Chicago LWA Halloween MailArt Workshop

This past weekend I was up in Chicago and I went to the Halloween mail art workshop that Donovan hosted at Greer.  It was AWESOME!

There were 5 of us there including Donovan. I just had the greatest time. Here's what the 5 of us had made at the end of the two hours: 

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays and I'm so glad that I had this as an impetus to start making more at home! 

The Frankenstein's monster heads that you see in the photos are actually from napkins. I didn't use one while I was at the workshop, but I took one home to experiment with.  I tried one yesterday and it came out kind of wrinkled and I was nervous that it would rip, so I covered that piece of mail with packing tape. Maybe next time I will try a different glue stick.

At the workshop I also used glue tape for the first time.  Donovan recommended its use for heavier cardstock or thick things (not the napkin).  It looked a lot like the roll on white-out tape in the way that it was packaged. I think I am going to buy some for myself, because I really liked it. Here is a link to the Staples brand.  


More photos soon of the envelopes I made at home and at the workshop!

Cotty & "Homemade" Magnets

This is me holding Cotton (very awkwardly) many years ago.

 

I mentioned Cotty in these posts as well:

http://winniesgirl.blogspot.com/2010/10/cotty-cat.html

http://winniesgirl.blogspot.com/2011/07/my-cat-mail-from-slab-city.html

He was such a sweet cat.

He passed away in 2009 at the ripe old age of 19. 

As you can see, he had been with me for most of my life.

 

I made the four magnets holding up the picture from buttons I received or bought. I had the Letter Writers Alliance button on my purse for a long time, but the pin part finally became damaged, so I turned it into a magnet like the others. I added a little piece of ribbon to the Swap-Bot magnet. 

 

The process is very easy with most cheaply made buttons. Just remove the pin at the back and superglue the button onto a small round magnet. I think I bought my magnets at our local hardware store. The LWA pin was better made than the others and required more effort to remove the pin, but the others were very easy.