Craftside

Good Mail Day Commemorates The 20th Anniversary of the Fall of The Berlin Wall with a Mail Art Call Out

Have you ever received a personal letter in the mail and it made your day, week, month?  Mail art is a great way to express yourself and stay connected with friends and family, wherever they may be.  Join us as we celebrate this art form and highlight the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Where were you when it happened? 

What did it mean for you? 

What sort of impact did the "Fall of the Wall" have for you?

  Send your mail art to:

  "Good Mail Day" c/o Jennie and Carolee

   Attn: "Fall of the Wall" dept.

PO Box 170271

San Francisco, CA 94117, USA

 

All mail art entries will be entered to win:

1. A copy of Good Mail Day signed by Jennie and Carolee.

2. An original piece of mail art (sent through the USPS, naturally!) from the authors.

3. A portable mail art kit.

  The Fine Print:

"Es tut mir Leid: we apologize that we cannot return your entry. All entries become property of Pod Post/Good Mail Day.

Please include your name, address, email address, website or blog address where applicable.

All entries must be received by Nov. 30, 2009.  We will randomly draw the name of one winner on Dec. 4, 2009.  We will also select some of our favorite entries to display on www.good-mail-day.com and here!"

Want to see more from Good Mail Day? Just click on the link at the bottom of the post for a bunch of inside peeks!

Good Mail Day:
A Primer for Making Eye-Popping Postal Art

By:

Jennie Hinchcliff and Carolee Gilligan Wheeler

"What is a good mail day?" A good mail day is a day when, instead of just bills, catalogs, and advertisements, your postal carrier delivers artful, beautiful, personal mail from friends and acquaintances all over the world. Mail art is a collaborative art form with a long and fascinating history populated by famous artists as well as everyday practitioners.

The term "mail art" refers to pieces of art sent through the mail rather than displayed or sold in traditional venues. Mail artists often use inexpensive and recycled materials including postcards, collage, rubber stamps, and photocopied images. Mail art is a truly international activity and a fun way to connect with people in every corner of the globe. Readers will learn to create decorated and illustrated envelopes, faux postage and artistamps, find penpals, make a mail art kit, and much more!

Jennie Hinchcliff has been an active part of international mail art circles and communities for over a decade, has curated San Francisco mail art shows, and produces the quarterly mail art zine Red Letter Day. She teaches book arts and bookbinding at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco.

Carolee Gilligan Wheeler teaches popular classes on bookbinding at the San Francisco Center for the Book.

 

This was posted over at The Good Mail Day blog. What a great idea, using used/vintage stamps as cupcake toppers! Brilliant.

Wool Felted Sweaters get Re-Bound into a cute little Christmas needle book

Yup, Halloween is not even a week in the past and I am makin' stuff for Christmas!

I whipped up this little needle book out of scraps from recycled wool felted sweaters, a bit of embroidery floss and 2 pom poms.

Safe and cute storage for those little sharp objects.

Here is how to make a needle book:

Rough cut 3 rectangles of felted wool sweaters.

Then stitch the three layers together. I left the ends of the floss a bit long so I could glue a pom pom on each end. Then I trimmed up the book. Why, you ask, would you not cut all the rectangles nice and neat to begin with? I'll tell you: in the stitching process things can get a bit off, and also the thickness of the sweaters really affect where the ends line up when the book is closed.

To embellish the cover I ironed on a bit of Heat and Bond to the back of a scrap of wool felted sweater. Then I ran it through the Sizzix Hello Kitty Die cutter with the "B" die.

Then I just peeled off the paper backing and pressed the "B" onto the front cover of my little needle and pin book.

What made me think of making this today? Well, I was flipping though Re-Bound and this cool project jumped out at me:

Now this little journal has paper pages but I thought I would make a needle book because I needed something to hold my needles and pins for my cross stitch on the go bag.

Do you like making books out of interesting things? Check out more from:

Re-Bound
Creating Handmade Books from Recycled and Repurposed Materials
By
Jeannine Stein

Re-Bound shows readers how to take every day materials
from around the house, flea markets and thrift stores, and
hardware and office supply stores, and turn them into
fabulous books. Instead of saying, What can I make a book
out of, readers will be thinking, What can't I make a book
out of? In Re-Bound, a vintage souvenir wallet becomes
a photo album. Last year's trendy sweater becomes a takealong
journal. Even potato chip bags get a second life as a
handy pocket notebook. This fun pursuit is economical as
well as ecological. A variety of attractive, uncomplicated
bindings, how-to instructions, and step-outs bring each
project to life.

Jeannine Stein (Los Angeles, CA) has been making
books for more than 15 years, exploring bindings,
mediums, and techniques. She has studied with
notable book artists Daniel Essig, Keith Smith, Kitty
Maryatt, and Charlene Matthews. Her work has been
featured in such Quarry titles as Pockets, Pullouts,
and Hiding Places, Beyond Scrapbooks, and 100 Ideas
for Stationery, Cards, and Invitations. Her projects
have also been appeared in magazines, including
Home Companion, Romantic Country, and Stamper's
Sampler.

Art Making & Studio Spaces: Unleash Your Inner Artist: An Intimate Look at 31 Creative Work Spaces

Can we talk about eye candy?

 

Art Making & Studio Spaces

Unleash Your Inner Artist: An Intimate Look at 31 Creative Work Spaces

By

Lynne Perrella

Art Making & Studio Spaces is a visual studio tour, an opportunity to turn the key and discover the inner workings of artists in their ultra-personal, unique workspaces. The mission of the book is to look inside studios in progress, amidst the throes of the artmaking process, and to investigate the thoughts of the artists within.

This book reveals the interplay between artist and studio, and explores how each workspace reflects a different, distinctive creative journey. Photography by Sarah Blodgett, plus contributed photos by some of the artists, combines with personal insights to provide an incomparable studio tour that will inspire you to create your own private work space. Pages from Lynne Perrella's art journal are included, to give further insight into this bottomless topic of "art and where it happens."

Lynne Kendall Perrella is a mixed-media artist, author, designer, workshop instructor, and incurable collector. Her interests include collage, assemblage, one-of-a-kind books, and art journals. She conducts creativity workshops in the United States and abroad and exhibits collage in galleries throughout the Berkshire Mountains. www.lkperrella.com

Click on the images to enlarge and read about Pam Sussman, just one of the artists who is giving us a peek into her wonderful creative space! As you can see it is packed full of books, just the way I like my creative space!

Pam, a lover of books, funny enough is the author of a great book on book making:

Fabric Art Journals:
Making, Sewing, and Embellishing Journals from Cloth and Fibers

In addition to the wonderful photos of the art spaces and writing from their owners in Art Making & Studio Spaces there are fabulous and inspiring quotes like this one:

"Books meet each new encounter
without any need for their
batteries to be recharged,
software upgraded, or chips replaced.
But it is the densely
informative immediacy and intimacy
of the experience provided by books
which is at the heart of their longevity."

-Johanna Drucker, The Century of Artists' Books

Well, I don't know about you but I am inspired to be creative now!

Beautiful Japanese Wave print pocket ATC made with a print from the book Pattern Sourcebook: Nature

Yesterday's post about Legends of Surfing inspired today's Japanese Wave Print Pocket ATC:

Here's how I made my wave print pocket ATC:

I went to the book of 250 Japanese nature patterns - Pattern Sourcebook: Nature

 
I picked this pretty multi-colored one that had some nice smooth wavy lines that I could cut along and cropped it to just under ATC size so that I could cut it out with a small white border. Feel free to download it and try it!

Next I had a nice little stack of quotes, you could also use fortune cookie fortunes.

 

I cut the slits in the wave print.

I cut the quotes down to little strips and popped them into the slits.

My ATC needed a backing and I thought of recycling an envelope that I had gotten a gift card in. My Aunt has such pretty handwriting I thought it would be nice on the back. I took care to only put glue around the edges so the slips of paper could slide in and out.

If you liked this print and want more grab a copy of the book and CD:

Pattern Sourcebook: Nature

250 Patterns for Projects and Designs

By

Shigeki Nakamura

This book presents a collection of carefully selected nature inspired patterns for use by designers and artists in their projects and personal work. A companion CD-ROM provides 250 patterns in high-resolution JPEG format along with PSD format from which you can freely manipulate and modify the patterns to customize them for your own use. This is an inspirational and highly practical reference and sourcebook for anyone working in the area of visual art.

Shigeki Nakamura began his career as an art director in 1964 in Japan. He established his office, Cobble Collaboration, in 1987, which has produced design pattern books under its own brand. He is a member of JAGDA (Japan Graphic Designers Association).

Using research and inspiration photo ATCs as the elements on an altered book journal page

Today's post is inspired by a few books and authors.

The first one is:

The Creative Entrepreneur
A DIY Visual Guidebook for Making Business Ideas Real

By

Lisa Sonora Beam

She wrote a post here that you can read about how she makes a spread sheet on her birthday.

The next book that some of my inspiration comes from is:

1,000 Artist Trading Cards:
Innovative and Inspired Mixed Media ATCs

Specifically this page, I liked the idea of working on a group of ATCs that held a common theme.

 

Click on the image to enlarge and see closer this wonderful collection of ATCs by Kelli Perkins.

And the final book that helped form today's project was:

Green Guide for Artists
Nontoxic Recipes, Green Art Ideas, and Resources for the Eco-Conscious Artist
By
Karen Michel

Yup all that reading just percolates into these pages:

and

and

Click on the images to see the details of my 47 ATC canvases ready to be embellished and altered.

OK, now the story.

I have tons of research and inspiration pages that are just stacked in a pile and not used much because they are very inaccessible. That's where Lisa's spread sheet idea came into my mind, the grid, all on one page, organized that sort of thing.

Next came the size and shape - that's where the ATC working with a common theme came in. I had all these research pictures that were perfect to use to create art in and of themselves but also serve a purpose (my research).

And then the Green Guide for Artists comes into play in that I am recycling an old book as my large pallet to contain all my mini pallets (the magazine page ATC's) to make all my art.

Are you following my train of thought here? Or have I become completely derailed?

I cut out lots of my jewelry inspiration photos down to ATC size. Even at this point I got so inspired I almost dropped the project and went to make a piece of jewelry but I stuck it out.

I had this large format picture book that I had already started to alter with memorabilia and photos. I used removable glue dots to adhere the ATCs into the book so they could in fact at some point be swapped.

Here is one of the pages before I attached the ATCs.

I am really excited to have my jewelry inspiration and my ATC "canvases" so accessible now. I should point out my ATC canvases with other fun topics and backgrounds that I have cut out are currently just in a stack as well but I am thinking about adding them to this book as well.

How do you organize your inspiration for your art and creativity?

One page from The Daily Book of Art

Oh! Am I excited about this book:

The Daily Book of Art
365 readings that teach, inspire & entertain

By
Colin Gilbert, Dylan Gilbert, Elizabeth T. Gilbert, Gabriel Guzman, Rebecca Razo, Sharon Robinson, Amy Runyen, and David J. Schmidt

In today’s fast-paced world, creative people are as eager as ever to pursue their artistic passions, but many of them simply don’t have enough time. Catering to this modern dilemma, this is the perfect remedy for over-burdened artists. The Daily Book of Art includes a year’s worth of brief daily readings and lessons about the visual arts that entertain as they inform.

Ten exciting categories of discussion rotate throughout the course of a year, giving readers a well-rounded experience in the art world. From color psychology and aesthetic philosophy to the proverbial argument over whether cats and elephants really can paint, art-starved readers will encounter a broad range of inspiring subjects.

The Daily Book of Art also features a ribbon bookmark so readers can keep their place throughout the year. The ten categories of discussion include Art 101, Philosophy of Art, Art Through the Ages, Profiles in Art, A Picture’s Worth 200 Words, Art from the Inside Out, Art Around the World, Artistic Oddities, Unexpected Art Forms, and Step-by-Step Exercises.

The inside peek I decided to share with you is this one because it:

A. Is art I love

B. Has such a cool story about it, you all need to know!

Click on the image to enlarge and read about this art by Anne Taintor.

I have written and shared a bunch of inside peeks from the book

Crafter's Devotional
365 Days of Tips, Tricks, and Techniques for Unlocking Your Creative Spirit
By
Barbara Call

The Daily Book of Art is a lot like it. I love them both! I bet you will too.

Mini quarter circle journal from the book Paper Engineering by Natalie Avella

I love this tiny journal:

Click on the image to enlarge and read all about this tiny folded circle mini book by Ed Hutchins.

These pages are from the awesome book:

Paper Engineering
By
Natalie Avella

Paper Engineering explores graphic design that extends
beyond 2D. From a simple fold in a letterhead to the
structural intricacies of a pop-up book, the construction
of a 3D paper object requires as much input as its surface
decoration.

This stylish and inspirational book unfolds the
conceptual complexities of paper engineering, studying the
techniques of eminent international designers. Case studies
are illustrated with photographs of finished work, as well
as detailed diagrams and commentary. Now available in
a fully revised and extended edition, Paper Engineering also explores the functions of paper architecture in graphic
design, ranging from greeting cards to invitations and from
point-of-sale to packaging.

Natalie Avella is a design writer living and working
in London.

-----------------------------------------------

I just got totally inspired by this project so I thought I would try one.

Here is how I made a mini quarter circle journal out of recycled pages from a magazine.

First I punched out some circles from the cover page.

 

Then folded each circle in half.

Then in half again.

Pretty simple, eh?

Then refolded it so that the two of the opposite quarters folded in on themselves.

 

I glued each section together with the next.

 

I made a knot in a small length of ribbon and glued each end to each of the outside sections.

And here you have it- a tiny folded circle book out of a page of a magazine.

Here it is open on the tree

I collect quotes and I think I will fill this little book with them.

Pop on over to Amazon for more inside peeks into  Paper Engineering.

How to paint spotted eggs with gouache from the new book- Vintage Collage Journals

This is such a great tutorial on how to paint spotted eggs with gouache perfect for fall:

Click on the image and enlarge to read the full how-to on painting a natural looking spotted egg.

This great tutorial is from the new book:

Vintage Collage Journals
Journaling with Antique Ephemera
By

Maryjo Koch

Vintage Collage Journals is the sequel to artist Maryjo Koch's Vintage Collage-Works, her first book illustrating her unique style of collage art with antique ephemera. In her new book, Koch has compiled an inspiring portfolio of her many themed journals combining collage techniques with watercolor painting and other artist's techniques. She explores the collage medium in travel journals, recipe keepsake books, and nature and garden sketchbooks.

As an avid collector of antique paper ephemera, Koch utilizes the things she collects in inventive ways to add personal touches to her journals, mingling them with photos, sketches, and paintings of the many themes she explores. Along the way, she also shows how the act of making a journal can be a valuable way to explore an experience or subject in greater depth.

Maryjo Koch is a popular and highly regarded naturalist painter and collage artist who has authored and illustrated over a dozen books including the best-selling Bird Egg Feather Nest. She began teaching nature painting at both the California Academy of Sciences and the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and now conducts painting and collage workshops at her studio near Santa Cruz, California.

Her work has been exhibited in natural history museums nationwide, and her paintings and prints are sold in galleries and specialty shops throughout the United States and Japan. Maryjo's artwork has been featured on fine housewares products and on gifts and stationary by retailers such as Chronicle Books, Marcel Schurman Fine Papers, Smith & Hawken, and The Republic of Tea, and The Nature Company. Work by Maryjo Koch can be seen on their website: www.kochstudios.com

Mail made from taking a walk- A fun idea from the book Good Mail Day

Something new to try:

Click on the image to enlarge and read how to make mail art while out for a walk. This fun page full of creativity is from the book:

Good Mail Day:
A Primer for Making Eye-Popping Postal Art
By
Jennie Hinchcliff and Carolee Gilligan Wheeler

"What is a good mail day?" A good mail day is a day when, instead of just bills, catalogs, and advertisements, your postal carrier delivers artful, beautiful, personal mail from friends and acquaintances all over the world. Mail art is a collaborative art form with a long and fascinating history populated by famous artists as well as everyday practitioners.

The term "mail art" refers to pieces of art sent through the mail rather than displayed or sold in traditional venues. Mail artists often use inexpensive and recycled materials including postcards, collage, rubber stamps, and photocopied images. Mail art is a truly international activity and a fun way to connect with people in every corner of the globe. Readers will learn to create decorated and illustrated envelopes, faux postage and artistamps, find penpals, make a mail art kit, and much more!

Jennie Hinchcliff has been an active part of international mail art circles and communities for over a decade, has curated San Francisco mail art shows, and produces the quarterly mail art zine Red Letter Day. She teaches book arts and bookbinding at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco.

Carolee Gilligan Wheeler teaches popular classes on bookbinding at the San Francisco Center for the Book.

Off to take a walk and make some mail art! Toodles.

Interview with Tracie Lyn Huskamp author of Nature Inspired: Last day to enter to win her book and art

Tracie Lyn Huskamp author of 

Nature Inspired
Mixed-Media Techniques for Gathering, Sketching, Painting, Journaling, and Assemblage

was kind enough to talk part in a little Q & A.

Read on to get a little more insight into this talented artist. And be sure to leave your answer to the question by midnight tonight (CA time).

What is your favorite natural/nature thing? Enter to win a signed copy of her book and some original art.

1. What does your workspace/ design space look like?

2. Do you save your mistakes/ or designs you don't love right away -or ditch them?  

This depends... if the mistake is unsalvageable then is goes in the trash, but normally there are at least bits of the design that can be recycled, and reused.

3. What's on your "next to try" list?

I have several projects that I would like to dive into... the one that keeps surfacing is working in a much larger scale with multiple painted flora and fauna subjects incorporating landscape stenciling or abstract backgrounds highlighted with embellished stitching details.

4. Do you ever work with recycled materials?

Yes, I am a vintage junkie and adore old fabrics, papers, other what-nots.  I also collect all of my left-over snippets and bits from various art projects to make fusion fabrics, which is a technique my mother-in-law and I teach in workshops.

5. What music do you listen to when designing?

I love all sorts of music. Music is an incredible source of inspiration for me.  I can quickly find myself lost in a truly content almost dreamlike state when I am listening to powerful and beautiful melodies. 

7. How long does a design take you to create?

Length of time depends on the size of the artwork and complexity of the piece.  On the average, it can be anywhere from a day to several weeks.

8. How do you organize your supplies?
Bins!  I am all about bins, plastic, wire, even cloth.

9. What books/magazines do you read?

I adore the poetry of Mary Oliver and Ted Kooser.  I sit mesmerized when looking at my books on the Quilts of Gees Bend, the art of Wolf Kahn and Annemieke Mein.

I have fallen in love with the

Journals of an Edwardian Lady - Edith Holden,

The Painted Garden - Mary Woodin, and

In and Out of the Garden - Sara Midda. 

I dream of the landscapes painted by Lilias Trotter and stories told by Julie Zickefoose.  I am inspired from reading Selvedge, Victoria, and Somerset Life magazines

10. How would you describe your personal style?

Each of my works embraces fundamental feelings regarding my joy of life, my love of home, and my enormous adoration of nature.

11. How do you determine what a design is going to be made with?

I mostly consider myself a painter and collage artist.  So when I begin a new work, I normally determining how a completed piece can be achieved through the use of paint and paper.

12. Do you have a collection of anything?

As a mixed-media artist, I am all about collections that are used in my art. One of the collections that is most dear to me is my nature gatherings, tiny bird's nests, butterflies, a bee, colorful fall leaves, shells, starfish, even sea glass.

13. And the all important question (from Ravelry) what is your favorite swear word?

Well, I try not to swear but on occasion you might hear "OH CRAP!" come out of my mouth. =)

Thanks Tracie Lyn!