Bounty

I've had sooooooo much good mail come my way in the past few weeks.  

 

 This abundance of mail box love has me feeling very humble and grateful.

When I started blogging a year ago, I didn't have a lot of expectations, but I certainly didn't expect THIS!

Some of these cards are the result of specific swaps I joined.

But most of them?

Most of them are from people I'm starting to call friends.

Fellow bloggers, people I've met through the International Union of Mail Artists, or Good Mail Day, or Swap-bot.  People I've met in on-line classes and flickr and facebook groups.

Funny, talented, like-minded, kind, generous people.

Like Corrine.

I've had at least 5 postcards from her in the last few weeks.

Most of them "just because"

 

Corrine bears the distinction of being the only blogging/mail art friend I've met in real life.

And then there's Pamela.

I'd show you a picture of the awesome package of vintage dishtowels she sent me, but I ripped it open in the post office parking lot before I remember to take a shot.

She DID send me this post-card afterward, knowing my penchant for dish-towels

Pamela is an extraordinary correspondent, and recently blogged about what she does with all her incoming mail.  Spoiler alert:  it involves a shopping cart.

I met Tammy, of Daisy Yellow fame, when I signed up for her "Index Card A Day" challenge last summer. She is a constant source of inspiration.

Here's something she sent me recently:

One of the best things about that ICAD challenge was the flickr group.

That's where I met THESE amazing artists

This one is from Lee:

 This one is from Tina:

 This one is from Carlene:

And then there's swap-bot.  I have had my ups and downs with swap-bot, and I've mostly given up swapping there, but I'm glad I was active for a while because I met some really great artists that way.  The thing about swap-bot is that you tend to gravitate to certain types of swaps with certain types of themes, and eventually you notice that the same small group of people are in all the same swaps as you.  Which is cool, because you can count on liking what you receive when you know the swapper. And pretty soon you can just send them things directly without having to organize a formal swap.

Here are some great folks who've busted the swap-bot barrier into my "real" life.

Here's two from Steph:

This one's from Mandy:

Mandy also sent me this Peep book because she was cleaning her house and knew I'd enjoy it.

and look how it was packaged - no box, no envelope.  the book was wrapped in plastic wrap and then partially covered in scrapbook paper and paint chips.

how cool is that?

 Here are a few people I met through IOUMA

Jon:

 Post Muse:

 

 Erica:

 Angie:

and Margaret, who sends the BEST mail and is almost exactly my age.

And a few more from Good Mail Day (in addition to the aforementioned Corrine and Pamela)

This one is from Tallie, who runs the coolest hands-on museum in Bellingham Washington (a place I had the pleasure of visiting a few years ago before I even started this whole mail art venture)

And then there's this beautiful one from my postal sister Millicent:

(M: I wrote you an honest-to-god letter yesterday but it's still sitting in my bag)

I met Jill because she liked my marbled paper tutorial and sent me a post card made from her results.

We've swapped quite a few since then:

Amy sent me this postcard as part of the iHanna swap, and we started reading each other's blogs and I found out she lives nearby and we're meeting up at the same weekend workshop at RISD this summer.  YAY!

I'm not sure how I met Gina, but I'm glad I did:

I think she knows Pamela.  But then doesn't everybody know Pamela?

And I met TJ and Limner and Jess and Lis and Janet and Terrie and Amy because I stalked their blogs and pestered them.

 

Chris claims to have sent me a package after my non-stop snarky comments on her blog.  It has yet to arrive and we are settling for some good old fashioned email pestering instead.  Don't think I'm not appreciative.

I met my newest friend Jez in the messy book group, and was delighted to receive this surprise post card from her this morning:

Want to get good mail?  Send some!

Click on all those links in this post.

Send some to ME (address in side bar)

Join Flutterbye for free and join my art swap group where 3 new swaps have just been added.

and if that's not enough swapping, Shannon is hosting another international post card swap.

I'm so very glad to have met all you wonderful people, and look forward to all the great folks I've yet to meet.  I've been writing this particular post for about 400 hours how and it's almost time to get up and go to work but I'm having a hard time wrapping up because I'm certain I've forgotten someone and will have to write a million-word addendum to this post tomorrow.

 ________

10 minutes later

_____________

 

See - I posted it, and got in bed, and remembered 3 more things and got up and edited the post.

I think I'm delirious.

I'm going to bed now.  I mean it.

xoxo

Karen

Sent

 Last weekend was all about mail art.  Now that these have reached their destinations, I hopefully won't be ruining any surprises by posting them here.