Feb Exchange Stack of Hearts to Bug & Alison

These are from that set of 14 ideas to go with the Harvey Milk stamp - but you could use the idea in any number of ways. Any shape would work.
Any set of colors would work.

From Exchanger Finnbadger - Canada

Hey, Jean. Remember that blizzard day in early February when you found that box of mail that seemed to be waiting to go on the blog. And you were sure that this one had already been on - but you couldn't find it - so you might be reposting it - or maybe not. ..

It is now April 27th of this year and I am checking posts to see how looney I was when I wrote them and this one was looney - so I am editing it and inserting a surfing opportunity.

I love nearly all of The Painters Keys - and refrain from re-posting all of them - but this one is soooo good. I had never heard of James Harvey - and really like his paintings.

The Painter's Keys - 4-27-18 post

Here is a close up of the stamps.

Taco John Placemat to Finnbadger

It was surprising to me when I did a search on the blog for Taco John's that there are only 4 posts about Taco John's. I feel like I talk about my TJ habit all the time. This envelope is waiting for the address and stamp.  It was made from a placemat and is folded neatly and inserted into a vellum envelope.

Below are three photos showing the placemat, the first fold and the final fold. I was going to glue the folds and make the placemat into the actual envelope, but, it was looking so close to an A6 that I just couldn't resist the temptation to check and see if it actually was. I had to make a half inch tuck to make it fit perfectly. Since I had done a fair amount of digging to find the envelope, it was going to take too much time to put it back, so I'm using it.

The idea that may be of interest to people who like to make their own envelopes out of found items is that paper placemats are a nice size. Plus, if you are eating alone, it gives you something to do. Everyone else will be glued to their phones. It's nice to have an alternative to the phone.

Final envelope at the very end. Great stamps. I will miss them. But, the hoard reduction generates a fair amount of brain-calm.

The full placemat

The placemat folded in half. You can see the extra tuck that was needed to make it fit the envelope

Final fold where it could have been glued and made into an actual envelope.

March Exchange - Neon to Susan & Nanski

This one appeared earlier without stamps. I'm sad to report that I have run out of those stamps and it looks like they are all gone. I will resist the temptation to drive around to all the branch offices and see if anyone has any left over.

Below is another experiment with the neon highlighters. It was fun - but took a lot of time to add all those drop shadows.

Cinco de Mayo - experiments - Maggie & Janet

Two more - trying both Sharpie and paint pens. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to go with those decorative lines.

This style is growing on me, but still needs some work.

Penman Art Journal - Signatures, Happy Faces, Romance

On Feb 19th I fell down a rabbit hole on the internet. Janna started it when she left a comment about the woman who had addressed invitations to JFKs inauguration.

I did a search for itinerant penman calling cards - which led me to The Encyclopedia of Ephemera.

And that lead me to the Penman's Art Journal. I'll post a link for anyone who wants to look at the kind of magazines that were available to the people who were making a living at penmanship - back in the day. 1898. I read the first page and it says that this is their 26th year publishing the monthly journal. Tempting to find out if all of the issues are online. I'll just label this *follow-up* and save it for later.

The top clip is just a random page with signatures. The bottom clip caught my eye because it is more whimsical than the rest of the publication.  There are articles on teaching children. You can flip forward and back - to see all the pages.

Penman's Art Journal Pg 114

If you need additional surfing - here is a link to a chunk of The Encyclopedia of Ephemera. It will open on the page that talks about itinerant penman. I have a couple calling cards from that era and next time they poke their little selves out of a pile, I will scan and post them.

Encyclopedia of Ephemera

From the Penman's Art Journal

Something made me surf just a bit longer and I found one more item that is adorable.

On the same page (88) there is an article about Platt Rogers Spencer who originated the Spencerian style of writing. It includes a long poem that he wrote about his struggles with alcohol. There is also a picture of him with his 5 sons and  mentions that he had 3 daughters as well.

At first I was kicking myself for surfing - but the poem on Platt's struggle with addiction made me feel so much better. My addiction is so harmless. And I am happy to report that my working space is getting so tidy I might have to post a photo of it.

Cinco de Mayo - experiments - Janna & Lynne

Janna's was done with a paint pen and the neon highlighters. Lynne's was done with Sharpies. I generally try Sharpies for addressing. These will be mailing labels which are notoriously difficult to write on.

I like the taller letters better - but with names - you have to allow for different lengths.

Simple Ideas for Lettering and Layout - No. 3 -NOT

Leonardo da Vinci's Drawing Materials

I deleted the last set of examples because they were ugly.
The first two sets were also ugly - but I don't have time to redo blog posts.
You will just have to put up with the mish-mash-chaos.

If you have time - the video about Leo's tools is very interesting.

Or you may have a sneak peak at one of the exchange envelope that I am sending in the April. It's been a wretched month. But, I am using up a lot of stamps.

Mostly wretched weather - but enough other bothersome drivel that I feel somewhat inspired to accomplish better hoard reduction.

Surfing

Because today's regular post is a bit lame, I am adding a post about a rabbit hole that may be of interest to some of you who love books.

It is a link to an article with several links to digitized offerings from libraries. If you scroll down, you will get to the U of Iowa and there are two links. One to miniature books and another one to a very interesting book - which I happened to note was donated by someone I am acquainted with who lives a few blocks from me...Fritz James - for those of you who may know Fritz.
Anyhow - here's a good rabbit hole:

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/most-amazing-archival-treasures-digitized-2017

Not to mention that atlasobscura has a ton of interesting stuff.....

Simple Ideas for Lettering and Layout - No. 2

More ideas using the geometric shapes of letters to create spaces for the addresses.

Again - I like a lot of contrast in point size.

Other ideas include riffing on the stamp, exaggerating the ascenders and descenders.

Simple Ideas for Lettering and Layout - No.1

Fairly small lettering with no circles

A few years ago I started working on a book about decorating envelopes. I was going to combine it with tips on lettering but I gave up on that idea. It might be better to just study lettering or study design and let them integrate themselves.

There will be three days with 8 or 9 photos. You'll get a dozen ideas per day.

This series covers lettering that is made up of straight lines. If you want to invent your own style, start with graph paper.

I left the pencil lines in the photos. If I were to mail these, I'd erase the pencil lines.

Larger lettering. No circles.

An enclosed space in a letter is called a counter.
Counters offer nice opportunities for addresses or stamps.

From Amy - Birch Trees

Amy S (there are two Amy S exchangers - this is the CA Amy) probably does not know that I love birch trees. There was a note on the back of this that she was less than pleased with the envelope and even suggested that it might not be blog-worthy. It looks fine to me. Yes, I see the up-hill drift -- but, I do that all the time. No big deal.

The whole point of the exchanges is to have fun and putter and not stress - so, if it is easier to just wing it instead of doing pencil lines - and risk being less than satisfied - that's fine. None of us who get 20-30 pieces of mail a month are ever going to complain about minor ups and downs.

***

Added note in real time - I am halfway through my 27 envelopes for the April exchange and I have been making myself pencil in the lines - and while it takes a few seconds...I can see that it's a wise use of my seconds.

Stacked Banners - Dec Exchange - Finn & Janet

There was something vaguely like this on Pinterest. There are lots of banners these days. While these are both Christmas-y - it would be very easy to morph the holly into any leaf and the tree or candles into flowers for a springtime effect

On both of these, I was trying to make the nasty shimmer envelopes work. I wish I had thought of something that was more *bird-on-head* for the chicken stamps.

From Elizabeth in Ohio

I met Elizabeth at an IAMPETH conference in Ohio several years ago. As I recall she does a lot of wedding work which means she probably does mostly pointed pen work.

I know this one is still in my stack of envelopes that I need to respond to. The exchanges keep me so busy that I am slow with my other correspondence.

Samples for classes

A couple quick and easy ideas that were presented at a one time class. The one time classes are a lot different from the once a week for 6 week classes. I often wonder how the one-timers do.

Top one is mix and match anything and everything.

Bottom one is -- draw some guidelines. Create the letters using straight lines. Fill in the spaces with colored pencils.

Two design lessons: 1 - left justified, ragged right, and big name is a *just-fine* option. 2 - contrast is our best friend and tiny addresses make the name pop.

From Carol - a Version of Multiple Borders

A while back I was on a binge of making a bunch of borders to fill up the whole envelope. It is always fun for me to receive something that is a riff on one of the ideas that I toss out.

I like this one. It is fun and playful. It is a little looser than mine and I think that helps a lot. Thanks, Carol.

Neon to Lauren

While reviewing the contents of the giant box of pens and markers. Technically - one of 4 large boxes - I found a nice set of neon highlighters. This was the first idea. I was looking at some random font and did not keep track of which one. That R would be the one to spot if I went looking for it.

Then, I remembered that I had a Cinco de Mayo job coming up, so I decided to work on figuring out a style of writing that would work for long names as well as short names.

Repost from Eric's Blog - Xmas Leaf

When this popped up on Eric's blog I'm sure I smiled out loud. Or whatever you do when your reaction to something is like LOL - only it isn't funny - it just makes you happy.

I spent many years teaching a class called Art for the Intimidated and to convince intimidated people that anyone can learn to draw (contour drawing) we would draw a leaf. It was so much fun to see people follow the simple directions and then be flabbergasted at their success. I always brought in oak leaves. So, that is part of what I loved about this card. I also love the decorations and the teddy bear and the tiny writing in the border.

You may check out the envelope here - it is very festive as well.

Eric's blog

If you wanted to morph this idea into an envelope, I can see it in landscape orientation with a smaller leaf. If you had a rubber stamp of a leaf, that would be a nice alternative to adhering actual leaves to your envelope and hoping they made it through the mail. I'll label this follow up and hope to do my own version eventually.

Feb Exchange to Susan and Troy - Rainbow

I really liked Susan's. I wasn't crazy about Troy's. Although the overall shape of his name and address was rather heart shaped. I pondered working with that idea and quickly discarded it. There are some envelopes in the archive that are very elaborate heart shaped designs.

If you do a search for the word *heart* in the search feature that is right under my name - over there on the right - a variety of old posts will pop up.

If you are looking at this on your phone, you have to go to View Web Version to find the search box...I think. Do not depend on me for technical advice.

Or any other advice - for that matter. Although I will stand by my recommendation to not take a Pyrex dish out of the oven and then let it come into contact with water or a bunch of liquid. It will explode.

Paper Bag Owl to Eric

Eric invited mail artists to send envelopes made out of paper bags in 2017. This was one I sent. For 2018 he has two new invitations. Science fiction and miniature. I have some great ideas for miniature mailings. I only have one idea for science fiction. I will not spoil the surprise by announcing what they are. Anyone who wants to participate may do so by going to his blog or just send him something miniature or science-fictionesque to the address you see on this envelope.

Link to his blog:
http://mymailartworld.blogspot.com/

I must have put this inside a different envelope because that is one of my Italian stamps that my sister-in-law brought when she was on her way to Italy and asked me what I would like her to bring back.

Happy Birthday to Me (rainbow series to Lynne and Alex)

It's my birthday. I am in Chicago, celebrating with Alex, my granddaughter. These were two experiments when I was coming up with a style to go with the Harvey Milk stamps.  These two ideas did not show much potential.

Alex(andra) is a 4 year old girl. I remember when I taught 4 year olds that during the time the kids could draw whatever they wanted to draw - the girls drew a lot of rainbows, flowers and hearts. Basically wallpaper. The boys were more inclined to draw a scene with figures, action and a story. If I asked the girls to draw figures, action and a story - they would do it - but when given free reign -or is it rein? it was wall paper. And I do not recall seeing boys drawing patterns.

I even had a table full of boys who collected all the pink markers at their table and asked me to remove them from their table. OK.

One time when Alex and I were making pictures together she looked at mine and said:
"Nanna, you draw bester than me."

It sort of broke my heart. I love her drawings way more than I love mine. I've started drawing everything up-side-down so that it looks more like her level of drawing. Or I use my left hand. I don't want her to be like my kids who would just look at my pictures and walk away. They told me that it annoyed them that they could not draw as well as I could. But they all found other things they seemed to love as much as I love art - so I don't think they were destined to be artists.

Tina's Mail Box

This very clever mailbox arrived in January - from Tina. You can tell it arrived in the winter because of the snow on top. Most of the January incoming envelopes are posted in May - but it is early February and I just discovered that April 10th was pre-filled.

I apologize for this complete drivel - about my posting problems. My intent is to have helpful tips for people who need helpful tips - or ideas.

I LOVE this idea and hope to do my own version one day.
That day will come as soon as I finish the grand-organization-of-the-38-year-accumulation.

I hear the collectively sighing.

And on top of it - I can't actually figure out if I already scheduled this one - so, it might be re-run at some point. It's so dang cute - it deserves to be run twice.

C'est la vie.


For fun - I Googled English post box.
Lots of happy images.
Even some with snow.

Feb Exchange to Janet & Patty

Patty's is a little to plain but I am showing it to illustrate how it is pretty simple to add one more element to finish things.

Writing over the rainbow lines might not be the best idea. It will be challenging for the PO.

Patty deserves a better envelope. The black marker was a little dry and I did not do a good job of layering a second stroke. Patty will get a better envelope - maybe tucked inside.

I get a fair number of exchange envelopes with a note tucked inside explaining the flaws that the person regrets sending - but they have run out of time. I completely understand....
it's not the content - it's the process.

I would be featured on the program of hoarders if I kept every single piece of mail I received. So, in some ways - you are doing me a favor if you mail something that is not worthy of being saved. There - I hope that takes all the pressure off anyone who thinks I get all nit-picky about quality.

Thankful border from Maggie

This was a Noember exchange envelope from Maggie. She wrote the word *thanks* in several different languages. A clever idea and one that we can steal and tailor to other events. For example, you could write Happy Birthday - in a variety of languages. Or congratulations...

The overprinting by the PO is unfortunate. Maybe it would work to inset the border by a half inch. Although I really like it the way it is.

Marking this one stealworthy.

I also like her use of dots - three ways. All the way around the very outer edge - details on the small lettering - and layered on the name in white.

Off-topic Saturday - Tiny Writing

As I write this, it is Jan 15th, 2018. The wind chill is 21 degrees below zero. I'm pretty sure we are F people. I get F and C mixed up. We are the 32 is freezing people. I would rather be a 0 is freezing person. It's weird how I can't remember the most basic things any more. I know we are not metric. But, I can't remember the word for non-metric any more. Maybe it will come to me.

Anyhow, on this frigid day, I am wading through the stacks of mementos that have piled up over the past 39 years. When my daughter was in high school she was preparing for a test where you could bring one page of notes into the test. I saw her writing small - and said - "Oh, let me do that, I can write a lot smaller." I managed to cram all of her notes onto one page. You can see that I even confined them to an area where the notes could be enlarged a tiny bit on a photocopier.

After the test was over, I asked her how she did. She got an A. I asked if the notes were helpful. She said she didn't even look at them. It was just comforting to know that they were available.

So, now that I have this page scanned for posterity, I should throw the original away. But, I do struggle with throwing some really weird stuff away. Maybe I will allow myself one box or one notebook of weird stuff.....

I'm thinking when this pops up on April 7th I will be enjoying some beautiful spring weather.

Shiny Sharpie to Jessica

Sharpie on shimmer is starting to grow on me. The photos are not very good - or maybe I need to try some different ways of positioning them.

The style of writing came out of my big stack of examples that I collected and -sadly- did not record from whence they came. If anyone recognizes it --- let me know.

Valentine Exchange to Faye & Chuck

Chuck's would have been better with a stamp with a heart on it.

Faye's would have been better if she had more letters in her name. Five or six letters is perfect.
Four is OK - but I prefer 5 or 6.

I like everything left justified.

3 Exchangers Who Illustrate

Bug, with birds, Sara with watermelon, and Connie with a bunny on a cloud are all exchangers who enjoy fun drawings.

Reminder to anyone who is pondering the idea of signing up for the exchange...you do not need to be a traditional calligrapher. Fun little pictures qualify as *mail art.*

All three have very nice penmanship.

Birds to Kathy - Jan Exch

Poor planning during the use-up-the-stamps session.

Did the name first, then the birds, then couldn't get a good stamp to fit.
Settled on golf ball since Kathy's husband is a golfer. Would have liked funnier comments from the birds. Left the word bubbles in pencil in case I think of something better.

Really tempted to add more detail and color. Not really tempted to tempt fate and make a big fat mess.

KateR's Flan and JeanR's Abstract

Nice use of stamp elements on Kate's (top).  This is another set of stamps that I have not purchased yet. Not sure they are even available....

Below, JeanR used the colors on the stamp to embellish the lettering.

April Exchange Sign-up + Patty's First Exchange Envelope

I do not recall if I have ever posted Patty's first exchange envelope. It makes me happy when people who are very new to lettering and calligraphy are not afraid to join the exchange.

It is time to sign up for the April Exchange. Beginners are welcome. You will get a list of 4-5-or-6 people to send envelopes to. One of them may be out of the US and international mail requires $1.15 postage.

No theme, any medium, digital is welcome. Enclosures are optional. 

WE WILL TRY SOMETHING NEW THIS MONTH
If you love making cards - type CARD MAKER after your name and that way the card makers can identify each other and enclose cards.

Please put your return address on the back and write OPEN if there is an enclosure or EMPTY if there is none. It is also nice to write Apr.PTEX on the back of the envelope for those who may participate in more than one exchange. PTEX stands for Pushing the Envelopes Exchange.

To sign up -even if you have signed up many times- I need the following information typed (please do not type in all caps). 

Name CARD MAKER (if you truly are a card maker and plan on sending one)
Address
City/State/Zip
Country
Your email

Non-US exchangers - please follow the format that your postal system prefers.

Email the above information to me at;
jmwilson411 (at) yahoo (dot) com

If you are having a birthday in April, let me know. Exchangers have the option to send a birthday themed envelope.
If you are agreeable to be on two lists, let me know. It is nice to have a few people willing to do ten envelopes in order to make all the lists come out even. Or three lists. If you wanted to do 15 envelopes, that's fine with me.

Deadline to sign up is April 4. Lists will be sent on April 5th or 6th. Please get your envelopes in the mail by April 30th. If you are going to be late, please email the people on your list so that we know your envelope will be late.

Thanks
Any questions - email me.