wanna swap postcards?

Got some postcards here that need a new home. Who wants to swap some mail art??

I've been working on these for a couple days and this morning managed to finish them up, in between laundry, re-potting broccoli seedlings, arbitrating the ongoing dog/cat wars rough housing play, and drinking cappuccinos. 

Since I got a Keurig, I've gotten hooked on the hazelnut cappuccinos produced by Grove Square. They're 12 k-cups to a box for $4.58 (only 38 cents ea!) at my local Winco and I love them. I drink them straight, and I drink them over a pack of instant hot chocolate in a big mug in what I call a hazelmochaccino. It's very good. 

Anyway, I'm sure I drink too many of them but it's one of my few vices and it's cheaper than the coffee shop. Or therapy.

You've seen a couple of these before but I added some gel pen doodles and dots and now they're done!

The elements used on the first two cards are from that 1946 American Home magazine. I stuck the woman in the toaster and I crack up every time I look at her.

If you wanna swap, email me at maugreall at gmail dot com and let me know which one you want along with your addy. I'll mail it off and you can get a hand made one out to me when you get to it. 

Hopefully not too long lol cause all I'm getting lately is bills.

freebie farmer's almanac pages

NOTE - use these pics, not the ones in the first post I put up, in case you're using a reader. Those scans were only at 72dpi cause I'm a muffinhead today.


More scans from that 1946 farmer's almanac I picked up someplace or other. 

One of the pages has the answers to the puzzles from this post. One of you asked if I would publish them and here they are. (hopefully you're still reading me lol)

Another page is called the Principal Holidays because back in 1946, the US had no national holidays! They've all been established since then, which is practically in my lifetime. I had no idea.

As always, please don't sell them. If you make something with them, I'd love to see it. No one has ever gotten back to me that they've used it...

Have fun.

MMSA collage sheet swap - outgoing

A collage sheet was provided for this swap and you could use only the items on the sheet, nothing additional, altho you could cut things up in any way you liked. 

I cut several of the images into wedges and then played with them until I had something I liked. 

Very abstract, which is not really my thing, but I like the colors well enough. Off they go...

MMSA round swap - outgoing

Well, these were fun. Round postcards. Started with a cereal box, of course - my go-to cardboard source. 

Freehand cut circles about 5" in diameter and glued on gelli prints for backgrounds. 

Then chose a couple head shots of children from vintage cabinet cards. 

Layered them over another chunk of gelli, then added some words and gel pen dots.

Letter Love 201 lessons 6, 8, 9

lesson 6 - I like this one, especially the colors.
Did a lot of blending with my Copics.

Huh. I blew by lesson 7 somehow so I'll go back and do that one later. Meanwhile, here are my latest efforts. 

lesson 8 - <sigh>

Sometimes I simply can't get the hang of what we're supposed to be doing. It's not that I don't understand it, it's that I can't seem to do it. So I look at these and think gack. That's why I wrote 'barf' for one of the prompts. I'd already done it once with normal words, but didn't like it at all so I did it again with 'barf'.

It's somewhat better.

lesson 9 - supposed to look like 'op art'

Not sure what my problem is except that I'm definitely better with paper and glue than I am with a writing utensil in my hand. 

Anyway, I intend to finish out the class in the hopes that I'll pick up some more lettering skills even if my actual homework is not what I hoped it would be.

freebie vintage book pages

Some of these are from the Sept 5th, 1912 issue of The Independent, a weekly magazine from New York. It sold for 10 cents an issue or three dollars for a whole a year. Quite a deal.

I get a kick out of examining the fashions and imagining myself going about my normal 2013 day all gussied up like that. And the ads are fun to read.

I didn't bother changing the orientation of the sideways one, since you're prolly going to print onto 8.5x11 anyway. Saves you the trouble of switching them back or fiddling with portrait/landscape in your printer settings.

The paper it's printed on is old and thin, so there's some ghosting in the unprinted areas from whatever is printed on the other side. It can be cleaned up in photoshop but I don't have the time, sorry. The images themselves are fine since they're dark.

Harper's Bazar postcards

I bought a bunch of pages from an old Harper's at an antique shop last year while visiting Moneka in Visalia. I forget the year but they're quite old, as you can tell from the fashions. I've scanned most of them and now I'm using the originals in my art. UPDATE - the date of the Harper's is Oct 6, 1883.

Don't know where these will go yet, but possibly a couple for Postcrossing, and maybe a friend or two.

Backgrounds of the two colorful ones are gelli printed cereal boxes from that marathon gelli day I did not long ago.

The other three are collaged torn up vintage book and ledger pages, covered with watered down gesso, then a few select elements and some gel pen scribbles.

The ladies' school ads were cut from the Sept 5, 1912 edition of The Independent, a weekly magazine.

The large text was from half a book page I found while rummaging. The large words are just the right size for postcard art.

Now that I'm looking at them, the green one needs something more so I'll keep working on it.