Mail Art RAK

 Look what came in the post?  Fabulous hand drawn and painted Mail Art all the way from France!  A huge thanks to the lovely Donna of http://redoingsofdoone.blogspot.co.uk/

I met Donna via the WOYWW blog and when we met at one of the early crops we got on really well and when she moved to France we kept in touch (see Julia, your hard work on WOYWW creates real as well as virtual friendships).

It has been great to follow on her blog Donna and her husbands hard work in building their dream in rural France (which is odd as two other friends of mine have recently also moved to France to build their home and another two friends are planning on moving there in a few months!!) and now art is being made too.

I love this postcard and the delicate ink drawings (so fine and detailed) and the free abandonment of the watercolour splashes.

On the back of the postcard is also a sketch of a young woman.  

Donna, I love it and thank you-watch the post as something may be heading your way too!

Random Acts of Kindness (RAK) of an arty nature are lovely and this is now sitting proudly blue tacked to my craft room wall which is filled with postcards that people have sent me over the years on their travels.

Happy crafting

Kyla

Look what the postie brought me!

 I refuse to believe I am the only one who likes receiving post.  Not bills, or junk mail, but good old fashioned post. Letters, postcards or just a card to say hello.  I often send postcards to family and friends (some vintage ones, some naff ones or handmade ones).

These came from NZ for me the other day (thanks mum)....can you guess what they are?

 They pop out to form little coffins!

 How cute?

Their purpose?  Well, believe it or not they are for putting leftover pizza slices in!!  Yep, tuck your leftover pizza slice in these little beauties and they are protected on your trip home!

They have a hole in the top (I presume to let the steam out) so thought these could be re purposed as a ribbon or yarn dispenser.

Thank you postie you made my day

Kyla

 

 

Tunnel book round up

 A while ago I joined the Collabor-ART page.  Donna who I met at a WOYWW crop put me in touch with them, then the group closed (just bad timing I think)!!!  Well, I met up with Sarah one of the founding members as part of Free Art Friday and she set up a FB group and asked if we would like to do a tunnel book group project!  It sounded like fun so I signed up.

It was easy to do, purchase a childrens board book from a charity shop, cut a series of holes in each page, choose a theme and paint the cover in the theme before posting it to the next person who completes their page and so on until eventually after a few months it came back to the owner.

This  was my 50p book!

 

 I cut holes in each page to make a 'tunnel' and chose the theme of "Discworld" in honour of Terry Pratchett one of my favourite authors.

 On the cover I painted Great A'Tuin the gigantic turtle that floats across the skies with the discworld upon its back.

 On the next page I decided to use the librarian as the inspiration.  Now in Discworld the librarian is an Orang-utan (he wasn't always, the strong magic at the university changed him and he decided to stay that way!). Now, having never completed a book before I had NO idea that it was easier if you did a double page spread, but no worries as the next person on the list, Carmen, kindly finished the double page for me (I love the eyes peeping out from between the books!)

 Carmen then did a Death spread (I love the depth of colour on these pages).

 Next up was Jas and a spread about Greebo (a cat with attitude).  The shine and lustre on these pages are sublime.

 The next pages are by Sarah - Rincewind with the Luggage (I love the feet!) and the way the hat is thrown over the hole cut away.

That means I have the final double page and the back cover to finish off.  No idea what to do on the double page spread, but I think I will do Death walking off into the sunset with Terry on the back cover, fitting.

Thanks Sarah for organising us and for everyone taking part.  It was totally amazing and I am in awe at the talent and would happily take part in another.

Kyla

 

Congratulations mail art

 Hi peeps, sorry not been around much lately as been off to London and then Devon...its all go.  London was great we got to go to the Royal Academy of Art Summer Exhibition, the Dennis Hopper Photography exhibit, Comics Unmasked at the British Library and 3 other exhibitions at Somerset House..SO much art it was great.

Then onto Sidmouth folk festival for a bit of R&R so I have lots to blog over the next week but not the time as hit the ground running upon my return to work (why does that ALWAYS seem to happen?!).

One thing I was waiting to blog (but wanted to wait to ensure it got received it time) was my latest mail art.  My penfriend from school days (we met through amateur radio magazine penfriends!!) has just gotten engaged.  He lives in America and we were lucky enough to meet when he came to stay about 25 years ago when we were in our late teens.  He is an absolutely lovely guy and I am so pleased he has obviously met his soul mate so I wanted to celebrate by making them a piece of art (they are both cat lovers hence the cat!).

 

Congratulations to Josh and Caitlin.

Happy crafting

Kyla

 

Blooming Mail Art

Following on from my "Room of Shame" blog post it has taken me 3 days to sort it all out and now its nice and clean and tidy (well my version  of tidy-I will post the pictures for the next WOYWW!) I am somewhat reluctant to mess it up again!  Believe me, it won't last long though.  Once the housework is finished I am hoping I can spend at least an hour in there later today and will finally get a chance to craft (its been TOO long).

 One piece of crafting I have been able to do a couple of weeks ago was transform some of my old and unwanted 12x12 scrapbook papers that I will never use.  

Over on Unrulypaperarts.blogspot.com TrishaToo had a tutorial on how to alter those unloved scrap books papers.  I have lots of them-I buy a lovely pad of papers but there are usually at least half a dozen that just don't float my boat.  Well, TrishaToo had a solution, alter them!

Here is the one she kindly sent me

And this is the one I made as a birthday card (or at least birthday post card) for one of my best friends who is a gardener.

I love the idea of using up previous unloved papers and will be making many more of these.

Right, I need to get some crafting done!

Kyla

 

Crikey Gromit its Mail Art

 Hello peeps, how have you all been keeping?  It's blooming gorgeous here in the UK...fingers crossed it lasts through July, August and September (I don't ask for much do I!).

I don't know about you, but staying indoors in this weather is too difficult...the draw of the sun means I keep moving my craft space outside.  This does mean the paper crafting is limited (after a breeze had me skipping across the garden trying to retrieve my papers!) so I tend to stick to painting (much more outdoor friendly and easier to clean up!

This is my latest mail art which I have sent to my Aunt in NZ as her birthday card.

Both the stamps are free ones from Craft Stamper and I watercoloured the background (the colour didn't come out too well in the photo) and created a mask so I could over stamp the flowers-nice and cheerful I thought.

The sunny weather also coincides with the Gromit Unleashed trail in Bristol.  80 Gromits around the city, so today we set off to see if we could find some.

We managed to find about 20 so far (all on foot and public transport), they are here all summer so hopefully I will get plenty of opportunity to find a few more.

Right, I am typing this in the garden so I think a chilled cider and the Sunday papers are now calling my name.  

Happy crafting

Kyla

 

Some new mail art

Hello peeps.  Just a quick update.  

So as you may know I have been dabbling with 'mail art' and sending naked art through our great british postal system!!

This is the latest one I have made and posted to a friend of mine.

I used my homemade stencil of a girl with dylusion inks, some texture paste and posca pens....hopefully the recipient has already seen this!!

Happy crafting

Kyla

 

Mail art

Hello everyone, well its a lovely sunny Easter Sunday here in the south, not as cold today so windows have been thrown open (and blowing the dust around the house) and the washing is actually on the line (I am hoping its above freezing otherwise it will be interesting when I bring the washing in!!).

The postie brought the expected bills yesterday but also this lovely mail art from Virginia over at the http://collabor-art.blogspot.co.uk

Isn't it lovely? It now on the wall of my craft room, thanks Virginia (and thanks to Donna for convincing me to join the group).

Right....off to get inky and find some tunes on Spotify

Happy crafting

kyla

 

Postcard from America

Hello peeps, I hope you are all ok and those of you with snow are keeping warm.

Only a quick post today to say thanks to Jane Davies at the post office in Rupert Vermont.  A few blog posts ago I mentioned that via the cloth, paper, scissors blog she runs the small country post office, threatened with closure and asked fellow crafters to send in handmade post cards to boost numbers going through the office!!

Well I did, and look what I got in return.

 

A post card of one of her paintings of the post office (isn't it the cutest one ever!!).

All the details if you would like to see all the postcards she has already received (wow, there are a LOT) can be found here 

Happy crafting

Kyla