Mail Art Address Book

I made myself a mail-art only address book.
I give little workshops in my studio on how to make altered books,
photo albums, scrapbooks, etc.
For the address book, I used a very ugly and inexpensive address
book (think Dollar Store).
First thing, paint the spine a color that will coordinate with the paper you want to use.

Cut some cool paper down to cover the front and back covers
of the book.

As I always tell my students, if you can wrap a present,
you can wrap a book.

After glueing the front and the inside covers, cover each section you used with
a sheet of waxed paper and put a bunch of heavy books
on top (preferably overnight) to press.

Ta da! The book is almost finished.

Here's the really fun part - get out your stickers, dots, labels,
cancelled stamps and rubber stamps and decorate inside the book.

I am trying to show a little restraint and not get too carried away
decorating my pages.
I have found having an address book for mail art only very helpful. Some
folks don't put their return addresses on mail and I hated having to go back
and sort through a bunch of old envelopes to find an address.
And, the book is also a record of everyone I have written to,
a mail diary.

Some of today's outgoing!
Got my first mail ever from Sri Lanka and one of these is going
out to Sara.

Mail -- sweet, isn't it?

Hope you enjoy the tour of covering an address book.
I am thinking I will have a give-away when I hit
101 followers and give one away.

Thanks to all of you who have sent me mail the last couple of weeks. My "Incoming" shot
wasn't too good so I left it off but I loved everything
that came to my mailbox.

Happy Mail Day.