Mailart Monday: Dream Brightly

Making mail art, just like working in my art journal, is definitely a way to visualize my emotions and try to express them. I have been dealing with SAD and every time when winter rolls around, it's hard for me to be active, engaging or express my creativity when feeling all the ranges of darker blues inside you. But that doesn't stop me from trying though, it just takes a lot more time and energy than at brighter times. I am less prolific in winter than I am in spring/summer and creations that come out of these dark blue hues often have a tinge of sadness/melancholy in them. Like the cards I made below.

This Vintage Lady stamp from Viva Las VegaStamps resonates how I am feeling, tired, exhausted but head still full with idea's. I stamped her on transparency paper, colored her in with Letraset markers and adhered her ontop of a piece I was saving for a while to use at the best moment. They are trims from ATC's in blue green colors. I adhered them all on one piece as a tumbling building block or a rainfall of thoughts/dreams as they represent now. The "she was a dreamer"stamp came from the same plate (1459) and totally fits this mood. I used lilac and violet colored card stock as base. I worked with gold foil on the black card stock for some shimmery warm effect.

I made this ATC to accompany the card. The background is from left over project pieces, same way I did this ATC. With distress crayons I colored the lady and added more accents to the card with the scribble heart from the same plate. The row of open chevrons is from plate 1471. The warm colors of this ATC is a nice contrast to the cooler colors of the note card. A reminder that it's important to dream warm and bright in these dark blue days. 

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day.

namasté

Mail Art Monday - You Can Breathe Now

Mail Art can have many forms as you know and I consider ATC's as mail art too. Especially when I send most my ATC's through swaps and are mailed out.

This is one I made for the monthly Inkadinkadutchies group swap. Theme for december was "monochrome" - use mostly one color scheme. Stamp I used Grunge Flower Profile by Lost Coast Designs and the breathe banner I used dylusions bubble border (clear stamp version) and typewriter font alpha stamps.

The background is maruman zuan watercolor paper, pelikan aquarell watercolors to make the red/orange gradient color with. and I stamped the images with Staz-on Cherry black and letters with Jet black. Piece was matted on black card stock.

I love the serenity the piece has. And I'm glad it was well received my my partner.

Close up of the ATC

At Inkadinkadutchies we decided to do a monthly ATC swap and it's great fun! Every month a swap will be hosted. Check our events page on facebook to see which swaps are up. For january the theme is circles. If you want to join in, you have to be a member of our facebook group to do so. Hope to see you there and maybe we'll get partnered up :) 

Thanks for stopping by!

namasté

Mail Art Monday - Rust Elke Dag

This year I have decided to post my mail art posts on monday's, I had one planned for last week, but due to a tragic day, I just couldn't do much more than grieve. 

Why the change from postings on sunday's? Since I do most of my creating over the weekend, I often do not have the time to sit down and write a blog post on those days and I want to be more consistent in my updates. Also Mail Art Monday has a nicer ring to it and it's inspired by the MAM posts on Viva Las Vegas Stamps done by my friend Tera :)

This is one of my mixed media collages where I have used 'junk mail' and test back ground pieces. The image of the woman is from a vintage dutch fashion magazine. I used them in mail art before, like in this one. The sentiment is actually one of my new year's resolutions, "rust elke dag" in English transplates to "rest (or relax) every day". It's so tempting to get caught up in the flow of work and other things, and not let yourself REST enough. Last year was a learning curve for me and this year I am taking what I learned to hart and let myself REST for a little while every day.

The back wall in the living room is green and I love how this piece looks with that backdrop. I sent it to Meeltje in NL for a swap on Swap-Bot. 

Drinking tea and reading some, doing yoga, mindful breathing meditations are some of the methods I use to relax and unwind. Do you let yourself rest every day?

Thank you for stopping by.

namasté

Mindful Mailart Sundays - I wanna see your Peacock!

While working on my mail art I usually have some fun music on. I cannot deny that Katy Perry is definitely one of my Guilty pleasures :) For a Peacock MailArt swap on swapbot I just felt this song by Katy Perry would be the best backdrop for it.

The backgrounds are made with Tim Holtz distress stains and glimmer mist moss green chalk spray  on vintage typewritten paper. Peacock and loopy calligraphy stamps were stamped with dazzle versamark and embossed with a mix of clear and violet inter-medium embossing powder.   

Added some accents on the edges with themed paper and gold washi tape. I stamped the peacock stamp on a separate piece of gold textured paper, cut out and glued on black paper to give it a pop-out- effect. As you could see on the top picture, that was my plan. But sadly the glue would not take to the glossy embossed surface and it came loose... So the I just stamped the peacock with dark grey stazon in the section on the left and it gave a neat effect too! Goes to show that mistakes can lead to beautiful creations :)

The peacock and feather background stamp are from Carmen's Veranda.

Thanks for stopping by!

namaste

Mindful MailArt Sundays

A few of my resolutions for this year include practicing my mindfulness meditations again 

and pick up on my mail art. While doing so in these past few months, I have discovered that these two go really well together.

Without actually noticing, my mail art sessions on Sundays have been a mindful practice. I am completely in the moment, at home in my blue craft room, at one with what I am creating. Most of the time I hardly actually think about what I am doing. And when I am starting I never know what the end result is going to be. Today was another one of those experiences. 

I woke up this morning with the urge to do a few of my junky mail art pieces. The process for this is usually always the same. I have 2 boxes near my desk in which I save all kinds of scraps and crap like ticket stubs, receipts, used postage stamps, flyers, folders, left over paper pieces, scraps received in swaps etc. etc. for mail art. Honestly, I can never throw anything away because 'OMG, what if I end up needing it?!' Yeah, it's an issue, I know. But it's art therapy anyhow ;) I take a handful of scraps from the boxes and just go to work on making a collage (My uhu glue sticks and a pizza or cereal box I saved are my best buddies in this endeavor) and rummage through the 'junk' boxes again to get more stuff when I got a 'theme' or 'feeling' going.

Since I have been meditating again every evening since the end of january, I started recognizing the 'state' I am in while doing these collages. It's a state of utter 'being'. Or as one usually describe it as 'being in a (creative) flow'. Things just happen. Things just click together. A boost of creative energy arises and in a few hours without even noticing the time passed I have produced a bunch of 'junky mail art' pieces. This to me is living fully in the moment and experiencing utter happiness.
The following words also arose from that stillness within. It seems like the universe is responding to the inner turmoil I have been experiencing lately...

Just be, life answers in kindness

Namaste.