Tabulating

 

This is a test to see which kind of address blocking I prefer. Long ago, I used pens or pencils to cover up the addresses when doing the photographs. Then I switched to the top version - copying the city/state/ZIP and. covering the street. The bottom version is a lot faster - but, it's so distracting. Grrrrrr.

As previously mentioned, I am taking a break from surfing. However, I know that when I do surf, this is the image that I see the most often. There is an admin tab on the blog with a nifty graph that shows how many page views each page has gotten. For the longest time, this image was clearly the top image - which has been previously mentioned.

It first ran on Nov 30, 2016 and the top envelope is from Lynne and the bottom is from Rachael. It has been viewed 37,944 times.

Recently, I checked the blog stats and there were some HUGE spikes. I have not looked at all of them, but here is the one that has the new top-dog status with 95,531 - that's a lotta views. I would not rank this one very high on my wow-scale. It's fun - but it's a style I toss off without much planning and it could have been a lot better. I sure wonder why it's been so popular. 

My apologies for this being a nerdy post with nothing to say about design - but, you just have to put up with me. 

For newer people - who may wonder who that Wilma is - that was the mom who put up with me for 64 years. If you do a search for *Wilma* on the blog, you'll see a bunch more sent to her. Also search Flintstone. I put her name as Wilma Flintstone one month and those envelopes didn't pop up on the *Wilma* search - and there are some fun ones.

This was the sign at Wilma's senior living apartment - next to the mail boxes. My son confirms from his  stint at delivering mail that seniors can get pretty rambunctious when the mail carrier arrives. 

FEB to Chuck and Lynne from Mary + JeanW to Chuck

 Mary sent this to Chuck for his birthday. Below is what I sent. I like Mary's a lot better. I have more of the  stamps that I used on Chuck's envelope - but I think I can figure out something better. They would fit in nicely when I am working on that grid idea that is supposed to give us a work-around to easily scanned addresses on red or dark colored envelopes.

One more from Mary sent in the February exchange. I guess it could have been with the valentine's themed envelopes...it has hearts - but hearts are not really seasonal. It's fun how she worked the flower on the stamp into the wreath. 

***

Remember when I was complaining about that absurdly dull signage at the Duh Moines airport with the big map that had 12 dots - indicating Iowa's customers. I forgot I had taken this photo in Chicago - an example of attractive signage at an airport.

In case you think I overstate things - see for yourself.

And I question that line where they say *America's leading agricultural export*

Even though I am taking a break from surfing, this wasn't surfing, it was research. I know everyone wants to know -- do we export more soy beans or more corn.

The definitive answer is:

it is so close to 50/50 that you will not find a definitive answer. 

So that just makes the soy beaners look like over staters.

Corn and soy beans are clearly the number one export - when combined.

I hope nobody is reading this far because it is a 100% caffeine induced curiosity trip we are on.

If anyone got this far and is a farmer - can you tell me if the people who raise crops in Iowa rotate their crops between corn and soy beans - which is why the two crops are 50-50?

Never mind. I took a quick 30 seconds to find the answer:

Corn and soybeans are commonly rotated on many farming operations, as they have different growth habits, nutrient needs, and pest and disease pressures. Rotating these two crops can help to improve soil health, reduce pest and disease pressure, and increase yields.

FEB - Mary's valentines

 

This is my favorite of the valentine group and I feel some appropriating coming up. Although, the success of this one hinges on that subtle off-white background and I think Mary uses alcohol markers and I don't have alcohol markers - so I might not be able to do this. At least I analyzed and spotted a potential stumbling block. 

And then there are the proportions - I'd be inclined to run the design closer to the left and right edge - but, I have a funny feeling that that would throw it off. It has a folk art feel and sometimes you need things to be less regimented. That delicate balance.

The Keith Haring stamp was very popular in February. I bought some but have not used any of them yet.

And these two are so cute. I am going steal the cupcake idea - and am Grrrrrrr-ing that I have only a couple of those stamps left. I can see sooooooo many ways to use the idea - with all those adorable little images on the stamps. The one Mary used had a piece of cake - but she wisely chose to do cupcakes. Soooo cute..... 

And I like the.  random sprinkles that are not evenly distributed.  Another one of those balance things where you just never know which way to go - and there will never be any rules on how many dots and where to put them.

FEB - Mary's exchange envelopes

Mary sent me photos of her February envelopes. Some people do the same design for everyone. Mary does her designs ahead of time and then fills in the names and addresses. 

The one below, to Troy, cracked me up. I know Mary and I are old enough to remember all the westerns from when we were kids. I'm pretty sure Troy is younger - maybe from the era when smoking was banned from TV. [3/20 - I just saw an IG post this morning referencing the end of cigarette ads on TV and it was 1971.]

And monsters - who doesn't love a fun cartoon monster? I still have quite a few of these stamps left. They are so versatile.

 

Tomorrow we'll see more.

FEB to Mary

Grrrrr- at the S. After doing a rough idea of how it would fit with a white pencil, I stumbled on the S. This might be the very last of the brown envelopes. But, I have some blacks and navy blues - so - I might revisit this concept as I think it has potential. 

I'm on a mission to find really good ways to put clear addresses into designs. The designs have to have some flexibility to allow for those longer addresses. If I were to re-do this one, I'd have more grid lines. That white edge on the stamp could fit into a white box. It would be a bonus to have smooth white lines on all four sides of the stamp.

As much as I love stamps that come in booklets, the way the stamps have inconsistent borders can create issues. Not big issues. Just those minor issues that you have to ignore - but secretly, you really want to fix them. Some of you are scratching your heads and might not understand what I am talking about. Others are nodding - and they know exactly what I mean.

Onward.

FEB to Grace - Checkerboard Madness

This is one more variation on the Checkerboard Madness. I found a set of Pigma Micron markers that were still in the package. A couple of the squares aren't the right marker - they are a bolder size. And then I goofed up by using orange on the hearts that touch the first D in Edmands. It's a minor mistake, but annoying. I did not have a plan for the two extra squares on the top row - and was happy when I thought of the hearts. Clearly, I was racing to get it done. On this one I did check the clock and it was at least 45 minutes on the envelope and probably closer to an hour. 

I did learn that I am less likely to make mistakes if I do one square at a time. But, maybe that only works when I switch up the colors. 

I just remembered that Rachael had mentioned where she found the inspiration for her envelope - so here's what she wrote: "The concept isn't original with me -- I guess I found it on Pinterest and traced it to a French calligrapher's IG called zanafors.  He in turn was inspired by Denise Lach, but I couldn't find anything similar on her site."

***

I'm taking time off from surfing and add-ons - so, if you want to dive into this style - you'll have to do your own searching.

 

FEB to Maggie --JAN to Liz

From time to time I turn an envelope into a place to jabber. I guess it's more like a postcard. This one points out the reasoning behind why it's not even trying to be beautiful. Thank you to (?) the person who sent that sticker. I have a few more - so there might be more of these. In theory, I could have done a beautiful name. Maybe there is a way to remind myself that I have some beautiful styles that I could use if I could only remember them when I need them. Is it time to slog through my entire stack of styles and try each of them? 

The brown one to Liz was something I did in a hurry when I thought I had forgotten to do her January envelope because I did not have a photo. But, then her January envelope arrived and she sent me a photo. It looks pretty road-weary. 

 

FEB to Rachael

 This is the only other name I have done with the Thomas Danbo lettering. It was a no brainer to do Rachael with *Thomas* already done for me. I kept looking at Lynne's and wondering what else to do when I remembered Janet's tried and true design element - a border for the stamp. I LOVED the practice one - and then thought the stamp would look better in the vertical orientation.

WRONG.   Grrrrrrrrrrr.

Here's my practice border. This is part of the note to Rachael I tucked into the envelope. I might have to do a few. more of these. I like the bold black strokes on the Keith Haring stamp but I don't think his style goes with the trollish-ness of Danbo's lettering. 

We need troll stamps.

A search for trolls offered these two. I would LOVE LOVE LOVE if they issued stamps with all the Trolls characters. That movie 

FEB to Lynne and MaryB

This is the envelope that contained the checkerboard madness envelope that you saw yesterday. The style is from Thomas Danbo. I ran a blurb about him in a post when I saw some amazingly large wooden trolls that he had constructed. He designed this font for his own use. It took a while to find all 26 letters off his website. I hope he doesn't mind if I imitate his lettering. I had a lot of fun and wish I had done something more with the envelope. I got this far and then couldn't decide what to add. 

I was talking to my pen pal, Marji, and she told me that her friend Mary had been visiting and Mary said she had a fun, new source for envelope ideas that she had found on Pinterest to show Marji. It turned out to be.... Jean Wilson. Marji enjoyed bringing out some of the original envelopes by JW that she had received over the years. I asked Marji for Mary's address and said I would drop something in the mail for her. I tossed this off quickly - using the Sharpie Creative markers - and for something that took about 3 minutes - I like it. Maybe I should be spending less time on my envelopes to have results that please. Somehow lines and dots are enough. Maybe I should do all the March envelopes using only lines and dots.

 

FEB to Phillip and Lynne - Checkerboard Madness

I have a new address for Chuck. Any veteran exchangers who would like his address - email me and I will pass it along. For the newer people, I met Chuck through the calligraphy guild 25+ years ago. There are lots of envelopes from him - you may see them by doing a *Chuck* search on the blog.

For some reason I decided to try Checkerboard Madness without using a ruler.  I should have doubled up the LL in Phillip - so that it had the same number of squares in each row. I'm not sure how I feel about the black border but I do like the stamp overlapping the name. Rachael's original design used one of the round stamps - and I think those stamps are perfect for this idea. 

Here is another one that's pretty good. It is a smaller envelope - A6 - that was tucked into a larger envelope with actual postage.

 

FEB to Leslie - Sheila and Kurt quotes

 

After the L-E-S - the next row was going to be - LI-E-K - and I didn't want to stack one E on top of another E - so I switched the letters around - and then - saw that I still had an E stacked on an E. Note to self... once you break the first rule of putting names in two rows - with the letters in the proper order - stop thinking about which letter goes where and let the aesthetics run the show.

One of the alternatives that evolved was careful rows of lines - instead of cross-hatching. Then there is the option of what direction to make the lines. So.Many.Options. It's not a huge issue - but checker boarding the colors was way too complicated for me. I could do it if I started an envelope right after the morning coffee...but not when I've been doing several of these in one sitting.

***

Today is Sheila Waters birth-date - March 13, 1929. On the morning of March 18, 2022 - Sheila did not wake up. A gentle exit for one of the rock star scribes who touched many lives. This is a lovely quote done by Cancelleresca. 

Here is another piece of lettering by Cancelleresca - words from Kurt Vonnegut.

Images will be much clearer if you go to her IG

https://www.instagram.com/cancelleresca/

I like the word spacing better on her uncials. I'd tighten up the word spacing on the italics. If you go to her IG page there are a number of examples that have tighter word spacing. So - maybe she chooses different spacing for a reason.

FEB to Maggie, Kate and Mary - checkerboard madness

Look at the lower right hand corner of the second *g*
The inside of the lower loop should be filled in.
Maggie needs to return this so I can fill it in or she might want to fix it herself. 
I think I used a 005 Pigma Micron.

On this one, I went back to Rachael's original and did a better job on the lettering. The weight matters. It looks best if each quadrant has a 50/50 split of filled in and blank. I don't think I made any mistakes. I did not keep track of how much time I spent on it, but for some reason I didn't want to drop it in the mail so I put it inside another envelope.

I was going to take a picture of each step and then forgot. This shows how I went with parallel lines rather than zig-zagging - which takes longer but I think the result is worth it. I used the technique of consistency, by turning the envelope so that I was always making the same motion of starting at the top and pulling straight down. You'll be seeing sloppier results as I got lazier.

Then I tried something with color. I wasn't being lazy yet - but the results are dismal. 

This 2 color option is beyond pitiful. Those neon letters do not work with the olive envelope. I'm only posting this as a stern warning to people about making poor color choices. And on top of it -- I am a repeat offender.

All I can do is plead temporary insanity. And there are a few more egregious blips coming up. Sometimes an idea will linger and it's satisfying to work things out. By the very end of this series - we will get to one that still has one mistake - but I felt like I had gotten to a place that was enjoyable.

And Mary turned hers into an Add&Pass - and it was fun to see how she resolved the color issue - but you'll have to wait a few days to see it.

 

JAN from Hadley - please correct me if I am wrong

Well, this post is late - because I left March 11 undone.

I pulled this one from March 30 - hopefully I'll remember to go back and fill March 30.

Ignore my comment that this is the end of the Jan envelopes - we haven't even started them.

Well, here we are with the last envelope in the January envelope and by the postmark - it might be from Hadley - but I could be way off on that. Hopefully I find the January stack and confirm.

Once upon a time - one of the exchangers made a comment in either an email or snail mail that she *enjoyed my musings.* I won't say who it was - although if you said it and you remember saying it and now you regret it - go ahead and alert me that the musings are getting tedious. 

$%^&*$%^&$%^& During the time I just took to put that note in about musing - I forgot what I was going to muse about. 

I just retracted the cursing - because maybe it was a blessing in disguise that I lost my train of thoughts.

We have wrapped up the January envelopes and now we will move on the February. Lots of red. Lots of good ideas. 

And as far as my musings go - I've seen way worse than mine....at least mine are getting shorter.
 

FEB to Irene - Checkerboard Madness

So far, there are 7 envelopes done in this style coming up. I was inspired by Rachael's November envelope. The concept is to draw a grid. Put an outlined letter in each square. Then quarter each letter. Then create the checkerboard by coloring in the background - alternated with coloring in the letter. So easy -- until you start doing it.

Rachael had warned me that it could be a headache-inducing style and I wish I could remember what was going through my head that convinced me to try something that was going to be so hard. (Chore avoidance, no doubt) 

Drawing all the letters is not hard. It's the filling in that is tricky. Below is my very first attempt - on paper - not an envelope. It was a test run to see if I could come up with a way to *color in* the spaces that was not solid. Something faster.  Also, to test how hard it is to. keep track of whether you are coloring in a background or a partial letter.

The letters are too large. My alternative to filling in a solid is crosshatching. There are two ways to cross hatch. You can draw little lines, always in one direction, lifting your pen each time. Or you can make the lines in a back and forth motion - that gives a bit of zig-zag effect. I did both on this one.

I will spare you a lengthy discussion of the pros and cons of one direction vs zig-zag vs combining. Since there is vertical, horizontal and 2 directions of diagonal - we have lost our footing on a very slippery slope.

I think Rachael and I came up with the name Checkerboard Madness for this style. I think a future post will include Rachael's inspiration for the style. I know that several of the upcoming posts have jumped around and will be confusing.

FEB from Rachael

A second out of order envelope.... 

This is adorable.  Two little birds in two different styles. And dots. How many times have I mentioned that dots are so simple and yet so effective and versatile? They are magical. OK, this might sound like I am going overboard. But, I do not think it is an exaggeration. I really do think dots are something very special. 

The heart tucked behind the stamp as well as behind the band with my name is not something that everyone would notice - but I did. Rachael's work is full of little details like that that tie the elements together.

My contribution is to provide such a nice short address.

 

FEB from Patty + Keith Haring sculpture

Saturday and Sunday will have two random Feb envelopes because I can't figure out what's going on.

If you read the blog early, yesterday - and scrolled down - the regular post was missing. It's now below the Bonus post - and it has some envelopes that I rather like.

This might be the first envelope with the Keith Haring stamp. I have a sheet of them but have not used them yet. I predict that it will be fun and easy to spin ideas off Keith's work.

I love the card that Patty did and have included the flip side. I do not recall hearing the baby called *radiant* - but that's the perfect word. The figures on the stamp aren't the radiant baby.

Here is a Keith Haring sculpture that's in our downtown sculpture garden.

And it you have a lot of time to kill - here is the link to the blog post where I found this photo. 

The blogger visited DM and was pleasantly surprised. 

I've backed off from calling it Duh Moines because it's much less Duh than when I arrived in 1969.

LINK to Souvenir Chronicles blog

 

Bonus Post - Art & Found Day

 Today's regular post is below this one.

OOOPS - I forgot to add the link

https://artandfoundday.com

Jeanette sent this to me at least a month ago - and it's been buried on my desk. I love the idea - and even though March 12 is supposed to be the official Art and Found Day - I'm pretty sure anyone with extra artwork could send their art out into the world whenever they felt like it.

The concept is to wrap up a piece of artwork, put an *Art and Found* label on it (download and print off the label) and then leave it somewhere for someone to find. You can take a photo of where you leave it. You can also leave your name and contact info - and you can participate in all kinds of social media options if you want to network with other people who are sending their art out in to the world for other to find. It looks like it was originated in 2022.

Here is just a portion of the info at the website:

We recommend leaving your artworks in high traffic areas such as busy streets, transit hubs, parks and condo or retail lobbies. Also consider leaving your work off the ground to ensure it doesn’t get damaged and is easily seen, such as on benches, ledges, or hung from poles, signs, trees, etc. Watch our 2021 video for more ideas.

It's a clever idea --- you can read more at the website. There are people all over the world participating. Some have registered with the group - but, I'm sure it's fine to just put stuff out there anonymously. If I decide to do this, I am going to wrap it in something transparent. I think people should be choosing things based on whether they like it. If they open it and they don't like it - they might just throw it away.

https://artandfoundday.com

Thank you, Jeanette, for sending this.

Today's regular post is below.

FEB to JeanR, Juliana and Susan - brown series

This style was a lot of fun to do. These three will be in one post as there's not much to say about them. So instead of a word heavy post, we'll have a picture heavy post.

As you can see, the gold Sharpie went well with JeanRs stamp. I tried a silver marker to go with the blue and then layered the silver with colored pencil. Somewhere on the blog is a photo of a bedroom I had that was painted chocolate brown with white hand lettering on the main wall. I wonder if I can find it. I miss that bedroom.

And then I ran out of the microscopic stamps. The tiger looks nice. The jury is out on that rectangle around Susan's name. This style might come back. I can see doing it with the Goodnight Moon stamps - using bold markers on white envelopes. Or the Keith Haring stamps with the lettering in red and a black outline.