Back to blogging?

Well, I felt the urge to post on here again. This past weekend I went through old boxes of mail and found many letters from people I met through blogging. Made me want to start up again. Another inspiration is Mary Ann Moss and her blog Dispatch From LA. I just love her blog and seeing all the wonderful things she gets up to, sketchbookery and beautiful gardens, etc. So inspiring.

The old boxes of mail also inspired me to do a bit more collage type stuff. Recently I've been making envelopes out of one piece of paper, and seeing old mail made me want to get more into scraps and gluing again. Here are a few postcards and envelopes I made this weekend.

What else have I been getting up to? Last weekend I made the first ice cream of the summer. Mint chocolate chip ice cream with mint from our backyard!! I've made ice cream in past summers and it never really turned out well. The flavor was good, but the consistency was not that amazing creamy ice cream texture. I'd been using recipes from online, but not too long ago Clayton bought me an ice cream cookbook: Jeni's Splendid Ice Cream Desserts. OMG. This time it was perfect and now I'm obsessed.

Here's the mint soaking in the ice cream base to impart its flavor:

The same day I made chocolate covered cherries with the leftover melted chocolate from the ice cream. So decadent.

And this past weekend I made strawberry ice cream. You roast the strawberries a very short time to reduce the amount of liquid. I think I needed to get a little more out, the icecream had some ice crystals in spots. But, it was so delicious.

About to be roasted:

I think the next two flavors for the coming weeks will be lemon and chocolate peanut butter!

Getting back to drawing

Yesterday I had a very fruitful internet dally... I'm going to lift a few lines off of something Tara over at dactyl life posted yesterday:

"I've been really into sending quality mail lately. It's super easy to stray away from packing an envelope full of random paper bits, weird stickers, zines and other oddities. I find that the more things I stuff into an envelope, the more I fall in love with sending mail." 

There certainly is a thrill in getting an envelope packed with bits and pieces.

I know the feeling Tara is talking about. I enjoy sending out any mail, but I feel sometimes like I'm not giving it what I could.  Like I'm stuck in the routine of making an envelope out of some page of a book, adding a label, some washi tape and a stamp and I'm done.* I sometimes feel like washi tape is a crutch.

There was a time when I would sketch on my mail frequently. I miss drawing.

Drawing makes me feel at peace when I'm doing it, and filled with accomplishment and pride when I'm finished.

With more time on my hands now that it's summer I've been wanting to get back to drawing, but just wasn't managing to get out the materials and get on it.

Yesterday I found a lovely trail of inspiration: 

Mary England of Uncustomary Art posted on facebook about this self love bible by Caylee Grey. And that linked to Mary's self love bible. And that linked to Marielle's self love bible.

I explored her blog a bit and found this:

Illustrate your love history

"The challenge: Every day, illustrate an experience you've shared with a loved one."

This idea excited me so much! It was just the impetus I needed to get out my watercolors and start sketching.

I made this this morning:

I'm really happy with how it turned out. Yes the line drawing is a little wonky, but I always find that when you add watercolors things just magically become cute.

I'm really looking forward to continuing with this series. It has a very social aspect to it that I like a lot. I personally am drawn to artwork (get it? heh heh) that is social- mail art being a very important part!

These sketches are in a notebook, but I'm also looking forward to starting to sketch and watercolor more on my mailart.


*Also I want to say that in my words above, I am not disparaging anyone's letters, envelopes or mailart. All mail is good mail!! I just missed drawing and have felt like I'm in a mail art rut of sameness.  :-)

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!

Homemade Postcards

 

Two homemade postcards going out into the world

Jennie Hinchcliff definitely shows mastery

The paper on the back is from a children's handwriting book that I picked up from Goodwill a while ago.  It has fun lines to write on, as well as lots of great illustrations like the cute sleepy sheep!