Saturday, April 19, 2014

Using your stuff

One of the many perks of running this group is receiving all the beautiful envelopes you use to send your swap items.
Some of you seem to put as much effort into your envelopes as you do the art inside!  I can never bring myself to toss them in the recycle bin.  Sometimes I reuse these envelopes, but most of the art I make is sent "naked" through the mail, and the beautiful envelopes pile up.

Last weekend I had the brilliant idea to bind them into a book.


Another perk?
Many of you include the occasional extra tidbit in your envelope as a "hostess gift."  It might be a scrap of your painted paper, an ATC you created, cool images, random text, or other little bits of ephemera.  These have been piling up in a basket on my desk with the intention of using them "soon."
Building on the momentum of my envelope book, I finally dove into the basket.  One night I grabbed a blank sketchbook and my glue stick and spent a pleasant evening watching a movie and creating loose collages with your stuff.  Here's an example:


It's cut and paste therapy, and so good for my soul.
You can see more pages here.

Thank you all for inspiring me and sharing with me.
I love this group.

8 comments:

big mamabird said...

That is so awesome , Karen! I agree about the cut and paste activity being therapy...

Leslie said...

We love this group, too!!! That's why we send you goodies - so you'll feel all the work is worth it. I honestly don't know what I'd be doing for art if it wasn't for your swaps. The receiving isn't nearly as important to me as the prompting to make art to a certain theme. Thanks!! And love the way you're using the goodies.

Anonymous said...

Great idea to bond all those envelopes into a book....and cut and paste therapy, what IS better....I am now in rip out and redo mode starting yesterday.....house is official so we will be really busy this summer. xox

Cappuccinoandartjournal.blogspot.com said...

YUMMY!!!!

Currie Silver said...

This is such a great and thoughty post, Karen. You have given me some wonderlicious ideas to DO with the massive and magnificent mail art I have received. And it makes me get thoughty about stuff I might send YOU!!

Anonymous said...

What great ideas, to use the stuff. Love. Thanks for sharing.

Jo Murray said...

You put so much effort into this project, sending little bits of art around the globe. Love what you've done with the envies and 'bits'.

GinaVisione said...

…Pressing Repeat… :D
These are just SOOOO wonderful. It is so great to have a springboard of a change in color or design to get the collage juices flowin'. I've loved that with collage kits that have been sent to me over the years. Maybe another idea for MMSA to assemble and send two simple collage kits, each to be sent back to the original collage assembler in collaged fashion by two receiving artists?

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