catching up

The day the Grow Your Blog party started, I caught a head cold and left for 4 days in San Diego with my long-time art friend Julie. It was a great trip and deserves its own blog post, but when I got home, my head cold got worse and work got crazy, so I got behind on the fun stuff - arting and blogging.

Over the weekend, I got a few things done and crossed off my endless Excel chart of art projects. I love that it's full because it keeps me dialed in to making art. This year I'm also keeping track of everything I make. A few bloggers I follow listed all their 2013 accomplishments and they were impressive, so I want to be able to do that next year. We'll see how well I remember to keep track.

Mixed media postcard for a mail art buddy.
All images and text from an old art history book.

A goofy stamp head ATC that I put up for grabs on Instagram.
Someone claimed it PDQ.
Gelli print background, magazine man, postage stamp,
book text, doodling, Bingo card number.

A pretty little bird ATC for Carolyn (@cfalbro) on IG.
She's making a batch, one of which I'll get in trade for this one.
Dress pattern tissue, images and text from old bird watching book,
watercolors, doodling.

Another stamp head ATC with all the same ingredients as the one above.
Trading with a mail art pal, Connie.
Go take a look at her blog. She's been doing a couple online classes
with Jane Davies and the work coming out of them is great.
I may have to sign up.
And if you like hand made books, start with this post and the subsequent ones
about the class The Thread That Weaves.
She made 3 very cool books.

MMSA stamp head ATC

Next up, ATCs with a postage stamp for a head. You can go about this from either side - choose stamps you like, then find bodies they fit, or (I think this is easier) spread all your head stamps out so you can see them, then cruise thru magazines, auditioning stamps as you come to likely bodies.

Neither way is particularly quick and I only had the oomph to do two of them. The 8 card stamp fit the body so perfectly, better than any I've done. You can also lay the body on the stamp instead of stamp-on-body but I don't like to cover up any of the stamp.   First card has a watercolor background, second is a gelli print.