

Finally, my latest macarons! Espresso with caramel buttercream filling! Delicious, though while making the caramel some dripped on to the stove element and things got pretty smoky.  Oh the ups and down of baking!

Espresso Macarons with Caramel butter cream filling.

More howls in the darkness.

Cover.

I was recently inspired to try my hand at zine making again after receiving Jessica's Mountains Made of Fur in the mail several weeks back.  After making my 'wolves' envelope diorama and loving the little woodland creatures that developed during the process, I realized I was not yet finished drawing these furry little fellows...so I incorporated them into a little zine...titled: (not so original right now)...Wolves! I sent a couple zines out already...if your interested and would like to see one pop up in your mailbox shoot me a message and I will see what I can do.

Other than that it's time for me to send some final howls into the night, one last lonely goodnight to the stars and moon, and crawl under the comforter and hibernate till hopefully what is a spring filled morning tomorrow.

Pages 1 & 2.

Pages 3 & 4.

Pages 5 & 6.

Back Cover.

Zines...
So i have started doing some art mail trades, which is super exciting.  last week i got my first envelope in the mail from Jessica over at Natures My Friend. 

Mountains Made of Fur

She sent me one of her first ever zines!  Totally exciting! Ages ago, before my life was invaded by monsters I used to spend many hours making zines and books.  It was sort of how I found my way into writing, illustrating and developing a creative voice.  Along the way I also met tons of inspiring people, most of which I still am awed by on a daily basis (this is a shout out to my Tuesday ladies Lindsay and Jaime).

So tonight i dug out some of my old zines and gave them a scan...and i think i just may challenge myself to dust off my zine making skills and try another this week:

Blister:

Cover

pg. 1

pg. 2

pg. 3

Chemistry:

Cover

pg. 1

pg. 2

pg. 3

Wet:

Cover

pg. 1

pg. 2

pg. 3