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It Must Be All The Pink.

Just a quick post to let you know that the Mail Art head has arrived!  Really in good shape.  I thought she would have gotten beaten up a bit more.  I’m so glad to be wrong!

Yes, I realized that I called a Styrofoam head a she, what of it!  She’s totally a she; it must be all the pink.

Thanks to feelGR8, who is part of my Mail Art Guild via Ravelry, for sending me pictures and letting me use them here.  

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Mail Art For You

A little Mail Art for you.  

Here’s what I started with.

I made sure to leave spaces for the address and postage.

And then went to town with the Sharpies.

I limited the colors and really had to fight the urge to add green in at the end.

I don’t know where she’s going yet but I hope whoever gets her sends pictures of how well she took to travel.  Sorry, it probably won’t be anyone who reads the blog…so I guess it isn’t really for you.  

If I get pictures of her after her travels, I’ll share them here.

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Process

You may have noticed I’ve been a bit quiet lately.  It because my interests are changing…in a good way.  I LOVE sharing process posts on the things I make.  Knowing that I have a place to share all my mistakes and discoveries is actually a huge inspiration for me.  

It’s easy with quilts because, even though I make them up as I go along, I know I’ll be ending up with a quilt.

But lately, I’ve been fiddling around with a bunch of different mediums. I’ve been making all kinds of stuff and I don’t know, when I start, what I’m going to end up with.  That makes sharing the process part scarier.

But I’ve decided, like I usually do, that “What the Hell” is the road forward for me.  So, with that in mind:

 

Check it out…I’ve been painting cereal boxes…because…they might be journal pages or prints or part of a sign or mail art…something.  

And, I’ve been gesso-ing board books to make…something, probably.  

Playing with goo and paper is really fun.  I do actually have some ideas in mind.  I have some stories I want to tell that I’ll use the board books for.  But that’s something I’ve never really done before and will surely be a messy process.  Hope you’re up for the trip with me.  

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Too much fun

I was having way too much fun to take any pictures at the Madison Print and Resist.  It used to be the Zinefest but there was way more than Zine’s available so they changed the name.  It was a great time.  Here are a few pictures I took with my phone:

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My impromptu sign, in case you couldn’t tell where you were from the…

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…Inviting mess.

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Here’s the only completed project I took a picture of.

And I felt proud to know that I have all the goods to throw together an art table out of my stash of collage materials.  Who said hoarding was all bad.

The Zine’s and prints were amazing and I came home with a big pile of gorgeous work and met some wonderful and inspiring artists.  I’d do it again in a heartbeat!  Even with all the lugging and impossible construction going on all around us.  It was a blast!

 

 

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Mail Art This Weekend!

Hi all you local folks!  This Saturday I am hosting a table at the Madison Print and Resist (formally the Zinefest) as part of the Madison Book Festival in the Helen C. White Hall at 600 N. Park.  Print and Resist is in the College Library.  That’s the library on the first floor in the cafe area.  Here’s the Print and Resist’s awesome fancy poster.

ClairePoster

My mail art table will be (as all mail art should be) entirely free.  I’ll have art supplies and resource for you to play with so make sure to come by and check it out.

Never made mail art?  Well, you totally should!  It’s fun, free and awesome!  If you send me some mail art (with a legible return address) I will totally mail something back to you.

Jennifer Falkowski  
PO Box 6691  
Monona WI 53716-0691
USA
 

I hope I see you there!

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Plus Life

  
I wont get too much more done today.  I just brought in some wine, it’s there on the right.  

 Ugh.  No matter how long I ignore it, my mess doesn’t clean itself up.  Remember how I just did a big clean up just two short months ago?  The room did not keep itself tidy.  I know, you’re as shocked as I am.

Check out this cool carousel display rack.  For the next craft fair.

 Today I’m trying to tackle it a little bit while making room for paper stuff.  I now have enough paper supplies that I have to acknowledge that I like making things with paper.  The paper needs it’s own area.

I’m trying all my collage books in here but I have to many, I think.  I actually sorted pens today.

There are, of course, so many other things I want to do.  Just right up front, I want to do some zentangle drawing.  I want to make some art to mail.  I have some journal ideas I am really excited to try out.  But first, I need to find homes for all my paper and put away the blown out craft sale stuff. 
Plus life.   🙂
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Chaos Slowly Becoming Order

Check out that crazy mess.  I’ve been collecting Mail Art supplies for months.  I knew one day there would be a reckoning.  One day, I would have to organize them all.  
Yesterday was my day of reckoning.
This picture was taken at about the halfway point.  And this is only the stuff that made it to the table.  I’m not a natural organizer and often will ask my husband (who is very organized) to help me figure out where to put things.  But I got through it on my own yesterday.  (Of course, there are, like, five messy piles of paper in my studio but let’s not talk about those.)
Chaos temporarily contained.  
This picture isn’t of everything, It’s just the stuff I’m bringing to Osh Kosh, where my friend/business partner and I are running a couple of workshops.  We so love helping people make stuff, love helping them find their creativity.    
Love it!  It’s really exciting.
It’s way worth spending a whole day organizing paper scraps.  
One workshop is Mail Art and the other is Making a Piano Hinge Bound book.  
They books are really cool.  You don’t use any glue or any stitching.   The binding is woven with sticks.
These workshops are part of a private function. But teaching people how to make stuff and helping them to open up their creative side is something we hope to do on a larger and more public scale as Rusted Thread.  
We’re still in the planning stages and it’s not unlike the process of organizing my big mess.  
It’s like chaos slowly becoming order as we narrow in on what we want to be and how we want to be it.  Exciting stuff!
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Halfway and counting down…

I’m calling this the halfway point.  I emptied the shelves and put lots of stuff into bins.  We’ll be moving these shelves into the next room and then putting in some way deeper shelves.
Gotta find a sunny spot for my table.  It all looks so spare and tidy now 
But this is only some of what I have to put back in an orderly fashion.  
Actually, I’m going to cal it the thirdway point.
There’s more here.  The quarterway point is starting to feel right.  I’d better get up and get moving.  
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A Monkey On Uranus

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 I’ve just made some postcards to send to a friend who needs some cheering up.
I have a mail art blog but I think I’ll delete it since I don’t make as much mail art as I used to.  You don’t mind if I post mail art here sometimes, do you?
Front
back

I took this picture after I stapled the hidden treasure inside.  
You’ll just have to trust me when I tell you that it’s a monkey on Uranus. 
This is my favorite.  Like Virginia Woolf counted calories. 
I’m off to play with a GIANT pair of jeans I found at the thrift shop.  I’m envisioning a scarf made of denim.  “Hope that’s not too weird” said the woman who put a monkey on Uranus.
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Mail Art Extravaganza!

Feel free to ignore the laundry, I sure did!
 Yesterday I made a colossal mess and
 
Twenty six mail art postcards!  
I’m planning a major mail out in the next week or so. 
I’ll post more details on my mail art blog…soon…ish.