You Better Sit Down

Yes, these are ALL Stamp Books. There must be thousands and thousands of stamps in this room. And, if you are anything at all like me, you must feel a bit faint.
Go ahead, sit down.
Niko Courtelis graciously invited a bunch of us (mail art and stamps nerds) to a private showing of stamps at The Uptown Stamp Show in Portland.
All I can say is, if you are ever in PDX, you have GOT to go there.
Trust me.

There are lots of stamps for serious collectors.......

BUT
There are books and books and books you can browse through and pick out any and all the stamps you want for ten cents a stamp.
TEN CENTS!!!!!

I honestly thought I'd died and gone to heaven.....well, almost heaven...it was a little bit of hell not being about to grab as many books as I could carry and run off with them...

I got a wonderful selection of stamps from Russian....

I love Postage Due stamps, don't you? WHY didn't I get these????

Who do we have here?
Miss Polly -- I know some of you you trade mail art with her. Doesn't she look happy?
There was a whole lot of swooning going on....

Niko (standing, at left) was totally outnumbered by women going a little crazy...
The plan to go out for lunch went flying right out that window. We stayed for hours but we did bring in some deli sandwiches for the energy to sustain us for more swooning...

LOTS of stamp head potential in those albums too.

And look -- is this the old way of what we all hate? The black Sharpie cancellation?

We were all invited to add a stamp to the wall to mark our visit.

By this time I was planning on ditching my plane ticket home and renting a car....

There was a teeny bit of competition over postal themed stamps. Niko was there to break up any fights.

But, no worries, we all left smiling and very happy with out stamp treasures.
(Karen, JJ & Miss Polly from the PDXCC and Pamela from SFCC)

Thanks to my Portland mail art pals for arranging this wonderful visit and special thanks to Niko for unlocking the doors for us on his day off.
Here's the link to the Uptown Stamp Shop website
Looking at it will make you crazy. Maybe you better wait till you are heading up to Portland.

And you KNOW I will be heading back up to PDX at the first chance I get.
Anyone want to meet me there?

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Glue Book

I've really been busy.
Getting out a lot of mail but still not caught up.
Making all kinds of things -- altered Rolo cards, Rolo Card a Day, greeting cards & postcard collages...and working on my Glue Book.
My friend Patti made that fabulous cover and inside the beautiful covers is a Moleskin.

A Glue Book is just a new fancy pants word for an old fashioned scrapbook.
But it does sound cooler.
You just get a book and glue stuff you really like inside.

I happen to really like stamps.

It is fun to sort stamps and I figured why not glue those little suckers into something, so I can look at them when I want?
I sort by color -- by subject -- by country.

I add some washi tape and rubber stamps and air mail stickers, all in a postal them, of course.....
the whole process is very calming.

Do you see a theme here?

Here I've curated a little art show....

A Flower Show for Spring!

This page was inspired by a fabulous workshop given by my pal Monica Lee at ScrapSF called
Postage Stamp Art.
Al I can say is, if you are in the Bay Area, sign up for ScrapSF's emails and check out the classes there and if you see this one by Monica 
JUST GO.
(I digress) Anyway, I did go and spent three very happy hours playing with postage stamps and making things and getting LOTS of ideas, this being one.

I've got a lot more pages done and a lot more ideas but I thought it was time for me to just say hello.
Plus, I know people haven't received all the mail I've sent out and I hate to ruin the surprises in their mailboxes so I have to wait to post some more photos.
Hey--it's my birthday weekend and you know what that means -- cake! And fun and fooling around.
And I am planning a mail art trip to Portland, after which there will be a full report.
LOTS going on.
And you? What is going on with all of you out there? Are you there???
Say hello!

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