A party -- and You are Invited!

What do you need to have a party?
Well, for sure you need some fabulous, homemade cupcakes (by master baker KC). And you need little postage stamp flags on top of each one!

You need artistamps.....

...and a passport to put them in....

And a swap table always adds to the fun...

We do know how to put on a good swap....

Cancelled stamps floating around are always good too.

You need wine.

And, of course you need some bites to eat.....you can't live on cupcakes and wine alone.

You need party guests...preferably ones (like these two) who are creative and friendly and fun.

A typing station is always good too. (Thanks to Monica for bring two of these beauties).

Just making sure you saw those ZIP Code stamps on those yummy cupcakes.

You need a raffle and a lovely pal who wins the raffle and gives the box of rubber stamps she won to you -- thank you so much, Angelique.

Happy Birthday to the SF Correspondence Co-Op!
Started by the wonderful and talented Red Letter Day herself --
Jennie Hinchcliff -- we have had four years of fun and art and events and swaps and trades and zines and mail and artistamps...
Now going strong into our fifth year as a group, we are still having a little too much fun.

You can come to the party -- if you are in San Francisco you can come to one of our meetings. 
Or, you can start up a group of your own.
Trust me, it will be worth it.
I found my tribe.

SEND GOOD MAIL -- GET GOOD MAIL

Oh Hell Ya!

You get invited to an all day art field trip and what are you going to say?
Hell ya!

San Francisco-to-Sacramento
Chico-to-Sacramento
Davis/Sacramento-to-Sacramento

Cars of artists all arriving at the same place at the same time. Yes, you can count me in.
This group of women have been meeting once a year for years and many are old friends who went to school together.
I was honored to be invited along.
Thanks to all the lovely women I met who made me feel welcome even though it was my first time with the group.
I hope it won't be the last.

RAFT
First stop - RAFT in Sacramento (Resource Area for Teaching)

My first visit to RAFT. A little like our beloved SF Scrap. A resource for teachers (and a few artists thrown into the mix too).
I managed to find a few things. Mailing envelopes are certainly always useful.

Teachers like stickers.

Lots to look at with thoughts of creative reuse.

PANAMA FACTORY GALLERY
Next stop - Grand opening of the Panama Factory Gallery.
Artist studios in a fabulous old pottery making building which still has a giant (walk-in size) kiln.
Panama Pottery
4421 24th Street, Sacramento CA
I recommend a stop if you are in the area. Very interesting place to explore.

Inside Panama Pottery -- lots to see!

LUNCH
Next Stop - lunch! Of course when you get about twenty artists together you've got to have lunch.
And amazingly we found a restaurant with a big enough table to all sit together.

AFTER LUNCH
After lunch there was an afternoon of talking, snacking, sharing, show & tell and art demos.
My pal Monica is on the left and she is showing an assortment of little books she makes in her workshops.

All sorts of origami folded booklets and envelopes......everyone wanted to sign up for a workshop from her.

Another artist, Linda Clark Johnson, brought a box of her beautiful cards and let everyone take one. Kim brought her wonderful BE KIND stickers.
Read about her Be Kind Project by clicking here.

Cyanotypes in the making.....
At lunchtime we also saw a show of wonderful cyanotype collages by
linda clark johnson
You can see some by clicking he link above. Linda showed us all how to make ATC sized cyanotypes by laying leaves on the coated paper and leaving them out in the sun.

Here she is washing the them after they are finished being exposed to the light.

I love the blue color and now I am excited to get busy making some cyanotypes of my own.
But I wonder if we actually have enough sun here in SF to do it...better not try it on a foggy day.

There was also a demo on painting tee shirts....

I missed out on that one but the tee shirts sure came out cool....

More show-and-tell -- origami this time.

The whole afternoon just flew by!

There was still time for a piece of cheesecake before everyone hit the road.
Two hours home to SF and two hours to Chico.
Sacramento was a great place to all meet up and share some art and fun.
What a wonderful tradition this is -- friends and artists meeting once a year for a day dedicated to
looking at, talking about, showing
ART.
I wish they would all make a trip to San Francisco sometime!

Special thanks to Monica, for inviting me and Melissa for hosting everyone in her house.

It's All About the Envelope!

I recently shared a link on the Blog's FaceBook page about making envelopes. It got me started thinking about how much I like envelopes.
Vintage envelopes, handmade envelopes, tiny ones and large ones, envelopes that are sewn together and (especially) altered vintage envelopes.

So, of course, I got started working on some envelopes.......

Altered Envelope
I love to alter vintage envelopes using cut out faces (usually from postcards) and images torn from old books and rubber stamps and some splashes of paint.

Altered Envelopes
Here are two I really like....I'm sending that bottom one to Virgo in Russia. It says Vargo on the envelope which made think of Virgo.....The top envelope was sent from Russia to the USA.....maybe it will make a return trip.

Altered Envelope
I added this guy and some additional postage and rubber stamps to this one. A red envelope is a bit unusual to find.
In fact, it is hard for me to find old envelopes to alter -- any of you out there have a cheap source? If any of you have an old envelopes you can spare or trade I would really appreciate it.
SPECIAL REQUEST
I am looking very hard for cancelled passports with ZERO luck. I have lost all the eBay auctions.
If anyone out there can send me one passport or more I would be so happy.
I am trying to work on an Altered Passport project, which isn't easy to do without being able to find passports to alter....
We thank you in advance
I can pay a reasonable amount for them or make you stuff in trade....

(New) Altered Envelope
When I can't find vintage envelopes to alter, I just make some new ones and pay with them...I thought this guy would like a Levi jacket...you think??

(New) Altered Envelope

(New) Altered Envelope
This one just might have to go off to Russia...I just love that onion dome building...

Tiny Vintage Envelopes
Going through my stash of old envelopes to alter, I found these teeny little envelopes..

They aren't even close to the minimum size that the USPS requires now...

This is to give you an idea of the scale....I put the tiny envelope on top of an envelope I recently received and one underneath...see what I mean?

And here's a quiz for you -- when is an envelope not an envelope?

Why, when it is a letter folded up into itself to make a envelope....very common in France..way back when...and so cool.

OUTGOING MAIL
I always have a stack of outgoing mail and that stack always has a few handmade envelopes going out.
It is really easy to just make a trifold and use double stick tape on the sides.
I never measure.
The link I posted on the FB page had templates and some long, involved, complicated way to make an envelope.
Get over it!
Life is too short to make a huge production out of sending good mail.
We are busy people, right?

Tomorrow there is an big all day ART FIELD TRIP.
There will be a full report.

SEND GOOD MAIL -- GET GOOD MAIL

And please, if you have old passports or envelopes sitting around, think about what I could do to them.
Happy May Day.

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