MAIL ART ALERT or HOW TO MAKE/SEND MAILART

Things to add in your outgoing mail/mail art/ journal swap/ atc swap/ art swap/snaimail letter to your pen pal: simple things, interesting things to make your envelope of outgoing mail for fun. These are mostly things that take little extra time or effort but make the mail sending experience a whole lot more fun (for you and for the recipient).

 

 

This is some of the stuff that’s on my table, ready to leave home. There are origami peices, transfered photos, ATC’s, postcards, Letters.

• Miscellaneous collage elements: little bits of your ordinary ephemera can be very interesting collage fodder for another artist living a continent (or even a city!) away from you. Like the bus tickets I get in Bombay, the movie tickets I collect in Nepal, the shop price tags and product labels I see everyday here will be unusual and interesting for you in Texas, or Birmingham.
• I often add little origami pieces to my outgoing mail. I have a favourite: a bird that flaps its wings when you tug at its tail- that gets into a lot of my mail. To make it more interesting I often add a message or quote or image to the inside so the recipient has to actually unfold the entire thing to see the message. So the idea is you open it when you feel you most need to hear/see the message that is contained within it.

  

• Mini books: depending on who the person is and what we’re swapping/what the purpose of the snailmail is, I often make a small booklet: bound with a simple stitch in the centre, or with a staple pin, or scotch tape or eyelet: whatever’s in front of me- and add some words, some images, sometimes just colour to it and include it in the mail.
• Another mini envelope (or several!) inside the mail envelope with a little surprise image or message or just punched out stars. Sometimes I’ve been known to include 11-12 envelopes of various sizes and styles and colours inside my main mail. I don’t always do that many but often one or two with interesting things, depending on what’s on my mind.

 

The back of an envelope I’m sending off today. It has my signature “Love is Handmade” logo.

• I write, and I have a deck of the Soul Cards so I pull the person I’m mailing a card and write them a poem/message based on the image I see. I include a link to the online image of the card so they can see the image for themselves.You can see the soul cards (all the images) and read up about touch drawing on the Soul Cards Website. 
• I make a month calendar (not month specific, just 30 days so they can use it whichever month they like) with a simple task for everyday. Sometimes I theme it 30 days of laughter. Or 30 days of adventure. And then tasks are like: talk a walk alone. Hold someone’s hand. Read a joke. Its usually lots of colour too so it makes a fun poster for someone’s art wall/ softboard/room/workspace.
• I make a lot of eraser carved stamps and transparency cut stencils. I don’t mail my erasers, but I mail out a lot of stencils. They’re easy to cut and use and are quite durable. So I make a few images on a transparency sheet and cut out into stencils and send both the positive and the negative. Stencils are super easy to make and lots of fun so this makes in interesting addition to their art supply collection, and it’s a nice introduction to handmade stencils for those who’ve never made any.
• Add flaps and extensions to any part of the mail. I add flaps/extensions to any/all of these places for secret messages and things you have to fish for to find: the inside of the envelope has proved to be a great place hide an envelope at the back side of something. Or make a pocket and slip a note or drawing inside it. Punch the thing you want to attach, as well as the thing you want to attach it on, tie with a ribbon so the person has to undo the ribbon to see what’s inside. Or add a small pop-up element. Or make many many pages of extensions to one small page by taping on extra pages. I’m adding lots of photos of some examples of flaps and extensions and secret pockets so you’ll have a better idea.

 In this page, he page innermost is the one where you can see the “celebrating”. The white paper with the arrows is a flap added to the page. The other paper to the left is the third flap.Like doors, but verlapping slightly. 

 

This is a little “voucher” I taped into the page. It’s open at the top so I filled it up with little drawings and written slips with ideas for what to do that afternoon.

 

This is a little sleeve. The “secrets” are written in a slip of paper and slipped into this. It’s a pull out.

 

This (is a favourite ) one is a small flap. Under it is a small strip of blotting paper with a few drops of Rose essential oil.

• A little sheet with instructions for your own mini-spa experience. A refreshing kitchen made face scrub recipe, or  foot soak ritual (complete with little booklet to read while you soak) often makes someone’s day. Often I take a relevant photo and write this to the back of it.

  

This is just for starters- the hope is that this will make you itch to add your own ideas and bits to the mail you send out.

I’m leaving For the UK in a month, so I’m in a big drive to use up most of my (pile of) art supplies, so lots of new mail art and swap material coming up!

This ATC is a book. Its called The Book of Love and is a little booklet sewed onto the ATC card. On each page is a Love Secret (like hold hands)

 

Another ATC- I made 3 purple ones last evening. This one has iridescent dots which don’t really look iridescent here :s The face is a stamp I carved from an eraser.

 

 

Gold Origami paper crane.

 

Origami lips! I love this one I’ve sent it out to hundrends of friends by now, I think. Lol. It moves like its talking or kissing when you pull the flaps at either end

 

There’s also the bird that flaps its wings, but I don’t have a picture of that one right now (it always get taken by someone before I actualy photograph it! Will add photo

If you want any of these in your mailbox,

a. tell me which one (or which ones)

b. think of what you’d like to make/write/share

c. swap.

Or, just ask and I can send it to you “just because”.

 

UPDATES:

HANDMADE LOVE ON THE WAY:

Mails sent to J and Claudia (btw, if you like layers and collage, visit Claudia’s blog.). In progress: Maddie’s spirit doll (hope to start – and finish- today), and Vatsala’s “just because” mail. Dawn, Nicole, let me know about the swaps and if you want to do them.